Undergrad Pass/Fail Grading Option

For the Spring 2020 term only, Washington State University has enhanced the Pass/Fail grading option so that students enrolled in undergraduate courses may choose to earn a Pass/Fail grade instead of a letter grade for some or all courses.

Students opting to change from a letter grade to the Pass/Fail grade will earn:

A Pass/Fail grade of:	If their final letter grade in the course was:
P	A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C
PP	C-, D+, D
F	F

Courses with a a grade of P or PP will earn credit for completion, but will not be included in the calculation of the student’s grade point average (GPA). Courses with a grade of F will not earn credit for completion, but will be included in the calculation of student’s GPA.

Students may submit their online request to change to or reverse the Pass/Fail grading option for one or more courses here until June 1, 2020.

More information regarding the Spring 2020 Pass/Fail grading option can be found online here.

No. Attend your classes and do your best. Whether you choose the Pass/Fail option or not, it is very important that you continue to attend and work hard. Please understand that just because you may have been passing at the mid-term does not mean you now can stop working on course assignments and exams, and still expect to pass the course. For example, if you earned a 75% on 50% of your work at midterm, and then stopped (thus earning 0% on the other 50% of your work), you would have only earned a 38% (and a grade of F) at the end of the term. Ultimately, the classes you are taking now build the foundation for success in future classes and may be required prerequisites for future semesters.

No. You do not need approval from your instructor or advisor. However, you are strongly encouraged to discuss this decision with your academic advisor. You can find your academic advisor’s contact information listed under Advisors in your myWSU Academic Advising tile.

Yes. You can reverse your decision until June 1,2020 using the same request form.

You can repeat a Pass/Fail grade if you earned a grade of “PP” or “F.” However, you cannot repeat a grade of “P.”

• Students will earn credit for Spring 2020 business courses taken toward Carson College of Business major and minor requirements without impacting their cumulative WSU, Admission (a.k.a. Certification), and Business GPAs. Business courses include courses with the prefixes of ACCTG, B_A, BLAW, ENTRP, FIN, HBM, I_BUS, MGMT, MGTOP, MIS and MKTG (100 to 400-level classes only).
• Students will meet business, math, and economics course prerequisites requiring a letter grade of “C” or better when earning the Pass/Fail grade of “P.”
• Students will not meet business, math, or economics course prerequisites requiring a letter grade of “C” or better when earning the Pass/Fail grade of “PP” or “F.”
• For students who were on a Spring semester study abroad taking courses from another university, WSU cannot change the grades from another university. Thus, the Pass/Fail grading option is not available for such courses, unless that university has made that change.
• For graduating students:
  • Carson College majors and minors may use courses with a P or PP grade from Spring 2020 to satisfy graduation requirements.
  • For Spring and Summer 2020 only, the Carson College is reducing the minimum GPA required to graduate from 2.50 to 2.30.
• For students applying for admission/certification by the end of Fall 2020:
  • Students who began Fall 2019 or are on the new business curriculum may earn either a “P” or a letter grade of “C” or better in all required admission courses and a minimum cumulative WSU GPA of 2.40.
  • Students who began prior to Fall 2019 or are on the previous business curriculum may earn a minimum cumulative WSU and certification GPA of 2.40.

You should consider the following factors when deciding to change from earning a letter grade to earning a Pass/Fail grade for a course or courses.

• Wait to make your decision.
  Because you may wait until June 1, 2020 to request a change to a Pass/Fail grade for one or more of your courses, you also have the benefit of waiting until your final grades post before making the decision to change from earning a letter grade to earning a Pass/Fail grade.
• Consider how Pass/Fail grades may impact financial aid and scholarships.
  If you have questions regarding how your decision may impact this, please reach out to Student Financial Services.
• Consider how Pass/Fail grades may impact your application and acceptance to graduate and professional programs.
  If you have questions regarding how your decision may impact this, please reach out to the graduate and/or professional programs for which you intended to apply.
• Consider how Pass/Fail grades impact your WSU, Admission (a.k.a Certification), and Business GPA.
  If you need to raise your GPA to certify or graduate, you may not want to take all your courses Pass/Fail. Instead, after you see your final course grades in early May, you may consider changing only those grades that are less than a C+ to Pass/Fail.
  • For example, a student considering a change from letter grade to Pass/Fail grade for a course should compare their final GPA with their GPA using a Pass/Fail substitution for the grade. Upon comparing these respective GPAs, the student may decide:
    • The letter grade will have a positive impact on their GPA, and thus, no change to Pass/Fail is needed.
    • The letter grade will have a negative impact on their GPA, and thus, a change to Pass/Fail is needed.
• Use the online resources provided for you here.
  In addition, the Registrar’s Office website provides information about Covid-19 grading, deadlines, and instructions.
• Talk to your Advisor.
  Carson College advisors are meeting with students through Zoom, by email, and by phone. If you haven’t done so yet, schedule an appointment with your advisor, especially if you plan to register for Summer or Fall classes.