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Postsecondary Definitions and Calculation Methods

The findings below provide information on common Academic Forgiveness Policies utilized by colleges and universities. They are extracted from AACRAO’s 1997 Study of Nontraditional Programs.

For additional information or questions contact AACRAO at info@aacrao.org.

How wide spread was the Use of Academic Forgiveness Policies?

39% of the institutions utilized academic forgiveness policies
39% did not
22% did not respond or indicated question was not applicable

What Types of Academic Forgiveness Policies Were Utilized?

The policies fell into 2 main categories: 1) those that allowed grade or GPA forgiveness or academic renewal after a period of absence from postsecondary study, and 2) those that allowed grades/courses to be repeated.

Category One

(Forgiveness that was based on a period of absence): in decreasing order of frequency.

The majority of the institutions granted academic forgiveness, renewal, clemency or a fresh start after 5 years of absence from postsecondary study. This policy typically allowed students to:

have previous grades of "D" or "F" removed from their GPA if they maintained a certain level of academic achievement after re-entry (e.g., a GPA of at least 2.0 or 2.5 on the first 12 or 15 credit hrs. subsequent to re-enrollment)
have 2 semesters removed after 12 or 15 hrs. with GPAs of at least 2.0 or 2.5.
have all credits older than 5 years removed from the GPA.
Most institutions allowed the student's GPA to be recalculated based on the repeated grade, but kept both grades on transcripts.

Many institutions granted academic forgiveness after 3 years of absence. This policy generally required students to earn either 12 or 15 credit hrs. with GPAs of at least 2.0 or 2.5.
Slightly fewer granted forgiveness after 2 years of absence.
Others institutions granted forgiveness after 1 year of absence
A few granted forgiveness after 4 years or 10 years of absence.

Category Two:

(Forgiveness that granted students the opportunity to repeat grades and courses):

The majority of these institutions allowed students to repeat a course twice (if a grade of "D" or "F" was received). Typically only the second grade is computed in the student's GPA, but both grades appear on the student's transcript. Some allowed 2 grades below "C-" to be repeated.
Others allowed grades of "I", "F", or "Unsatisfactory" to be repeated (without specifying how the GPA would be affected/calculated).
A few institutions allowed students to repeat a course three times, with the first 2 grades removed from the GPA. A couple of institutions allowed students to repeat courses for an unspecified number of times.