2023-2024 Undergraduate Catalog

Academic Forgiveness

A student who successfully repeated a failed course and wants to apply for grade replacement must submit the Repeated Course Request form (link to form) to the Registrar’s Office.

If the Repeated Course Request is approved, only the more recent of the two grades will be counted in the computation of the grade point average (GPA). The original grade, however, will be kept on the transcript. This policy is limited to four F replacements during the student’s undergraduate study. If an F grade was the result of a violation of the University’s policy on academic integrity, in addition to Repeated Course Request Form the grade replacement request form, the student must appeal in writing to The Office of the Provost for the grade replacement.

A student who has not attended Sacred Heart University for five years or more may apply for academic forgiveness of grades for courses taken at Sacred Heart during one semester—defined as one in which the student’s term GPA was lower than 2.0. The student must submit a written request for academic forgiveness to the Dean of the College in which the student is enrolled or intends to enroll.

The Dean will make the decision whether to grant forgiveness. Academic forgiveness means that the grades from the “forgiven” semester remain visible on the student’s transcript, but those grades are not calculated in the student’s overall GPA. Forgiveness will affect the entire semester and not individual courses within a semester.

In the case of a student who chooses to repeat a course in which they received a passing grade for a better grade, the best grade will count in the cumulative grade point average. The original grade will remain on the transcript. Repeated courses will count for credit only once. Students repeating an already passed course should consult financial aid.