2008 Policy Changes

Several policy changes are being implemented this fall. All have the common goal of making it easier for undergraduates to graduate within four years. These changes were implemented after months of deliberation and consultation that began last summer. The policies changed involve repeat courses, withdrawing from courses, declaring the S/F option, and pre-major advising.

Repeating courses

Although the College’s “repeat course” policy is unchanged, students need the Dean’s approval to repeat a course. They can obtain this approval by discussing their intentions with a professional adviser in the College Center for Academic Support. Repeating a course can have remarkably complicated and even unintended consequences. The faculty does not want to inhibit students’ ability to repeat a course for a grade, but wants students to make this decision based on a full understanding of the options and consequences.

Learn more about repeating courses »»

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Withdrawal

We discovered through our benchmarking with many other similar institutions that our withdrawal policy was a true outlier. Only one other school permitted students to withdraw from a course up until the last day of classes. Most require students to commit themselves to a course by the end of the seventh week of the semester. Our faculty ultimately decided to permit students to withdraw from a course at any time through the end of the eleventh week of the semester. This gives students ample opportunity to determine whether they can succeed in a course before committing to it. It is important to consider this change in conjunction with the change to the S/F option discussed next.

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Satisfactory/Fail Option

We know that many students withdraw from courses because they do not want the poor grade they believe they are earning to appear on their record and in their grade point averages. Under the policy in place until now, our Satisfactory/Fail option, with the exception of students in their very first semester, often could not be used to “cover” a poor grade since students have needed to declare the option by the end of the fourth week of the semester – before grades are known. The new policy, effective this fall, will permit students to declare a course on the S/F option through the eleventh week of the semester.

The congruence of the withdrawal and the S/F policy deadlines is no accident. The faculty hopes that students who are concerned about their performance in a class, rather than withdraw from the class altogether, will choose to take it on the S/F option. Every grade of D- and above appears on the record as an S, and the S does not factor into the average. While it is true that courses used to complete requirements may not be taken S/F, it is also true that students who find that they need an S/F course to complete a requirement may easily remove the option.

Here’s an example. A student is taking a course that she thinks she’ll use toward a cluster, but she finds that she’s struggling in it, and is afraid that she cannot improve enough to get a decent grade. She thinks she’ll pass, however. So she declares the course on the S/F option so she can at least earn credit for the course. It turns out that she has a final grade of “D+,” so she’s glad – since her average is more like a “B” -- that the grade doesn’t affect her average. A year goes by, however, and she realizes that if she decides to use this course for her cluster after all, she’ll have a “C” average in the three cluster courses. She is permitted to change the “S” to the “D+” since this course is being used to complete a requirement. She won’t need to take a replacement course for the cluster but rather something that interests her even more.

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Pre-major Advising

Perhaps the most important decisions that students make are what to major in, and how to implement that choice. The faculty policy expects students to do this by the end of the sophomore year. And yet – our formal pre-major advising program has ended at the end of the fourth week of the fall semester in the sophomore year. This leaves many students without close contact with any advisers during their sophomore year. Beginning this fall, sophomores will stay with their pre-major advisers until the end of the year, or until they’ve been admitted to a major if that happens earlier. Pre-major advisers will be able to help sophomores through this critical period. Students will need to secure the signature of – or have their holds lifted by – their pre-major advisers for all registration and drop/add/withdrawal actions. Students continue to have the option of declaring their major early. Once they are accepted into a major, they will then receive advising from their major adviser.

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