Pass/Fail ONLY courses and GPA

Colleges & Universities University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
1

<p>Do courses that are only offered pass/fail affect your GPA at UNC? I am currently taking IDST 195: Modes of Inquiry, which is a 1-hour seminar course. I did NOT elect to take it under the pass/D+/D/fail option, it is ONLY offered pass/fail. According to the syllabus, we do not get letter grades on our assignments, they just list requirements for getting a passing grade. </p>

<p>Also, has anyone repeated a course at UNC? I know the new grade does not replace the old one, and you only get the credits once. I am still not sure how to calculate my GPA though. I am currently in 12 hours and retaking 3 courses totaling 10 hours (really bad first year). I failed one of them, got a D in one and a D+ in the third. I currently have 124 quality points and 63 total hours to give me a GPA of 1.970. When I calculate my cumulative GPA would I divide my quality points by 68(12-7 = 5, 63+5 = 68; 6 hours repeated and 1 hour failed pass/fail course) since I’m only supposed to get the hours for the classes I received D’s in once? It may help to see my schedule:</p>

<p>PSYC 270 - 4 hours (retaking, got a D+ first time)
GEOL 101 - 3 hours (retaking, got a D first time)
ASTR 101 - 3 hours (retaking, got an F first time)
MUSC 211 - 1 hour
IDST 195 - 1 hour (pass/fail only class I asked about in the first part of my post)</p>

2

<p>Pretty sure it doesn’t affect your GPA and the pass/fail is just noted on your transcript. As far as GPA goes, all hours count toward it. You will not get credit hours for retaking a course, but the grade you receive will be factored into your gpa. So for those 3 courses, you’ll have the original grades in your GPA but also the grades for when you retake them. My boyfriend is having to retake a few classes for the purpose of boosting his GPA, so I’m pretty sure this is how it happens.</p>

<p>Random question, how did you get into psyc 270 freshman year? From my experience it’s essentially impossible to get into any psyc courses other than 101 until sophomore year. Did you test out of 210 or something?</p>

3

<p>The Undergraduate Bulletin (<a href=“http://www.unc.edu/ugradbulletin/procedures1.html[/url]”>An opportunity to make a difference - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) seems to indicate that there are some courses, such as the one you refer to, in which only the grades of PS and F are assigned. In this case (as well as elected PS/D+/D/F), the course will not count toward you GPA if you earn a “pass,” but will count toward you GPA in the usual way if you do not.</p>

<p>In terms of calculating GPA, note from the above link: “If a student is permitted to repeat a course in which a passing grade previously has been earned, only the credit from the course with the highest grade (or if the grades are the same, the latter attempt) will be counted toward the fulfillment of the University’s minimum graduation requirement of 120 academic hours. The grades of both courses, however, will be computed in the student’s cumulative grade point average.”</p>

<p>In other words, both attempts count toward your GPA, but you will not receive additional hours toward the satisfaction of the minimum graduation requirement of 120 academic hours if you repeat a class you’ve passed. When manually calculating your GPA, you would omit a P/F class if you’ve earned a passing grade.</p>

4

<p>“As far as GPA goes, all hours count toward it. You will not get credit hours for retaking a course”</p>

<p>I read what the undergrad bulletin says about repeating courses, but I’m still not sure I understand. As for what you said (jessimo), if all hours count toward GPA, does that mean I add 6 hours for a repeated course to my cumulative total for the GPA calculation to account for both attempts? To help clarify what I’m asking, here is a simple scenario that is easier to understand than my situation:</p>

<p>Say John got these grades his first semester at UNC:
A - 3 hours
B+ - 3 hours
C - 4 hours</p>

<h2>D - 3 hours</h2>

<p>12+9.9+8+3 = 32.9/13 = 2.5</p>

<p>These grades would give him a cumulative GPA of 2.5. Now say he repeats the class he got a D in and earns these grades:</p>

<p>B - 3 hours
B+ - 3 hours
C+ - 3 hours</p>

<h2>B - 3 hours (repeated class)</h2>

<p>9+9.9+6.9+9 = 34.8/12 = 2.90 (semester GPA)</p>

<p>If all hours count toward GPA, his cumulative hours would include 6 hours for the class he repeated: 34.8+32.9 = 67.7/25 = 2.71 cumulative GPA. </p>

