Academic Forgiveness

Washtenaw Community College acknowledges that not all students are equally prepared for a successful academic career. Academic Forgiveness is intended to provide an opportunity to remove a period of poor academic performance at WCC from the GPA calculation. WCC recommends that a student attempt to repair their transcript by repeating a course or courses first, and utilize Academic Forgiveness as a last step.

Stipulations

• Academic Forgiveness is not reversible.
• Academic Forgiveness may be granted a maximum of two times. Once for developmental coursework and once for college-level coursework.
• Academic Forgiveness applies to a maximum of 24 credit hours. The courses do not need to be in the same semester or in contiguous semesters.
• Classes are forgiven only for the purposes of the WCC GPA. Other institutions may interpret academically forgiven classes differently and use the original grades.
• Forgiven classes and grades remain on the transcript with Academic Forgiveness noted.
• Courses included in Academic Forgiveness must have grades that affect your WCC grade point average. Courses with a grading format that does not impact GPA (such as Pass/No Pass, Audit, Withdrawn, Incomplete, and Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) are excluded from the Academic Forgiveness process.
• Forgiven classes cannot be applied toward graduation from WCC, therefore if you are requesting forgiveness after earning a certificate or degree any course used for that program is ineligible
• Classes removed from the GPA under Academic Forgiveness will still count toward attempted classes for financial aid purposes.

Criteria

To be granted Academic Forgiveness, you must understand and meet this criteria:

1. Only grades of C- or lower qualify for forgiveness.
2. If applying for forgiveness of college-level coursework then a minimum of 2 years must have elapsed between the poor academic performance and your request. You may continue to enroll during that 2-year period at WCC.
3. If applying for forgiveness of college-level coursework then you must have completed at least 12 credit hours with a 2.0 GPA or higher since the most recent semester involved in Academic Forgiveness.
   Note: For the purposes of calculating this GPA grades of W, N, I, IX, U, NP, or AU (prior to S24) will count as F grades. However, excluded grades are not used in the calculation.
4. If applying for forgiveness of developmental coursework, you must demonstrate that you have progressed beyond that course level. This can be shown by either earning a higher placement score through retesting, or successfully completing another college-level course in the same subject area.
   1. Example 1: You earned a C- or lower in ENG 111S, but earned a C or higher in ENG 111, resulting in a placement level of 6/6 in reading and writing. ENG 111S is eligible for forgiveness.
   2. Example 2: You earned a C- or lower in MTH 125X, but later earned a Math level of 3 or higher through retesting or by passing a higher-level math course. MTH 125X is eligible for forgiveness.
   3. Example 3: You earned a C- or lower in MTH 168, but later earned a Math level of 4 or higher through retesting or course completion. MTH 168 is eligible for forgiveness.

Apply

Complete the application for academic forgiveness by scheduling an appointment with your WCC Academic Advisor.

Your advisor will discuss the ramifications and alternatives with you, ensure you meet the criteria, and ask you to confirm your understanding by signing the application. With the advisor's recommendation, the application is forwarded to the Student Records Office to verify the criteria has been met, disclosure to the student was performed, and then the changes will be posted to your transcript.

Financial aid implications

Due to federal regulations, the Office of Financial Aid does not acknowledge Academic Forgiveness when calculating eligibility for aid all previous conditions for aid remain.