City St George's Graduation Guide

Clerkenwell and Moorgate students graduate twice a year, in January and July. Tooting students usually have one round, in July, unless the university announces otherwise, so check the Tooting page before you assume. Which round is yours depends on when your award is confirmed: the January ceremonies, for example, are for Clerkenwell and Moorgate students who finish between mid-July and the end of December.

Ceremonies are organised by School and department, and you can't move to a different one: the academics presenting your awards are there only for theirs. Search your School, department or course below. Where the university has published its schedule, you'll see your date and time; where it hasn't yet, you'll see the window your ceremony sits in.

Registering is the step everything else hangs on. Through the link in your invitation, you confirm your place, buy guest tickets and hire your gown on Ede and Ravenscroft's ticketing site. Don't wait for your marks. If your award doesn't come through in time, you're told, your tickets and gown hire are refunded, and you're invited to a later ceremony once you've been awarded. Tooting's page adds that Ede and Ravenscroft keep a small administration charge.

The deadline doesn't bend. Bookings close at a set time on the day your invitation names, and the university takes no new bookings or changes after it.

The number of guests you can bring isn't published ahead of time. Each graduate can book a limited number to start with, and your invitation tells you how many. When the registration deadline has passed and the seats are counted, any spare tickets go on sale and you'll be emailed how to buy them. Whatever is still unsold after that is sold at the Barbican box office on the day, first come, first served.

Only you can buy your guests' tickets, and only you can collect them, with photo ID, when you arrive. A child up to three who sits on a lap needs no ticket; anyone older needs one, at the same price as an adult. Guests sit by area, in the stalls, circle or balcony, rather than in numbered seats, and noisy celebrating has limits: horns, drums and large banners can get someone asked to leave.

Everything happens inside the Barbican Centre: tickets, robing, photographs, the ceremony and the drinks afterwards. The university asks graduates to check in at the box office two hours before the ceremony begins, which leaves room for robing and portraits without rushing. There are morning and afternoon ceremonies, each with its own latest arrival time.

You can't attend without academic dress: at City St George's it's compulsory, and the university asks for smart clothes underneath. Ede and Ravenscroft is its preferred supplier, but you may hire elsewhere, provided what you wear is identical to their set. If it isn't, you can be turned away at the door, so it pays to know exactly what yours should look like.

For Clerkenwell and Moorgate awards, the colours are simple: maroon and gold, whatever you studied. The university stopped marking subjects by colour some years ago, so a journalist and an engineer at the same level wear the same hood. A bachelor's hood is maroon cloth lined with gold, worn over a plain black gown. A taught master's hood is maroon silk edged in gold, and the master's gown has an inverted T-shaped slit in each sleeve. Doctors wear maroon gowns trimmed with gold. The cap is a black mortarboard or soft cap, unless you're a doctor in full dress, when it's a round black hat with a maroon cord. Tooting's dress isn't set out on the same page; either way, the ticketing site picks the right set for your award.

The most common sizes go first, so book as soon as you know your date.

Three things decide whether you take your seat: your award agreed by an assessment board in time, your booking made before the deadline, and nothing owed to the university in tuition fees. The fees rule is the strict one. For the January round, the university checks its list of Clerkenwell and Moorgate debtors on a fixed day shortly before the ceremonies, and anyone on it that day can't attend that round, even if they pay the next morning. Their bookings are refunded and they're added to the next set of ceremonies once the debt is cleared. At Tooting, an outstanding debt holds back both the ceremony and the certificate.

Appealing your final award moves you too: the invitation is withdrawn, and you're invited to the next ceremony after the appeal is settled.

Missing the ceremony doesn't touch your degree: you graduate in absentia. What changes is how the certificate reaches you, and whether you get another chance at the stage.