Grade Forgiveness Policy

Authority: Academic Affairs and Enrollment Management
Date Enacted or Revised: Enacted May 16, 2018; Revised June 12, 2018; August 14, 2018; June 25, 2019; August 16, 2023

Policy

  1. A currently enrolled undergraduate student may improve their grade point averages (term, institutional, transfer, and overall) by repeating an undergraduate course in which they earned a grade of D or F and requesting that the previous grade earned in the course be excluded from the GPA calculations.
  2. A student may file only three grade forgiveness requests during their undergraduate career. A student may request grade forgiveness for the same course more than once, but each repeated attempt can only forgive one prior attempt.
  3. Only the last grade earned, whether higher or lower, will be used in calculating undergraduate GPAs.
  4. Withdrawal from a course for which grade forgiveness has been approved will not result in the original grade being excluded.
  5. Filing academic bankruptcy does not void any previously approved grade forgiveness requests counted toward the three-course limit.
  6. Special topics, internships, independent study, and research-type courses are not eligible for grade forgiveness; academic departments may opt to exempt additional courses from grade forgiveness.
  7. If a course is cross listed, the course must be repeated under the same rubric as it was originally attempted.
  8. Courses with the same rubric and number, but substantially different content, are not eligible for grade forgiveness.
  9. Courses for which incomplete grades have been awarded are not eligible for grade forgiveness or omission.
  10. Grade forgiveness does not result in recalculation of a student’s academic standing (i.e., academic probation or suspension) or academic honors (i.e., honor roll or President’s honor list) for any previous semester or term nor does it result in a refund of tuition and fees.
  11. To fairly determine academic honors upon graduation, McNeese considers the entire academic record of each student, including grades excluded from the overall GPA through the grade forgiveness policy and academic bankruptcy.
  12. A grade forgiveness request by a student-athlete must also be reviewed and approved by Athletic Compliance on a case-by-case basis.
  13. A student may petition grade forgiveness for transfer courses provided:
    1. The transfer course is repeated at the same institution; or
    2. The transfer course is repeated at McNeese and is deemed equivalent to the McNeese course by the Office of the Registrar and Admissions and the academic department offering the course.
  14. A student may not petition grade forgiveness for a grade assigned because of academic dishonesty.
  15. Students should be aware that, when considering applications for admission, many undergraduate professional curricula and most graduate and professional schools compute the undergraduate GPA on all course attempts.
  16. Once a student earns a degree, the grade forgiveness policy cannot be invoked with respect to any course attempted prior to earning the degree.
  17. Grades excluded because of this policy may impact a student’s financial aid satisfactory academic progress (SAP) status, depending on the timing of grade exclusion and the SAP calculation.
  18. This policy does not impact the following GPA calculations:
    1. The TOPS GPA calculation which is determined by Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance (LOSFA) policy.
    2. The athletic eligibility GPA calculation for incoming transfer student athletes, which is determined by NCAA policy; and
    3. The admissions GPA calculation for incoming transfer students.
  19. A student may elect to omit a grade for one of the three grade forgiveness opportunities if the course is not required in the student’s degree plan. With this option, the student is not required to retake the course.
    1. Courses required in the degree plan do not include electives or prerequisites of required courses.
    2. Grade omission may be petitioned for transfer courses.
    3. The grade omission option is not available to non-degree, visiting, or high school early admission/dual enrollment students.
  20. To petition for grade forgiveness or omission, the student should obtain the Grade Forgiveness Request Form from Student Central or the student’s academic advisor or department head.
    1. The Grade Forgiveness Request Form must be approved by the student’s academic advisor or department head and then submitted to Student Central for registrar review and processing.
    2. Requests for grade forgiveness or omission must be submitted to Student Central by mid-term for the term in which the request will be processed.
    3. Once a request is approved and submitted to Student Central, the grade forgiveness or omission decision is irreversible.
  21. Once a final grade has been submitted for the repeated attempt, the excluded grade will be annotated with the symbol letter E and the comment “Grade Forgiveness” will appear under the course on the transcript.
  22. For grade omission, the excluded grade will be annotated with the symbol letter E and the comment “Grade Forgiveness [Omission]” will appear under the course on the transcript.
  23. Once grade forgiveness or grade omission is applied to a course, the earned hours, GPA hours, and quality points for the course will be removed and the GPAs will be recalculated; however, attempted hours will not be adjusted.

Communication

This policy is distributed via the Academic Advisory Council, the Academic Catalog, and the University Policies webpage.