Important Update: Further revision of Undergraduate Pass Fail and Clarification of Credit/No Credit
(Corrected)
March 22, 2020
Dear Students and Faculty,
After receiving many moving and concerned letters from students about the expansion of pass/fail for spring 2020 undergraduate courses, Dean Dorothy Hodgson and Provost Lisa Lynch have agreed, in consultation with Registrar Mark Hewitt, to further expand the Pass/Fail Option for Undergraduates. Brandeis is not alone in making this type of change, as many other liberal arts colleges and research universities have made similar changes in recent days. We also realized that there was some confusion about dates for dropping a course and how Credit/No Credit Grading for undergraduates works. So we have included more detailed information on all of these issues below.
Revised: Pass/Fail Option for Undergraduates and Undergraduate Courses
The regular restrictions that apply to the use of P/F by undergraduates have been suspended for Spring 2020 classes.
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Students may elect to cover any number of grades from Spring 2020 that are a C-minus or higher with a P.
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Spring 2020 P grades will not count against the 4 P/F elections undergraduates are allowed in their career.
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P grades for Spring 2020 will be allowed to fulfill any major, minor or general university requirement, and will be allowed to double count for requirements as a regularly graded course would.
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Consistent with our current P/F policy, P grades do not factor into a student’s GPA. For the Spring 2020 semester, grades of “D” and “E” will remain as letter grades but will not be factored into a student's GPA.
The regular deadlines for covering a Spring 2020 grade with a P still apply — May 18 for graduating seniors; Oct. 15 for all other undergraduates. Once a Spring 2020 grade has posted, students may email passfail@brandeis.edu to request the grade be covered with a P.
Clarification: Last Date to Drop a Course
The last day to drop a course with a W (undergraduates) and the last day to drop a course or change to an audit (graduate students) is April 13.
Clarification: Credit/No Credit Grading
Instructors, with the approval of their department Chair, may request to grade all students in a class on the “credit / no credit” basis. Such a change applies to all students in the class and must be made before April 20. Requests can only be made for classes numbered 1-199 and should be forwarded to the University Registrar.
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A credit grade is considered the equivalent to a C-minus or better for undergraduates, and a B-minus or better for graduate students.
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A credit grade will still be allowed to fulfill any major, minor or general university requirement, and will be allowed to double count for requirements as a regularly graded course would.
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Credit / no credit grades do not factor into a student’s GPA.
We hope that the additional P/F revision and the clarifications above will help alleviate concerns and confusion about academic policies that have been shared with Dean Hodgson and Provost Lynch in the last day.
Sincerely,
Lisa M. Lynch, Provost
Dorothy Hodgson, Dean of Arts and Sciences
Mark Hewitt, University Registrar