Grade Forgiveness Information for Students

However, the Grade Forgiveness Rule allows undergraduate students to request to repeat a course under a different arrangement: once the second attempt is completed, the grade and earned credit hours of the first attempt are permanently removed from the student's GPA calculation and total earned hours.

• The second grade, once assigned, becomes permanent; if a student repeats the same course again, all other repeats will be included under the general course repeatability rule (above)
  • This means that students who earn a lower grade in their second attempt may see their GPA fall, may lose eligibility to advance in course sequences or apply to competitive majors, or may lose credit for the course
• The original grade will remain on the student's transcript and some graduate/professional school admission processes will re-calculate the student's GPA to include the original grade
• Grade Forgiveness can be used once per course on up to three courses
• The original grade will not be removed from the student's GPA until after the final drop deadline for the term has passed (after the 10th Friday for full-term courses)
• Grade Forgiveness can only be applied to Ohio State courses: the first attempt of a course is defined as the first attempt taken at Ohio State, and the second attempt of the course is defined as the second attempt taken at Ohio State (regardless of what campus either attempt was taken on)
• Grade Forgiveness petitions will not be approved for W, PA, PE, S, U, UEN, NP, or NEN mark since those do not impact the GPA

To use Grade Forgiveness students should enroll in the course they intend to repeat and submit the Grade Forgiveness petition form by the last day to drop the course without petitioning (usually the 10th Friday of the term).

If a student needs to correct an error on a Grade Forgiveness petition form, they should email registrar@osu.edu. Once a Grade Forgiveness petition form has been received, it cannot be withdrawn.