<p>The change was only proposed. To my knowledge no actual action has been taking. </p>
<p>I personally think that it would be wise to add a D, and then make the threshold for an NR a 50%. But I don’t think that an F grade or +/- prefixes would be good ideas. </p>
<p>WPI needs the NR because it has a quarter system. At a school with a semester system, you could realize if you were taking a class that you were unprepared for and drop the class. But at WPI the term goes by so quickly that a student might not realize that the class was ill-suited for them until after the midterm/final. </p>
<p>Also, what happens if you bomb the midterm? With a semester system there is time to recover. Not so with 7 week terms.</p>