Undergraduate Student Policies

Grading Policies

All Bren School Major requirements must be taken for a letter grade unless the required course is designated as “P/NP Only”. 

Pass/No Pass Policies for:

Winter 2021 - Present

Fall 2020

Spring 2020 - Summer 2020


» Calculating your GPA

The Official UC GPA is calculated by dividing the total number of Grade Points by the total number of Attempted UC Units.

Letter Grade Grade Points
A 4 points per unit
B 3 points per unit
C 2 points per unit
D 1 points per unit
F and I (incomplete) 0 points per unit

A+ grade is assigned 4 points per unit.

Plus or minus suffixes modify the above by plus or minus 0.3 grade point per unit. E.g., B+ is 3.3 points per unit, D- is 0.7 points per unit.

Non-letter grades (P, NP, I, etc.) are excluded in calculating GPA.


Example: A student takes the following courses and receives the grades:

Course Units Grade Received Grade Points Total Grade Points

Math

4

A

4.0

16.0

Writing

4

B-

2.7

10.8

Science

4

C+

2.3

9.2

Art

4

P

0.0

0

Total Grade Points (36.0) = 3.0 GPA

Total Units Passed with Letter Grade (12)

» Pass/No Pass

The P/NP grading option may be used for courses that count toward the 180 unit requirement for the Bachelor's degree, and toward the General Education Requirement.

No more than two P/NP courses may be applied to any minor on campus.

  • An average of 4 units may be taken P/NP per quarter
  • No more than 12 units TOTAL of Pass/No Pass ONLY may be applied towards graduation requirements during your undergraduate career.
  • “Pass” is equal to grade of C or better.
  • “Not Pass” is equal to a grade of C- or below.
  • All courses counting towards major requirements must be taken for a letter grade. 

Detailed information can be found in the General Catalogue.

P/NP Policy

  • Winter 2021 - Present
    • P/NP policy is based on the UCI Catalogue policy
    • Major requirements may not be taken P/NP
    • Enrollment exception requests up to Friday of week 10 at 5pm will be considered (not a guarantee of approval for)
    • COM and 2nd bacc courses must be taken for a letter grade
    • WR 39A, 39AP, and 37 allow the P/NP option for students.
  • Fall 2020
    • Major requirements may not be taken P/NP
    • COM and 2nd bacc policies remain the same as spring (please see below)
    • Enrollment exception requests up to week 10 will be considered (not a guarantee of approval)
    • Academic Probation: Same as below, excepting major requirements

  • Spring and Summer 2020
    • For Spring 2020 students can change their grade in any manner they want, up to week 10. For Summer 2020 students can change their grade options through the end of instruction for the session in which they are enrolled.
    • Per the academic senate policy, any P/NP taken Spring and/or Summer 2020 will:
      • not impact the 12 unit P/NP rule,
      • not impact the 2 P/NP course policy for minors, Schools will use existing grades for gpa calculation
      • not impact the number of P/NP that can be taken in a single quarter.
    • ICS Major requirements: May be taken P/NP for Spring and Summer 2020 ONLY. GPAs will be calculated based on earned grades.
    • ICS Change of Major policy: One course may be taken for the P/NP option. GPAs will be calculated based on earned grades.
    • ICS AP/DQ policy: May take courses P/NP, however all courses must be earned for the Pass option in order to avoid disqualification. 

» Illegal Duplication of Credit

Undergraduate and graduate students may not receive unit credit or earn grade points for college courses in which the content duplicates material of a previously completed course or examination for which the student has been granted college credit.

» Repeating Deficient Grades

A course may be repeated only when grades of C-, D+, D, D-, F, or NP were received. Unit credit for courses so repeated will be given only once.

The grade assigned at each enrollment shall be permanently recorded.

Only the most recently received grades and grade points shall be used for the first 16 units repeated when calculating GPA. (The grade point average is based on all additional grades assigned in cases of further course repetitions.)