Graduation registration
Students who may be eligible to graduate in Spring 2024 will be released to register from 31 January 2024. When registration is open, you will receive an email inviting you to register for the graduation event via your university email account. By registering for the Spring graduation event you’ll be signing up to the following:
Graduation Ceremony: Your graduation is the culmination of your studies and is an important event for you, your family, and friends. During the ceremony you’ll receive your graduation certificate and hear from esteemed faculty and academic colleagues.
Graduation Celebration: To celebrate your accomplishments, we are delighted to invite you and your guests to a Graduation Celebration event at The Hub. This is an opportunity for you to gather with your fellow graduates, family, friends and academic staff to reflect on your time at Coventry University and celebrate your bright future ahead. We'll be serving drinks and refreshments so you and your guests can raise a glass and toast your success.
Registration
Registration for the March graduation events closes on Wednesday 14 February 2024. Tickets will be issued on the day itself. For more information on this visit the Tickets page. Please do not email the graduation team asking us to register you manually as we are not able to do this. If you experience issues when trying to register, please ensure you are using a laptop or computer, which is Android based, and that you’re using Google Chrome or Firefox. Please do not use your mobile phone to register.
Please be aware of the following when registering for graduation:
- Your results must have been released to you, via SOLAR, by no later than 14 February 2024. Results released via AULA are not official results. If you have not had your result officially released, even if you receive the registration email and register, by the 14 February, you are not eligible to attend graduation. You will be eligible to attend events later in the year.
- Students studying at our Collaborative Partners, both overseas and in the UK, will be contacted by our Academic Partnership Unit registration. Please do not contact the Academic Registry team.
- You will not be eligible to attend the graduation ceremony if your Progression and Award Board determines that you have not met the requirements of your award, you intend to enrol on a further stage of your course (e.g. a top-up to honours), you have an appeal in progress or you have an outstanding debt to the University (blocked or excluded).
- If you have any outstanding debt that has not cleared by 14 February 2024, or you are blocked at any point after the registration deadline, but prior to the graduation ceremony, you will not be eligible to attend and should ignore your registration email. Please note that payments can take up to five working days to go through the system so if you make payment on the final day of registration it may still be too late. In the case the debt is cleared after the 14 February 2024 you will be able to register for the Summer 2024 graduation event.
- You cannot choose which ceremony to attend. You will be automatically allocated to the ceremony closest to the date you have been officially awarded by your Progression and Award Board. You may only request to defer your ceremony if you have extenuating circumstances such as serious medical condition, for yourself or your allocated guest or military deployment etc. You will need to email
graduation.reg@coventry.ac.uk to make a request if you have grounds and provide third party evidence to support that request. If any of your allocated guests require a carer you will also need to contact graduation.reg@coventry.ac.uk to make this request and provide third party medical evidence to support this. Any requests to defer, or for carers tickets, need to be made by no later than 1st March 2024. - It is important that your correspondence address is up to date on SOLAR by no later than 19th February 2024.. Following the ceremonies, certificates will be posted by standard post within the UK and Europe, and by DHL to the rest of the world. You should allow up to three weeks for delivery to a UK address, or up to six weeks for delivery to an address outside of the UK before contacting us via email at graduation.reg@coventry.ac.uk to report that your certificate has not been received. For those students who have been awarded by the deadline and are eligible to attend, you will collect your certificate on the day of your graduation when you collect your tickets. Any certificates not collected on the day will be posted out, following the graduation events.
- While you await your certificate, if you require evidence of your award for employment purposes or further study, you have access to your HEAR, which is your formal transcript. Further information about the HEAR can be found here. We do not provide electronic certificates. Please note that the University is not responsible for any certificates not received due to an incorrect address. If you have not updated your address by 19 February 2024, and your certificate is posted to an incorrect address, you can request a replacement certificate via the online shop.
- Once you have registered you need to pre-order your gown via the Ede & Ravenscroft website. For more information visit the Gown Hire page.
