<p>What happens if you fail a course at MIT? I don’t come from a really good school and am afraid I might not be able to keep up with MIT’s classes initially. I know MIT has the credit/no credit thing for first semester, but what if I fail the class even after one semester?</p>
<p>You’re thrown out of MIT and must survive on the streets…where you find Bubba, just out of jail.</p>
<p>I failed a course at MIT. It can happen, for a variety of reasons. But what happens is the same thing that happens if you were to fail a course in secondary school. It sucks. It definitely does huge damage to your GPA. It can seriously hurt graduate school admissions. Beyond that, everything depends on the context. For example, if you have mostly A’s, with a scattering of B’s and the one F, then although you have to explain the F, you are probably OK (particularly if there is a valid excuse for it). Mine never hurt me. Of course if you have mostly D’s with a scattering of C’s and the one F, it is harder to justify.</p>
<p>I think the second semester is A/B/C/NR.</p>
<p>can anyone confirm goldenratiophi’s comment? so if what he says is true, then you can never fail a class, you’d just get no credit.</p>
<p>After freshman year, you can definitely fail a class.</p>
<p>You cannot fail a class your freshman year, you can only no record it.</p>
<p>That being said, the number of people that I know that have actually failed a class is relatively small. Our drop date is pretty late, so most people end up dropping the class instead of sticking with it and failing it. If you fail two classes one semester, you get put on academic probation (I think), and if you fail two classes two semesters in a row, I think you get asked to take a leave of absence.</p>
<p>what do students do on their leave of absence? do students just go home? why does MIT send students home, shouldn’t MIT try to help students catch up?</p>
<p>Not really. If you look at it from another perspective, sometimes it’s good for that student to take some time away from school.</p>
<p>Usually, I think if one fails 2 classes 2 semesters in a row here, there’s probably significant emotional/personal/medical reasons as well, more than just that they are unable or incapable to do the work. Thus, I think it’s wise for the student to take some time away from MIT, which may be stressing them out, and spend some time at home thinking about what they want to do next.</p>
<p>There’s more than one way in your life - you don’t have to bang your head repeatedly over something that isn’t working for you.</p>
<p>And yeah, you can’t “fail” a class frosh year. If you fail, the class just wouldn’t show up on your academic record.</p>
<p>
This. </p>
<p>One thing nobody’s mentioned yet is the sophomore exploratory option – during sophomore year, you can pick one class per semester to be “exploratory”. You take the class, and if you don’t do well, at the end you can decide not to accept the grade and credits. It’s effectively an optional “no record” for one class per semester sophomore year.</p>
<p>Mollie,
Thanks for the info on exploratory. I’d not heard much about it. Can you take GIRs soph year as exploratory, or are there limitations beyond the one per semester?</p>
<p>Nope, no restrictions. From the [registrar’s</a> website](<a href=“Registration & Academics | MIT Registrar”>Registration & Academics | MIT Registrar):
The trick to the exploratory option is that it’s only really useful for a class you strongly suspect you might get an awful grade in, a problem usually mitigated by the strategy discussed in post #7: dropping the class on Drop Date, which is very late in the semester. But it’s a nice option if you think you might be negatively surprised by the final exam or something.</p>
<p>I’ve met several professors who argue that, because of the late Drop Date, sophomore exploratory is really useless for a majority of students. I even ended up designating the first class I got an A+ in as exploratory. :p</p>
<p>Be careful though. Just because the F’s don’t show up on your transcript freshman year, does not mean you won’t get put on academic probation the same as if they did show up.</p>
<p>Also, at least when I was a sophomore, the rule was you can’t re-take a class you dropped after finals using the sophomore exploratory option, so you actually can’t take required classes on sophomore exploratory. Which is why I went for abstract algebra as opposed to, say, 8.044.</p>
<p>As far as I know, there’s no “automatic” academic probation. If a certain number of “flags” pop up (low grades, low number of units, whatever) your name gets discussed at a meeting of the faculty within your major. The professor who failed you might say “hey, it was really close, she tried hard, but I just couldn’t justify passing her” or “man, that was bad” and your advisor might discuss you a little bit, and then they sort of agree what to do next. It’s not like “x number of Fs and yz will automatically happen.”</p>
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</p>
<p>Well, and also at a CAP meeting, which is different. And CAP, not your departmental faculty, are the people who can put you on academic probation.</p>
<p>
Not true. There are no such restrictions. My D took 5.12 last spring as exploratory, dropped it and retook the class in the fall.</p>
<p>Just to be thorough, junior/senior P/D/F IS restricted to non-required classes.</p>
<p>There is NO restriction whatsoever for what you can designate sophomore exploratory, though, since one way or another, you will receive a letter grade for that class. I haven’t seen any examples of people not being able to retake a dropped sophomore exploratory class, either.</p>
<p>There are a few things you should know.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Failing a class at MIT is something that happens. I don’t have a statistic, but I know that there are at least one or two people that fail most courses I’ve taken at MIT, and it’s not the same people. Most students at MIT fail or come close to failing at least one course. I failed 8.03 sophomore year. There are some people that fail the same course multiple times. An alum I know failed 2.001 twice before passing it the third time.</p></li>
<li><p>Just because you can’t fail a course during your freshman year, that doesn’t mean you should let yourself fail any of your courses. You still have to earn 36 credits to move on without the Committee on Academic Performance getting involved.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m a senior in Course 17. I was put on Academic Warning my sophomore year after not only failing 8.03 but dropping 8.033 and only earning 24 units. Two years later, my GPA here is a mid-range B. In the fall, I’ll be attending grad school at UT Austin (I’m from Texas). So, trust me, a couple of failed classes won’t hurt you too much in the long run.</p></li>
<li><p>A lot of people take academic leave for various reasons, including not being able to handle the work at the time. If it comes to that, it may seem like a big deal and embarrassing, but you really won’t care about it in the future, and MIT is very adamant about graduating as many of its students as possible. You’ll graduate, even if it takes five years or more.</p></li>
<li><p>Most importantly for you now, if you ever find yourself in academic trouble (with a p-set, with an exam, with a course, with anything), get help from your advisor. Enough people stress it, but then nobody follows up on it. Get help. Your advisor, even if he or she is a total flake, will be able to reassure you and steer you in the right direction.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Prepare to be stressed out of your mind for the next four years. Other than that, you’ll be fine.</p>