Grade Forgiveness and Repetition of Courses

 

 

Beginning with the AY 2026-2027 catalog, undergraduate students may repeat up to 16 semester units for grade forgiveness and 12 semester units for course repeat for a total of 28 semester units. (In course repeat, the repeat grade does not replace the original grade but instead both grades shall be calculated into the student’s overall grade point average.)

 

 

 

In alignment with CSU Executive Order 1037 the policy applying to repetition of courses shall be as follows:

 

Undergraduate students may repeat courses only if they earned a grade of C– or lower. Students may repeat up to 16 semester units with grade forgiveness*. An individual course may be repeated for grade forgiveness no more than two times. Grade forgiveness shall not be applicable to courses for which the original grade was the result of academic dishonesty. Students may repeat** up to an additional 12 semester units where both the original and repeated grades are calculated into the student’s GPA. Additional provisions of this policy include:

 

• If an original grade is “forgiven” from the GPA, both grades will appear on the transcript.

• If a course originally taken for a letter grade is repeated with Credit/No Credit grading, the original grade is not excluded from the GPA.

• Grade forgiveness does not apply if the second grade is lower than the original grade. In this case, both grades are averaged into the GPA.

• Courses subsequently repeated at another institution and transferred back to Cal Poly are not eligible for grade forgiveness.

• Courses taken by graduate students toward the graduate degree are not eligible for grade forgiveness or removal from the GPA.

• Repeat adjustments are made automatically at the end of the term in which the course is repeated.

 

Repeat Petitions for Grade Forgiveness must be submitted to the Office of the Registrar for the situations listed below:

 

• The course was originally taken at another institution.

• The course has changed prefix or number.

• The courses are considered similar in content but not identical (e.g., STAT 217/218)

• The same topic of a topics course is being repeated.

• The course was originally taken at Cal Poly before Fall 1987.

 

Once undergraduate students accumulate 28 semester units of repeated courses (16 with forgiveness + 12 for averaging), they will no longer be allowed to repeat any future courses.

 

* Grade forgiveness occurs when a new grade from a repeated course replaces the former grade in terms of the calculation of GPA.

** Course repeats with grades averaged occurs when a new grade from a repeated course does not replace the original grade and instead both grades are calculated into the student’s overall GPA.