<p>However, if he only received the hours for the repeated course once (which is what I thought the bulletin meant when it says “If a student is permitted to repeat a course in which a passing grade previously has been earned, only the credit from the course with the highest grade [or if the grades are the same, the latter attempt] will be counted toward the fulfillment of the University’s minimum graduation requirement of 120 academic hours.” that would mean only the 3 credit hours from the attempt with a passing grade are used in the GPA calculation: 34.8+32.9 = 67.7/22 = 3.08. As you can see, this calculation yields a significantly higher GPA.</p>

<p>Which of these calculations demonstrates what you were saying? Counting 6 hours for the repeated course in the GPA calculation, or just 3 hours for the passing grade earned when the course was repeated? </p>

<p>You mentioned your boyfriend is retaking classes (at UNC I assume) in order to boost his GPA. My GPA would not be boosted if I received the hours for these classes twice in the GPA calculation. Retaking these classes only helps my GPA if I only get the hours once for the passing attempts. (e.g. 10 hours as opposed to 20 counted into my cumulative hours used for GPA calculation)</p>

<p>Oh, and just as a side not: not getting the hours twice would not hurt me as I attended an early college high school so I earned an A.A. and brought in 62 hours as a freshman. So I have already satisfied the requirement to fulfill 120 hours. And to answer your question, when I mentioned freshman year, I meant the two 101 courses are from my first year. PSYC 270 is from last semester where I procrastinated majorly on 2 assignments that were worth half my grade. You’re right about it being difficult to get into psych courses and my credits did not make registration any easier for me. :(</p>

5

<p>You will not earn hours toward your 120 needed credit hours for graduation by retaking classes. So if you are enrolled in 15 hours but are repeating 2 classes, you will only receive 9 hours toward the credits needed for graduation. Since you already have that amount, this doesn’t matter to you.</p>

<p>However, ALL the courses you take, regardless of repeating or not, are added to your GPA. So if you got a D the first time and an A the second time, you will get 3 quality points for the first time and 12 for the repeated time. If you get grades the second time around that are higher than your overall GPA, your GPA will be boosted. But if your GPA is a 3.2 and you get a B in the classes you retake, yes it will decrease your overall GPA.</p>

<p>“The grades of both courses, however, will be computed in the student’s cumulative grade point average”</p>

<p>Does that make sense?</p>

6

<p>It does make sense that all quality points earned count towards GPA, and I know that. But do the hours from repeated courses count in the calculation? Right now I have 124 quality points and that gets divided by 63 hours to get my current cumulative GPA. After this semester, will UNC add all 12 hours from this semester to my total? This would make the GPA calculation: [ __ quality points/75 hours = cumulative GPA ]. But if they do not add repeated hours into the calculation, this would be the equation: [ __ quality points/65 hours = cumulative GPA ]. Say I got 28 quality points this semester. If you plug 152 into each equation, the second equation with fewer hours will yield a better GPA. This is what I am concerned about because I don’t know which way they will calculate it.</p>

<p>Maybe if I use your example, it will make my question easier to understand. In the example you gave, you said that if I were to take 15 hours, 6 of which are repeated classes, I would get 9 more credit hours toward the 120 needed to graduate. But would this mean that only those 9 hours would be added to my current total of 63 for the calculation of my GPA? Or would all 15 get added? My GPA would be significantly better if just the 9 were added for the calculation. </p>

<p>(as for the 63 total hours: the hours I took in high school to earn my A.A. don’t count into my UNC GPA, in case you were confused by that.)</p>

7

<p>to illustrate what could happen in the example you gave:</p>

<p>If I took 15 hours and received 40 quality points (remember I have 124 points and 63 hours before this semester):

  • counting all 15 hours into the GPA calculation: 164 points/78 hours = 2.1
  • counting only 9 hours into the GPA calculation: 164 points/72 hours = 2.3</p>

<p>If you could tell me which of these ^ is how my cumulative GPA would be calculated in your example, I will have the answer to my question.</p>

<p>(it wouldn’t let me edit my other message after 20 minutes, so I had to post this message separately :confused: )</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>This one. In calculating GPA, you ignore the fact you’re repeating the class.</p>

9

<p>Thanks for your help. I would like to know if jessimo agrees though.</p>