Western Washington U: We Don't Give a 'F'

The university announced the change on Jan. 5, stating in a press release that a “strength-based grade approach” would be implemented. Beginning in fall 2024, the letter grades of D- and F will now show up as “No Credit” on transcripts.

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When a “No Credit” is given to a student after taking a course, it won’t impact the student’s GPA, the Bellingham, Washington, university said.

”Beginning this fall term, the institutional academic grading regulation will reflect a grade range of A through D; the letter grades of D- and F will be replaced with No Credit (NC) for undergraduate students. The grade of NC will be used in instances where the student does not meet the course learning objectives. The difference is that the grade of NC will not negatively impact student GPAs,” the press release states.

[I’d say they’re trying to eliminate the risk of failure, which is … idiotic. If you don’t want to use ‘F’, fine, but NC should be reflected in the GPA. Failing is one of the lessons that some students have to learn the hard way, and believe me, I was one of those students in college. Interestingly, my high school used NC rather than F during my time (1976-80) too, presumably to avoid a stigma, but those counted as a 0 against GPA. — Ed]

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