It’s 6:50 a.m. on a dark and dreary Saturday morning and a group of about nine Boston University students is gathered in front of the security guard desk at the Student Residences at 10 Buick St. The students, donning their morning’s finest – pajama pants, sweatshirts and flip flops – or anything they could grab before making it downstairs, sit in the lobby’s plush chairs, waiting for the building’s security guard to announce that it is 7 a.m.

Students who take advantage of BU’s study extension policy know the early-morning ritual well. BU’s policy says residence hall visitors must leave by 1 a.m. on Sunday through Thursday and by 2:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Study extensions allow BU students to stay until just after the crack of dawn.

Students typically get study extensions by writing down the names of their guests in a logbook kept in their dorms’ Office of Residence Life. The book is later given to their buildings’ overnight security guards.

The extensions are supposed to allow students to study with each other past visiting hours, but many students use the passes to spend the night at dorms other than their own, though the extensions’ 7 a.m. expiration time does disrupt their sleep for a few minutes of paperwork at the security desk.

Several students who used passes in 10 Buick St. early Saturday morning said the policy is laughable.

“Waking up for five minutes in the morning is ridiculous,” said College of Arts and Sciences freshman Monica Orta, who was visiting from her residence at Warren Towers. “It is a way of getting around the system.”

“It is a joke of a policy,” said her sleepy-eyed host, CAS senior Anthony Orlando.

Orlando said he received a letter saying he violated the Guest Policy by having someone stay past the allowed time but tore it up. He said he has probably racked up three violations but has never been reprimanded for them.

The extensions are used more frequently on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, according to 10 Buick St. Residence Life Secretary Tracy Pilcher, who said an average of 200 student extensions are used per week in the building. For example, during the week of Feb. 8 through 14, the ORL issued 124 student extensions from Thursday through Saturday while only issuing 106 during the rest of the week.

Campus-wide ORL Assistant Director Kenn Douglass said the office does not release statistical information on the Guest Policy or study extensions.

“It’s cool but also a way for BU to maintain power over us,” College of Communication senior Courtney Enos said Saturday as she waited in the 10 Buick St. lobby for 7 a.m. to roll by so she could go back to sleep.

“I understand that it is a security issue, but you should be able to sleep over other residence halls if you’re a BU student,” she said.

ORL Director David Zamojski said the study extension policy exists to allow students to study past visiting hours, after a previous version of the Guest Policy did not allow for group study.

Though he was not at BU when the current policy was made, Zamojski said he thinks the reason for the early sign-out time is that classes start at 8 a.m. The sign-out time was changed from 8 a.m. to 7 a.m. last spring because guard shifts change at 8 a.m. and administrators wanted the necessary paperwork to be done before the next guard begins his or her shift.

Students who repeatedly violate the policy are given judicial sanctions, Zamojski said. The first offense usually involves a conversation with the student and his or her resident assistant. The second offense advances to a discussion with the residence hall director. Sanctions against repeat offenders are decided on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Though many students use study extensions to get around the Guest Policy, Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore said administrators are still evaluating last year’s Guest Policy changes.

“There aren’t any changes slated at this time,” he said. “We expect students to be on their best honor, and if there is wholesale abuse of it we will look at it.”

Student Union Vice President of Residence Life Mike Myers said his committee is working on changing the Guest Policy incrementally. Changes the committee is working on now include computerizing much of the paperwork involved in signing guests in and out and changing the time at which guest forms must be turned in.

The CAS sophomore also said he is looking into a policy that would allow students to call study extensions in rather than making them fill out the log book.

“We are interested in making the policy more comfortable and less of a burden,” he said.

Myers said he is currently working with the Residence Hall Association at 10 Buick St. to implement changes there before moving on to other residences. 10 Buick St. is a good “litmus test” for the policy because most of its residents are upperclassman, who tend to be less rambunctious than other buildings’ residents, he added.

“If it works there, maybe it can work somewhere else,” he said.

Until then, students will have to schedule a “7 a.m. break” in their “studying.”