Tickets
Tickets are collected on the day of your graduation and are not posted in advance of the event. You will be able to collect your tickets from The Refectory, Priory Hall (Priory Street, CV1 5FB) two hours before the start of your ceremony. Please note the that the ticket collection desk will close 30 minutes before the start time. Tickets MUST be collected within this timeframe. If you are unable to collect your ticket, you will not be permitted to attend. Should you have guests travelling from overseas, we would encourage them not to book flights before you have received official confirmation of your award on SOLAR. The university will not be held responsible for any costs incurred by your guests.
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How many guests can I bring?
All graduates are guaranteed two guest tickets for their ceremony whether you have registered or not. We therefore do not issue extra tickets in advance unless you have special needs (see below). We must abide by the cathedral’s fire regulations which require every guest to be allocated a seat inside the cathedral - this includes children and babies. We do not advise children under the age of 10 attending as it is a very formal event and once you are seated you must remain so throughout the ceremony. Please note that graduates and guests sit separately during the event so any child must be accompanied by a guest over 18 years of age, they are not permitted to be left on their own under any circumstance.
For those extra guests without tickets, there will be live streaming on campus so guests can watch from a location close to the Cathedral, and still feel part of the event. The live streaming will take place in the George Elliot building, Hillman Lecture Theatre, GEG32..
There are no tickets for the live streaming venue and seats will be available on a first-come-first-served basis.
If you or one of your allocated guests require a carer, please contact us at graduation.reg@coventry.ac.uk, providing third party medical evidence to support this request. Requests must be made by no later than 1 March 2024. The request will be reviewed, and you will be notified of the decision.
Should you have any guests travelling from overseas, we would encourage them not to book flights before you have received official confirmation of your award. The university will not be held responsible for any costs incurred by your guests.
Should your guests require proof of travel, or an invitation letter, please contact infopoint.ss@coventry.ac.uk after you have registered. Please do not contact the graduation.reg email address as we cannot assist with letters.
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Are children allowed to attend the ceremony?
We advise that the ceremony is unsuitable for children under 10.
To ensure the safety of all guests, in no circumstances can a child be seated on a guest’s lap. Any guests under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult (minimum age of 18) at all times. This also applies to all campus locations. Where a child is found unaccompanied by an adult in line with Safeguarding regulations the Police will be called.
Please note: To comply with fire regulations in the cathedral, any child regardless of age will require a ticket, this includes infants in pushchairs. Please note that graduates and guests are seated separately in the cathedral so, as a graduate, if you are bringing a child with you and have no other guests attending you will not be permitted to graduate as you need an adult to look after your child throughout the ceremony.
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Am I able to receive extra tickets?
Due to the size of the ceremonies and the fact that we allocate every student who is entitled to attend a seat for them and their guests we are unable to offer extra tickets in advance. There may be extra tickets available on the day, please ask when you collect your tickets. These will be issued on a first-come-first-served basis. The event will be live streamed from our website to allow your friends and family to watch you graduate from home and there will also be live streaming on campus so guests without tickets can watch from a location close to the cathedral, and still feel part of the event. There are no tickets for the live streaming venue, seats will be available on a first-come-first-served basis.
Gown Hire
You can hire your gown through Ede and Ravenscroft. The deadline to hire your gown is Friday 1 March 2024. This is an external company and not Coventry University. Any gown hire queries or photography queries need to be directed to Ede & Ravenscroft and not Coventry University. Their contact details can be found below:
- Telephone: 01223 734759
- Email: student@edeandravenscroft.com
When ordering your academic dress, please be aware of the following:
- Ede & Ravenscroft have a deadline for ordering gowns of about 10 days before the ceremony. There is no guarantee that the company will have spare stock on the day, so it is important you order by their deadline. If you do not order in advance and are able to hire a gown on the day, please note that the company do charge more.
- There will be a small number of gowns available to hire on the day, but these do cost more and there is no guarantee of availability. You are strongly advised to book your gown in advance.
- Coventry University is not able to assist you with the ordering of gowns or answering questions about gown hire as it is a third-party supplier. If you have any queries, or require further information, please contact Ede and Ravenscroft directly using the details above.
