When students take leave, they sometimes need to do a number of things quickly. To help make this process as stress-free as possible, we offer this basic checklist of things that you should do when you are approaching a leave of absence (if you are going on College Leave, you can disregard the first two procedures):

• Consult with your Dean about your interest in or intention to take time off.
• Begin developing a plan for what you will do while away on leave. A leave of absence will be time well spent if you have a sense of purpose in the form of at least a part-time job or volunteer position, taking courses at another college or university, travel, or some combination of these options. If you want to take courses, please discuss this with your Dean—there are procedures for transferring credit from another college or university onto your Haverford transcript (and there are limits to the number of credits you can transfer), and we usually advise students going on leave not to take courses immediately.
• Consult the “Refund Policy” schedule published on the student accounts page of the Controller's Office website and then contact Student Billing in the Controller's Office if you have any questions about refunds.
• Decide where you will store your possessions if you cannot take or ship them home because you cannot store personal items on campus during your leave.
• Send your Dean a formal message asking to be placed on Dean’s Leave if you have decided that you will take leave—this will be the “effective date” of your leave.
  • If you intend to finish the current semester and take leave in the next semester, you can send this notice to your Dean at any time during the current semester or during the winter or summer break.
  • If you do not intend to finish the current semester, you must notify your Dean no later than the last day of class.
• You will need to move out of your dorm room within 72 hours after the effective date of your leave. If you think that you unavoidably cannot move within that time frame, please contact your Dean as soon as possible before your effective date to discuss the possibility of a brief extension on the deadline for moving out.
• When you move out of your room, you can leave your key at either the College Housing Office in Stokes Hall or Campus Safety in the GIAC.
• If you are taking College Leave, you will lose access to your Haverford email account and all password-protected online resources during your leave. You should therefore migrate all emails and documents you would like to have during your leave onto another account and server within 14 days of your leave date.

Students on all other sorts of leave will have access to their Haverford email accounts and all password-protected online resources for up to three years while on leave.