The Grading System | Academic Honors | C- and D Grades | The P/N Option | Incompletes (Grades of X or Y) | Changing Grades | Complaint Procedure
As described in the Undergraduate Catalog, the following grading system is used in computing a student's grade point average GPA:
| Grade | Grade Points |
| A | 4.0 |
| A- | 3.7 |
| B+ | 3.3 |
| B | 3.0 |
| B- | 2.7 |
| C+ | 2.3 |
| C | 2.0 |
| C- | 1.7 |
| D | 1.0 |
| F | 0 |
| X Failed to earn credit: missed final examination | 0 |
| Y Failed to earn credit: work incomplete | 0 |
Certain other grade notations are included on your transcript but are ignored in computing the GPA. These grades are:
P Pass with credit
N No grade, no credit
K In progress
S Satisfactory: noncredit course
U Unsatisfactory: noncredit course
W W Dropped course with permission
V Auditor
Academic honors are awarded to students who do distinguished work in the College. If you take at least three graded courses during a quarter and earn a GPA of 3.7 or better, then you will be on the "Dean's List," and a written commendation from the dean will be sent to your parents.
Each spring, the Northwestern chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elects juniors and seniors in Weinberg College to that society. Criteria for election include GPA, the selection of courses, and instructors' recommendations. No more than 10 percent of any graduating class may be elected.
Other academic honors are awarded at graduation. These include graduating from Weinberg College with GPA-based honors (graduating cum laude, and so on) and graduating with departmental honors.
The grades of C- and D represent cut-off points for a variety of requirements:
- You need to earn at least a C- in all major courses, all minor courses, all related courses for your major(s), and all courses that are prerequisites for courses required in your major(s) or minor (including related courses).
- You need to earn at least a C- in the last quarter of a foreign language sequence you're using to satisfy the foreign language requirement.
- You need to earn at least a D in all courses you use to meet distribution requirements.
- You need to earn at least a D in both of your freshman seminars.
- No more than one-fifth of the courses offered to meet degree requirements may be completed with the grade of D and/or P.
The grades of C- and D also relate to another College rule: You need a grade point average (GPA) of C (2.0) or higher for the courses offered to meet degree requirements.
What counts as a course "offered to meet degree requirements"? The courses included are freshman seminars; distribution requirements; required foreign language courses; major, minor, and related courses; courses offered toward writing proficiency; and enough additional courses to bring the total to 45 units. Your GPA in these courses "offered to meet degree requirements" is different from your overall GPA, which is the average for all of the courses you have taken at Northwestern. Courses in which you earned less than a D (or less than a C- for major/minor/related courses and the last quarter of foreign language) cannot be offered toward the degree requirements While F's, X's, and Y's are included in the overall GPA, they are not included in the average for courses offered to meet degree requirements, and they are not included in the minimum 2.0 GPA required for graduation.
As a full-time Weinberg College student, you may enroll in some courses with the understanding that you will receive a P (pass) or N (no credit) rather than a grade. The P/N option was created to allow you to experiment with courses outside your usual sphere of interest without endangering your academic standing.
Only one course per quarter may be taken P/N, and the total number of courses you take P/N may be no more than six. Only free elective courses are open to P/N. Courses taken to fulfill your major or minor requirements and distribution requirements, and all courses used to attain WCAS foreign language proficiency, must be taken for a grade. Also closed to P/N are certain courses so designated by the departments; information on the availability of the P/N option is included in the detailed CAESAR information on each course.
Grades in not more than one-fifth of the Northwestern courses used to meet graduation requirements may be P or D.
You must decide whether or not to take a course P/N during the first three weeks of the quarter. The exact deadline for changing to or from P/N is given in each quarter’s Class Schedule. To take a course P/N, you must fill out a P/N request card at the Registrar’s Office and turn it in there. You must also submit a formal request if you change your mind and decide not to take a course P/N.
Occasionally a student decides to major or minor in some area in which he or she has already taken a course P/N and has earned a grade of P. If this happens to you, you can petition for permission to count the course toward your major or minor. To do this, consult with the Director of Undergraduate Studies in that major or minor. Complete the Petition for Permission to Apply a Course Taken for a Grade of "P" Toward Major/Related Requirements, and then submit it to the Weinberg Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising.
Incompletes (Grades of X or Y)
You are expected to complete all work in each of your Weinberg College courses by the appropriate deadline. You will not be granted permission to makeup a final examination or complete other assigned course work after the end of a quarter except in circumstances clearly beyond your control. Whenever possible, you must supply documentation such as, for example, a medical report on a doctor's letterhead or a printed obituary.
Students who have been making good progress in a course, but who miss the final exam, are assigned a grade of X by the instructor. If you expect to miss or have missed a final examination, you must file a Petition for an Incomplete (Petition to Receive the Grade of "Y"/"X" ) in order to request permission to take a makeup examination. Write your reason for the request on the petition and give it to the instructor for comment; then return the petition to the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising, where a college adviser will determine if your request is consistent with faculty policy. Requests for makeup examinations should be made no later than the first week of the following quarter. In case of illness, you should report in person to the Student Health Center prior to the time of the examination. Each quarter the Student Health Center provides to the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising a list of students who have missed exams for medical reasons. If you are on the list, you will not need additional documentation to support your request for permission to take a makeup exam.
A grade of Y is given to students who have not completed assigned work, such as course papers, because of illness or other circumstances beyond their personal control. Instructors may assign a Y grade only with prior permission from the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising. If you wish to request a Y for a course, you must file a Petition for an Incomplete before the end of the quarter in which you are enrolled in the course. Write your reason for the request on the petition and give it to the instructor for comment; then return the petition to the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising, where a college adviser will determine if your request is consistent with faculty policy. The course instructor will be notified by the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising if your request is approved.
The Petition for an Incomplete is also available in the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising.
When you talk with an instructor to request permission for an X or Y, you should also discuss a timeline for completing the course requirements. All missing work, including exams, must be made up before the end of your next quarter at Northwestern. Keep in mind, however, that finishing up remaining work from a previous quarter can be very difficult once you are involved in a new set of courses. Also, when the break between quarters is long, you may find it difficult to recall some key information from a course. It is often to your advantage, therefore, to complete missing work much sooner that the end of your next quarter.
If you receive permission for an incomplete in a course and then complete the remaining work for the course, the instructor can change the X or Y to a regular course grade. The instructor will receive a form from the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising indicating that an X or Y has been approved, and he or she can use that same form to indicate your new grade.
The only other situation in which a grade change is permitted is to correct a clerical or computational error. Grade changes requested for the following reasons are not allowed: redoing work or submitting extra work, reexamination, a makeup examination administered without authorization by the Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising, or reevaluation of one student's work after the grades of others in the class have been submitted to the Registrar's Office.
Students who are dissatisfied with the grading in a course are urged to discuss their dissatisfaction with the instructor. If students remain dissatisfied, they should talk with the chair of the department in which the course is offered or, finally, with the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Neither the department chair nor the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs has authority to change a grade assigned by an instructor; however, each department has a procedure whereby students can appeal a grade they think was determined in a prejudicial or capricious manner.
