iPOS Overview

What’s the iPOS?

As a graduate student at Arizona State University, you are required to have an approved iPOS on file. What is an iPOS? Great question. Let’s break it down in a few different sections.

Why?

The iPOS is essentially a contract between you and the university outlining what courses you will take to meet degree requirements. These courses will include the core (required) courses as well as any focus area and/or elective courses. The iPOS should be as closely aligned with your actual intended semester of enrollment as possible.

This should not take hours to complete. There will be some prep work you need to do (ex: review your program requirements and identify focus area and/or elective courses of interest to you). If the iPOS is taking too long to complete and you’re having any issues, go ahead and schedule an appointment with your graduate advisor. We are here to help!

Where?

The iPOS is an online submission process and can be accessed through your MyASU > My Program > iPOS.

How?

Students can submit their iPOS on their own, or meet with one of the graduate advisors for assistance in submitting the iPOS. For step-by-step instructions and an interactive video, please see the TPS iPOS How-To Guide.

This guide will provide you with instructions on adding your past, present, and future courses, culminating experience options, and faculty advisor information. If you have any questions on your culminating experience or faculty advisor, please contact [email protected] or schedule an advising appointment.

MS degrees should have 30 credits listed. Doctoral programs should have 60 credits for the DIT, or 84 credits for PhD.  The iPOS should be as closely aligned with your actual intended semester of enrollment as possible.

Approval Process

Once you submit your iPOS, the graduate advising office completes an initial review to ensure courses meet basic degree requirements. We then send it off to the faculty advisor(s) noted and ask for the approval from the listed faculty. In addition, the program chair approves the iPOS submissions.

Additional notes

The iPOS can always be updated at any time. If your selection on focus area or elective adjust in a future semester, or you want to change your culminating experience, you are able to submit a change request. This will require the approval of your faculty advisor by way of the course change request. Be sure to have this approved prior to the start of the term to ensure you are not taking any classes that don’t apply to your program requirements.

There are many Graduate College and program policies you need to be aware of. One of these that we want to point out is that 400-level courses are not a standard option in graduate programs. With special approval, most programs (NOT all) can allow up to six credits of 400-level coursework to be included on the iPOS.

If you have a question about the iPOS process, please don’t hesitate to schedule an appointment with your graduate advisor (Polytechnic School Advisors).