Academic Forgiveness

If your grade point average has improved to a 2.0 or above in recent years, academic forgiveness can provide an opportunity to remove a period of poor academic performance at WCC from your GPA calculation. We recommend that you first attempt to repair your transcript by repeating a course(s), and utilize academic Forgiveness as a last resort.

Conditions

• Poor academic performance must be at least 3 years ago.
• You must have achieved at least 12 credit hours at 2.0 or above since the period of poor grades. For the purpose of calculating academic Forgiveness, classes taken since the period of poor academic performance with a final grade of W, AU, N, IX, or I as a final grade will count as F (failures).
• Academic forgiveness is available for a maximum of 2 semesters with a GPA under 2.0 (under a C average).
• You may pick any 2 semesters within the timeframe and specify which classes in those semesters.
• No academic forgiveness will be granted for classes used for a WCC degree or certificate.

Cautions

• Academic forgiveness is not reversible.
• Can be used only once in a lifetime.
• Classes are forgiven only for the purposes of the WCC GPA.
• Forgiven classes and grades remain on the transcript with academic forgiveness noted.
• Forgiven classes cannot be applied toward graduation from WCC.

Criteria

To be granted academic forgiveness, you must understand and meet this criteria:

1. A minimum of 3 years must have elapsed between the poor academic performance and your request. You may continue to enroll during that 3-year period at WCC.
2. Only semesters with a semester GPA of less than 2.0 are eligible for academic forgiveness.
3. Academic forgiveness applies to a maximum of two (2) semesters.
4. The 2 semesters are not required to be contiguous.
5. If approved, the classes remain on the transcript with the original grade and a notation indicating that academic forgiveness has applied to them. The forgiven classes will be excluded from the WCC GPA.
6. Once granted, academic forgiveness is not reversible under any circumstance.
7. academic forgiveness may be granted only once even if you did not take advantage of the full limit of academic forgiveness during your initial application.
8. Classes removed from the GPA under academic forgiveness will still count toward attempted classes for Financial Aid purposes.
9. Other institutions may interpret academically forgiven classes differently and use the original grades.
10. Courses that have applied toward a WCC degree or certificate will not be considered under academic forgiveness.

Apply

Complete the application for academic forgiveness with a WCC counselor or advisor via online or by telephone. In your request, specify which classes you wish to include during the semester(s) in which you are applying for academic forgiveness.

Note:

• 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, Auditor, Withdrawn, and Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) are excluded from the academic forgiveness process.

The counselor or advisor will discuss the ramifications and alternatives with you and will ask you to confirm your understanding by signing the application. With the counselor's recommendation, the application is forwarded to the Registrar 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. Transfer institutions may or may not acknowledge academic forgiveness and may recalculate the WCC GPA for their purposes. It is at the discretion of other institutions to determine how they will interpret academic forgiveness.