Good Academic Standing and Annual Student Evaluations
Policy as of March 3, 2022
In the past, GSAS has not had a consistent set of guidelines about what constitutes good academic standing. We will work with the Graduate Council over the next year (2022-2023) to come to a clear consensus about these guidelines we will use for all GSAS programs. For spring 2022, we are using the following as minimum criteria for a student to be in good academic standing.
- All grades in classes that count towards the degree are a B- or above (or the program’s threshold for advancing in the curriculum, if higher than a B-). If classes in a program are credit/no credit, the student must have received credit for all classes that count towards the degree. The student has no unresolved Excused Incomplete’s (EIs) in spring, summer or fall 2021 courses that count towards the degree. A reminder that final incompletes (I) cannot count towards the degree.
- The student is completing non-course milestones (i.e., comprehensive exams, language requirements, prospectus defense, research progress, etc.) on the program’s typical timeline and is also taking courses as expected.
Directors of Graduate Study will make these determinations in consultation with Department / Program faculty in a way that ensures consistency across students. GSAS will automatically place PhD students who are on extension into the advising alert category. GSAS will also automatically place Extended Master’s students into advising alert if they are requesting a third Extended Master’s semester.
If a student does not meet these criteria or you have other reasons that you would like GSAS to provide consistent outreach during the 2022-23 academic year, please mark Advising Alert during the Annual Status and Funding Review (ASFR) process. This alert will appear in Workday and not on the student’s official transcript. Marking advising alert during the annual review process is not a replacement for submitting a CARE report.
In future semesters, we will also talk about adding a third category of Academic Probation for more serious concerns. The goal of this process is to make it easier for GSAS to partner with departments to support students who have advising alerts as well as for both departments and GSAS to easily see who these students are and check in with them more frequency. If your program has its own probation category, please make sure that the criteria and processes determining a student’s probation status are clearly outlined in your program’s Bulletin text. For now, please mark Advising Alert for these students. Please make sure that your program’s criteria for being in good academic standing are in your program’s Bulletin section as well.