Effective Fall 2025, DGS will become the Division of Exploratory Studies. Same mission; new name.

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Credit / No Credit

No

The credit/no credit grading option is designed to encourage student exploration of areas of academic interest that might otherwise be avoided for fear of poor grades.

Students who earn at least a D− in a CR/NC course will receive credit hours with a final grade of CR on the transcript. Students who earn a grade of F will not receive credit hours and will have a final grade of NC on the transcript. In either case, the course will not affect the student’s GPA. (effective Fall 2022)

Courses taken for credit/no credit cannot be used to meet any General Education, major, or minor requirement, including courses taken to complete the foreign language requirement. The CR/NC option may not be used with courses graded as satisfactory/unsatisfactory.

Students must choose the credit/no credit option during the first half of the course term (e.g., the first 8 weeks of the semester, the fourth week of the summer session, or by the fourth week of an 8-week course).

DGS students must meet an academic advisor to complete a credit/no credit form in office.

If students later want to return to the traditional grade option, they must file an amended request with an academic advisor no later than the original deadline to select CR/NC.

Yes. These are as follows:

  • Full-time students in good academic standing may elect up to two CR/NC courses in a semester. (one course if summer term).
  • Full-time students on Low GPA Warning or College Academic Warning, formerly called probation, may elect one CR/NC course in a semester. (effective Fall 2022)
  • Part-time students may elect one CR/NC course in a semester.
  • A maximum of 18 hours of CR/NC may be counted toward a degree.

Be careful about using this option if you plan to apply to professional or graduate school. These programs may consider applicants with a significant number of non-graded courses less favorably than those with none or very few. Likewise, some schools may convert the NC symbol to a failing grade in computing a pre-admission GPA.

For example, passed courses taken CR/NC at Illinois will NOT be included in the calculation of your LSAC-generated GPA. However, LSAC counts courses with 'NC' grades as 'F' in your LSAC-generated GPA.