User Preferences is a generic feature embedded in all SPIRE profiles. It allows students, instructors, and staff to select a default Institution, Academic Career, Term, and Aid Year. On most pages including these search fields, SPIRE will automatically fill in these default values.
Note: Because the student profile does not entail extensive searching, we recommend that you use User Preferences with caution. Here’s why:
- Selecting a default term will affect your Student Center. The Student Center page defaults to the most recent term, unless you select a term under User Preferences. If you have a saved User Preference term, your Student Center will default to that term.
If you do choose to use User Preference, see below for the instructions.
- We know it’s easy to forget, but please remember to change the Term default when a new semester starts!
- To avoid an error, you must select an Academic Career before looking up the Term.
Note: If you did not first select an Academic Career, you will get an error message on this page.
- In the SPIRE Menu, go to My SPIRE > User Preferences. The User Preferences page opens.
- On the User Preferences page, from the Academic Career drop-down list, select your current academic career (e.g., Undergraduate).
- Next for the Term field, click the magnifying glass icon
to retrieve the 4-digit code for the term you want to set as your default. The Look Up Term page opens. - On the Look Up Term page, leave all the search fields blank, and click Look Up. All the available terms open under Search Results on the same page.
- Click the term of your choice. You will return to the User Preferences page with the 4-digit code already filled in the Term field (e.g., 1097).
- On the User Preferences page:
- In the Aid Year field, enter a default year. The page refreshes, listing the Financial Aid Year of your choice.
- Click Save, then OK to confirm the save. Your User Preferences now appear in most fields prompting you for this information.