Maybe I’m mistaken, and the registrar does have the authority to make these kinds of changes. I know they weren’t able to do anything in my son’s situation, but perhaps in your case, they can.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if some of the people who’ve been sending you from one person to another just don’t fully understand the rules, and those who do understand them may not be very good at explaining them. And as soon as a student from one college has a question about a course taken in another college . . . well, everything goes to heck in a handbasket!
Again, what resolved things for my son was finally getting through to someone high enough up in the Registrar’s office that they were able to explain things. They couldn’t fix anything, but they were able to say “this is possible” or “this isn’t possible.” They should also be able to explain how a grading change (from letter grade to pass/fail) gets processed. Once you have that information, you can decide for yourself whether it’s worth pursuing.
If you’re going to go that route (speaking to someone in the Registrar’s office), write up your questions ahead of time, so you can approach the topic calmly and logically. And explain right at the beginning, to the first person who answers the phone, that you have some detailed questions, you’ve been getting a runaround, and you’d like to speak with someone who knows enough about the system that they should be able to answer your questions.
I am an international student, and I can’t be a part time student. I should take at least 12 credits, but withdrawl would result in 10 credit(3 credit from BSC 300 and 13 credit total). God, being a foreign student really blows when something like this happens. A bit of digression, but it seems like I will get my Green card withtin 2.5 years!
Anyway, @dodgersmom when you say someone high in the Registrar’s office, do you mean the University registrar or the registrar of the college he belonged to?
Paul, sorry, but make sure you aren’t confusing by using “change my grade.”
Oh I know @lookingforward when I say “change” I meant “switch to P/F”. Although I seriously doubt anyone I have talked to got confused.
I meant the university registrar - not the college registrar.
Keep down the path of having it changed to pass from grade. Instructor is just needing the right approval to have it submitted as a pass for the grade.
I think something has to be approved in A & S. That was what needed to happen in DD’s situation, which also required coordination from her dept (COEng).
The deadline for change from grade to pass/fail - the date was known to you but you couldn’t get in with adviser for approval? You should have darkened the COE Ass’t Dean for approval to make the change or seen someone else in advising.
I know hindsight is 20/20, but you do need to persist on this to get it corrected.
As I said repeatedly, no other advisors were available when I tried to meet mine or others. Although I think I should have thought of Asst’ Dean at that time.
Can the Dean of COE and/or the Dean of A&S call the professor and EXPLAIN what they’re supposed to do? Because it sounds like everybody more or less agrees but no ones knows who’s responsible, except for agreeing the professor should do it, and the professor seems confused, perhaps he doesn’t know how to do it.
Wow, this is bureaucracy at its finest!! Maybe you need to take an advocate with you…a native English speaker to reduce the possibility of implicit bias. Because this is crazy.
I m not sure if Dean of A&S is willing to help; the assis’ dean says it’s within the jurisdiction of COE, while the COE dean simply says “talk to the registrar!” when COE registrar says the prof should do it and the univ. registrar simplu don’t have any authority.
IMO, the professor should do it but he doesn’t know how to. He did say once that he hasn’t had any student trying to take this as Pass/Fail though.
Edit: I just called the University registrar again because I wanted to see which division should handle this and it IS done in COE in this case since my major is Chem. E. The one I talked to just now says in this case, the University registrar needs an approval from the Dean of the COE.
I will contact dean, and see if he can send something to the Registrar. Honestly, if the Dean had given me the contact to the Univ. registrar in first place I wouldn’t be in this mess.
Deleted (didn’t want to be negative to the OP)
Update: The Dean wants me to talk to the Assis’ dean of COE. Looks like she handles this kind of thing pretty often.
Will make an appointment.
The assi’t Dean said: unfortunately, I can’t get Pass/FAil in this class because the date to request Pass/Fail was Jan 20th, and once it has passed the deadline the student can’t rescind the decsion to take Pass/Fail.
As @dodgersmom stated before, the website was NOT clear about the deadline to request Pass/Fail(which is same as Add/Drop date)so it was an oversight in draft, definitely. However, it doesn’t really matter in this case because the whole point was to get an exception. Oh well time to move on.
Sorry about the disappointing outcome . . . but kudos to the Asst. Dean for finally giving you a definitive answer.