Grading and Registration Options

Auditing a Class

You may register to audit classes, which allows you to preview or review courses without receiving a grade or semester hours. Classes taken for audit count in calculating tuition, but they do not carry credit or count toward financial aid eligibility. Audited courses will appear on your official transcript but will not affect your GPA or semester hours earned. Audit courses will not count toward any graduation requirements.

Do not confuse auditing a class with taking a class under the pass/fail option.

Your instructor may set up specific requirements for auditing the class, and if you do not meet the requirements, you may be removed from the class at your instructor's discretion with a grade of WP or WF. Be sure to discuss your auditing status with your instructor at the first class meeting.

A student interested in taking a class under the audit grading option should register for the class, then contact the student services office in his/her college or regional campus student services office (by the Friday of the second week of the semester) to complete an audit application. A regular grade course may NOT be changed to audit option and audit course may NOT be changed to regular grade option after the second Friday of the semester.

Pass/Fail Grading Option

A student interested in taking a class under the pass/fail grading option, should register for the class, then contact the student services office in his/her college or regional campus student services office (by the Friday of the second week of the semester) to complete a pass/fail application. A pass/fail request by a regional campus student is reviewed by the appropriate college's student services office on the Athens campus and may be denied if an inappropriate choice has been made. A regular grade course may NOT be changed to pass/fail and pass/fail course may NOT be changed to regular grade option after the Friday of the second week of the semester.

Do not confuse the pass/fail option with auditing a class.

Students may complete no more than 12 semester hours under the pass/fail option. No course taken pass/fail may be used to fulfill any graduation requirement (college, school, or department) other than total hours. To be eligible for the pass/fail option, the student must have earned a GPA of 2.5 or better for his/her last semester of full-time enrollment or have an accumulative GPA of 2.0 or better. First semester freshman are not subject to the GPA requirements. A student may take only one course per semester or summer session pass/fail.

Note: Graduate-level courses (5000 or higher) may not be taken under the pass/fail option.

Repeating a Course

A repeatable course is defined as a course taken for additional semester hours of credit toward graduation requirements (i.e., MUS 3400, PSY 4900). Some departments/schools place limits on the total number of credits that may be earned in repeatable courses that may apply toward your graduation requirements. The maximum number of hours permitted to be earned is identified if there is a limit.

Retaking a Course

A regular undergraduate course with fixed content can be retaken to affect your accumulative GPA. Undergraduate courses that are retaken to improve a grade will be identified automatically at the time you register. Retaking the course removes the hours and the effect of the earlier grade from the calculation of the GPA. However, all grades are printed on the student's academic record (transcript). Please note the later grade is the one calculated in the GPA even if it is lower than the first grade and the course semester hours duplicated by retaking coursework are not accepted toward the credit hour requirement for graduation.

The number of times a student is allowed to retake an undergraduate course for the purpose of improving the grade is restricted to a maximum of two attempts in addition to the first attempt. Withdrawals are not counted as an attempt.

Please note retaking a course after graduation will not change your graduation GPA or honors status. Some graduate and professional schools include all grades in their calculations of GPA while determining eligibility for admissions even though Ohio University calculates only the last grade in a retaken course.

Graduate courses cannot be retaken to improve a low grade on the first attempt. All grades received are calculated into the graduate GPA.