Cal Poly’s new Credit/No-Credit (CR/NC) grading deadline took effect this quarter, with students now able to select this grading option until the end of Week 8.
The Academic Senate voted in June to extend the deadline, which was formerly the eighth day of instruction typically during Week 2 of each quarter.
The policy change will provide students more of a “lifeline” if a student is inundated with several difficult classes and only has so much time to spend on a minor or general education class, according to Academic Senate Chair Jerusha Greenwood.
“It’s something that we hope makes students’ lives a little easier,” Greenwood said.
The rest of the CR/NC policy remains the same–students can only select 16 units as CR/NC during their entire time at Cal Poly–but they now have a longer time to decide to do so.
Cal Poly extended the deadline during COVID-19 to the last day of Week 10 while they temporarily relaxed most CR/NC unit limits.
The school reinstated its regular policy in 2021, but discussions about permanently changing it continued.
Cal Poly’s former deadline was far stricter than many other California schools; no University of California school has a CR/NC deadline before Week 6, according to their registration pages.
Greenwood said it can be hard to gauge a class’s difficulty in the first few days, and the previous CR/NC deadline often passed after just three class meetings, risking students’ GPAs.
“It’s a ridiculously short period of time for students to make such a high-stakes decision,” Greenwood said. “That just made no sense.”
If a general education or minor class ramped up in difficulty late during a busy quarter, the option to change a class to CR/NC could relieve a huge burden, Greenwood said.
“This just seemed like something that made a lot of sense, knowing you have that outlet,” Greenwood said.
University advising officials were “powerful advocates” in helping faculty understand why the longer deadline could help struggling students, Greenwood said.
“Students didn’t have enough time to make a decision whether they should opt for the CR/NC option,” said Beth Miller, Assistant Vice Provost for University Advising.
When Cal Poly created their long-standing CR/NC policy in the 1990s, they cited faculty research arguing that students who chose CR/NC grading in classes were “working toward a lower standard” than others.
But now, some faculty have another theory about why students choose the grading option.
“It really is a decision about surviving a term,” Greenwood said. “This is just an option to make that a little less stressful.”
Correction: This article has been updated on Oct. 24 to correct an incorrect date