Updated: April 23, 2020 at 1:21 p.m.
Officials plan to extend the deadline for undergraduate students to convert their classes to a Pass/No Pass basis until after final exam grades are posted.
Administrators told undergraduate students in the Milken Institute School of Public Health and Elliott School of International Affairs in emails Monday and in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences in an email Tuesday that they may request the change up to five days after their final grades have been posted. The extension applies to all five undergraduate residential colleges, University spokeswoman Crystal Nosal said.
“The associate deans across GW have been working together to determine out how we can make the spring 2020 policies easy to understand,” said Lisa Stephenson, the associate dean of academic affairs and student service in the Elliott school, in an email.
Officials announced last month that students can elect to convert most undergraduate classes to a pass/fail basis until the last day of classes in the wake of virtual instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
CCAS officials said in the email that students who want to transition their grades to pass/fail can continue to use the existing online form.
Students who are “flagged” for suspension or academic probation will now have the academic standing they had for the fall 2019 semester, according to the email.
“Given the extraordinary circumstances this semester, CCAS, the Provost’s Office and other GW schools that confer undergraduate degrees have made policy changes for undergraduate education,” the email states.
Students who have already filled out the form to take classes as pass/fail will be able to switch back to a letter grade until April 27 at 5 p.m. using a registration transaction form and writing “C” in the grade mode form, the email states. Students previously were not allowed to switch their grading mode after transitioning to pass/fail, according to the transfer form.
If a student has an “incomplete” marking for a spring semester course, the pass/fail will be applied after they receive the letter grade, according to the email.
“Students who are on their last Satisfactory Academic Progress appeal will have to pass 75 percent of their course work and receive a letter grade in at least one course that results in a semester GPA of 2.0,” the email states.
Students on academic probation will be able to appeal to take up to 18 credits of coursework for the fall semester instead of the traditional cap of 13, according to the email.
Students will be allowed to use the freshman forgiveness policy, which grants students the ability to retake a course in which they received a D+ or lower as a freshman, for any class they receive a “no pass” in, the email states. Additionally, students will be able to repeat courses that they received a pass in, according to the email.
“A student who is repeating a course using first-year academic forgiveness this semester may choose P/NP instead of a letter grade,” the email states.
To be eligible for the Dean’s List this semester, students must not receive “No Pass”, “Incomplete” or “Z” for any course and be registered for at least nine credits instead of the typical 12, according to the email.
“There will be a comment added to all student transcripts that signals the extraordinary conditions of this semester,” the email states. “The Registrar’s Office is currently drafting this comment.”
This post has been updated to correct the following:
The Hatchet incorrectly reported that the extension policy applies to all schools at GW because of misinformation from a source. The policy only applies to the five undergraduate residential schools. We regret this error.
