Office of the Registrar

Repeat Policy

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The policies for repeating courses and grade forgiveness apply to all undergraduate students. To understand these, let's start with several definitions of repeating courses and grade forgiveness:

Beginning Fall 2014 for all undergraduate students, the policies for repeating courses and for grade forgiveness have changed. Let's start with definitions:

  • Repeat: any course taken more than one time; students only earn credit hours ONCE for a course, regardless of the number of times the course is taken; all repeated courses are included in attempted hours
  • Grade Forgiveness: removing the grade from the GPA calculation once a course is repeated; the grade stays on the transcript, but the GPA calculation excludes the course; the hours are included in attempted hours; there is a limit of four grade forgiveness courses (must be different courses) and the first grade is always the one excluded

Repeats

  • You may only earn credit hours ONCE per course, regardless of the number of times the course is taken. (A few courses are repeatable for credit if the content changes. These are indicated in the Undergraduate Bulletin course descriptions).
  • If you repeat a course that you originally passed and fail that repeat, you will lose ALL credit for the course.
  • If you already have credit for a course at Appalachian State University, you cannot take the course again at another institution and transfer it to App State.

Grade Forgiveness

The first four courses you repeat will AUTOMATICALLY be processed as grade forgiveness courses. You will not have to complete a form to have your first grade excluded from your GPA calculation.

  • If you have already used some "repeats" as grade forgiveness, this does not mean you get four more! You will only be allowed 4 total, so if you have already used 2, you will have only 2 more.
  • If you don't want to have a course repeat automatically processed as a grade exclusion, you must complete a form before the end of the Drop/Add period for the term (1st five days in fall/spring; 1st or 2nd day in summer). You can find the Grade Forgiveness Exception form [PDF] on the Forms page.

Exclusions

Grade forgiveness can be used only once per course. Only courses taken at App State are eligible for grade forgiveness. Grade forgiveness may not be used on courses that have changed their content or credit hours.

Questions may be directed to the Records Area of the Registrar's Office at (828) 262-2096.