What You Should Know

Rules of Interest to New Students

As an entering student in the College, you should familiarize yourself with the academic policies and procedures of the College as well as with the degree requirements. Chapter IV of the LS&A Bulletin describes in detail these policies and procedures. Here we are sketching only some of the rules of primary and immediate interest to new students.

COURSE LOAD: In order to graduate on schedule (4 academic years), you must carry an average of 15 credits for each of your eight terms unless you have Advanced Placement or other credits, or you plan to enroll for Spring or Summer term(s). Because of the new demands of college life, some first-year students would do well to enroll in fewer than 15 credits, at least for the first term. In most cases, four courses is the typical load, with the credits totaling anywhere from 12 to 17. 12 credits are necessary for full-time status for Financial Aid and other reasons. Special permission is required to elect fewer than 8 or more than 18 credits during a Fall or Winter term.

ADDING AND DROPPING COURSES: Once you are registered in classes for a term, you may begin to drop and add courses as many times as you like according to the policies and procedures outlined below; see Chapter IV of the LS&A Bulletin for full details.

The College allows you to drop and add courses freely during the first three weeks of the regular term without any record of the changes appearing on your transcript. The regular Drop/Add Deadline for Fall 1997 term is Tuesday, September 23. After this deadline, Adds or Drops must be requested through the Academic Advising Center, 1255 Angell Hall. If your late drop request is approved, you will receive a grade of "W" for any course dropped after the third week deadline.

In addition, be aware that after the ninth week of the term late drop requests are rarely approved, and then only on an exceptional basis. The Late Drop/Add Deadline for the Fall 1997 term is Friday, November 7. You should discuss all late drop/add requests with your academic advisor.

More on Academic deadlines: Each College within the University has a specific set of deadlines which apply to the academic term - deadlines for adding and dropping courses, deadlines for finishing incomplete work from a previous term, deadlines for identifying a Pass/Fail course, etc. The deadlines are not necessarily the same for each College, so be sure that you are acting within the LS&A deadline dates, not those of another unit of the University. As an LS&A student, you will follow LS&A rules and deadlines, regardless of whether or not you are taking a class in another part of the University such as the School of Art and Design or the School of Education. Be sure to check with your LS&A advisor if you have any questions regarding the deadlines.

P/F

PASS/FAIL: You may, if you wish, elect courses Pass/Fail even in your first term in the College. But before you elect a course Pass/Fail, here are a few official LS&A rules and regulations to keep in mind.

You may use up to 30 credits of non-graded (Pass/Fail & Credit/No Credit) course work toward your LS&A degree. There are no restrictions on the number of classes per term you may elect Pass/Fail.
You may not use Pass/Fail course work to meet concentration requirements.
You may not elect the final course in a sequence used to complete the Language Requirement on a Pass/Fail basis. (Effective for all students admitted to the College in Fall Term, 1995 and thereafter.) The College gives you approximately 3 weeks into the term to decide whether or not to take a course Pass/Fail or for a grade. For Fall 1997, the Pass/Fail Deadline is Tuesday, September 23. There are absolutely no exceptions or extensions to this deadline. After that date, you are locked in.* Instructors do not know whether you are taking a course P/F (unless you tell them yourself). They assign an actual letter grade to you; the Registrar then turns that grade into the "P" or "F" on your transcript.
You must earn at least a "C-" to receive a Pass for the course.

Keep the following unofficial advice in mind as well:

In general, it is not a good idea to take a course Pass/Fail if you intend to take several more courses later in the same area.
In particular, do not take concentration prerequisites Pass/Fail.
Likewise, do not take pre-professional requirements Pass/Fail (e.g., economics and accounting for pre-business; chemistry, biology, and physics for pre-meds; calculus for both).
Avoid falling into the psychological trap of easing off on your studying for a Pass/Fail course.

GRADES: You should become familiar with the section on "Grade Notations and Grading Policies" found in Chapter IV of the LS&A Bulletin. Generally, your work in a course is graded on the basis of the following:

Summary of Transcript Notations

Letter    Honor    
Grade     Points   
A+        4.0      
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+        1.3      
D         1.0      
D-        0.7      
E         0.0

You compute your grade-point average (GPA) by first multiplying the honor points obtained in each course by the credit hours for the course, then adding all of these honor-points and dividing the sum by the total number of credits attempted on a graded basis.

A+

ACADEMIC HONORS: The College acknowledges the superior achievement of its students in a variety of ways as explained in Chapter IV of the LS&A Bulletin. You should note that the University Honors Convocation for the 1997-98 academic year will be held on Sunday, March 22, 1998.

MAINTENANCE OF GOOD STANDING: At the end of each term the Academic Standards Board reviews the transcripts of all LS&A students showing evidence of academic difficulty. This is done according to the policies and procedures described under "Academic Discipline" in Chapter IV of the LS&A Bulletin.

FINAL EXAMINATIONS: The final examination schedule for courses is published near the front of each term's Time Schedule by the Office of the Registrar. Individual instructors are not authorized to change the announced times of examinations. Re-scheduling exams into earlier time periods may mean that you will lose the final class period; it may mean that you are denied review time in class; and it may rob you of study days.

The Time Schedule says:

No allowance is made and no approval is given for final exams prior to the approved schedule.
Approval will not be given for any exams during Study Days.
Final exams scheduled for one date and time may not be moved to another date and time without prior approval of the Final Examination Committee.

The Faculty Code says:

An instructor may not depart from the official schedule unless prior approval of the Final Examination Committee is obtained.
All students are expected to take their final examinations at the time fixed in the official schedule of examinations. No single student may be examined at a time earlier or later than the official time unless a mutually agreeable time has been arranged in advance by the student and the instructor.

If an instructor re-schedules an examination, you have a right to take it at the scheduled time period.

If you experience any difficulty in this regard, please see the Assistant Dean for Student Academic Affairs (1402 Mason; 764-7297) or consult the Office of the Registrar (1510 LS&A; 764-6280).

I

INCOMPLETES: There may be an occasion when unusual circumstances make it appropriate for you to consider the option of taking an incomplete in a course at the end of a term and finishing the missing work a little later. You should talk this option over with your academic advisor first, and then discuss the possibility with your instructor. If the instructor agrees to give you extra time, the College allows you the first four weeks of the next full term in which to finish the work. An incomplete course which is not finished by that deadline (and for which no extension has been granted) automatically lapses to a failing grade on your transcript.

NON-LS&A COURSE WORK: Courses offered by other academic units of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (e.g., Art, Business Administration, Engineering, Music, Natural Resources) and not listed in the LS&A Bulletin are non-LS&A courses.

LS&A students may ordinarily use up to 12 credits of non-LS&A course work toward an AB or BS degree program. BGS students may use up to 20 credits of non-LS&A course work. See the policies explained in Chapter III of the LS&A Bulletin for details. Examine the information carefully and note which courses LS&A does not accept.