Academic Forgiveness

The university recognizes that extenuating circumstances may be responsible for a student's poor grades. Therefore, the university allows a currently enrolled student to request academic forgiveness for grades that jeopardize the student's good academic standing. There are three academic forgiveness options available; Repeated Courses, Academic Reprieve, and Academic Renewal.

Repeated Courses

A student is limited to three attempts in an identical course to improve their grade. All attempts shall be recorded on the transcript with the earned grade for each listed in the semester earned. The explanation of grades section of the transcript will note that only the highest grade earned is used in the Retention/Graduation GPA. If most recent repeated course was graded as pass/no-pass, then the pass/no-pass grade is used and none of the previous letter grades apply. There is no limit to the number of times a student can retake a course to achieve a sufficiently high grade to satisfy degree or program requirements.

Academic Reprieve

Prior to requesting an academic reprieve, the student must have earned a Retention/Graduation GPA of 2.0 or higher with no grade lower than a "C" in all regularly graded coursework (a minimum of 12 hours) excluding activity or performance courses. The request may be for one term of enrollment or two consecutive terms of enrollments. If the reprieve is awarded, all grades and hours are included during the term(s) for which a reprieve has been requested. If the student's request is for two consecutive terms, USAO may choose to reprieve only one term. All courses reprieved will remain on the student's transcript, but are not calculated in the Retention/Graduation GPA. Coursework with a passing grade included in a reprieved term may be used to demonstrate competency in the subject matter. However, the coursework may not be used to fulfill credit hour requirements.

Academic Renewal

Academic renewal is a provision allowing a student who has had academic trouble in the past and who has been out of higher education for a number of years to recover without penalty and have a fresh start. Under academic renewal, coursework taken prior to a date specified by USAO is not counted in the student's Retention/Graduation GPA. A student may request Academic Renewal for all courses completed before the date specified in the request for renewal. At least three years must have elapsed between the last term being renewed and the renewal request. Prior to requesting Academic Renewal, the student must have earned a Retention/Graduation GPA of 2.00 or higher with no grade lower than a “C” in all regularly graded course work (a minimum of 12 hours) excluding activity or performance courses. The request will be for all courses completed before the date specified in the request for renewal. All courses remain on the transcript but are not calculated in the student’s Retention/Graduation GPA. Neither the content nor the credit hours of renewed course work may be used to fulfill any degree or graduation requirements.