MCS Pass/Fail Course Policy

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Pass/Fail for MCS Graduate Courses

Approved by College Council 27 April 1995
Revised by College Council 5 October 2001

Courses Designated Pass/Fail

An MCS department may offer a course in which only pass/fail grades are assigned to all students, or to all graduate students. Such a designation must be included in the course description, and is subject to the approval of the MCS College Council; if the course is part of a graduate degree program in another unit, the approval of the Academic Council is also required.

Grading Procedure

The letter grade is submitted for every student, whether the student is taking the course pass/fail or not. If all graduate students must take the course pass/fail, their letter grades are automatically converted to "pass" or "fail" according to rules made and published by the department offering the course. In the absence of such rules, the following rule applies: grades of A through C are converted to "pass"; grades D and below are converted to "fail". If all undergraduate students must take the course pass/fail, their letter grades are automatically converted to "pass" or "fail" according to the university pass/fail policy for undergraduates.

"Pass" is recorded as "P*", and "fail" is recorded as "R*", on the student's academic record. Credit is given for courses graded "pass", but not for courses graded "fail". Neither "pass" nor "fail" grades are considered in the computation of quality points.