Academic Policies

AAP abides by the university’s Code of Academic Integrity. All students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with this code. Academic integrity violations are overseen by the Academic Integrity Hearing Board.

To be in good academic standing, an AAP undergraduate student must:

1. Successfully complete a minimum of 12 academic credits* each semester
2. Earn a minimum semester grade point average (GPA) of 2.300
3. Comply with college and department curriculum and rules

In addition, a minimum GPA of 2.000 is required for graduation.

*Please review the college policies on nonacademic credit and repeated courses with regard to academic standing.

The Academic Success Program (ASP) is carried out by the AAP student services staff to support students who are struggling academically for a variety of reasons. Our team works with students to identify areas that may be causing academic difficulties, address these academic challenges, and then connect them with the proper resources for support on campus that will help facilitate success.

All students placed on academic warning or final warning by the Academic Review Committee are required to be enrolled in ASP. Students returning from leave or coming off of Academic Review Committee actions are able to opt in to the ASP program. Please contact us if you are interested in being enrolled in ASP.

Advanced placement credit refers to college credit that students earn before they enter Cornell as first-year students. Credit may be earned from Advanced Placement Examinations (AP Exams) from the College Examination Board (CEEB), General Certification of Education Advanced Level (“A” Level Exams), International Baccalaureate Examinations, and Cornell department examinations (CASE). Its primary purpose is to exempt students from introductory courses and to place them in advanced courses. 

Advanced placement credit is applied as free / out-of-department elective credit only, with the exception of up to one First-Year Writing Seminar for B.F.A. and B.S. URS students. B.F.A. and B.S. URS students earning a score of five on one English literature and English language exam will receive three credits which will be applied toward one First-Year Writing Seminar. B.F.A. and B.S. URS students earning a score of five on both English literature and English language exams will receive three credits toward one First-Year Writing Seminar and three credits towards the free elective requirement. B.Arch. students cannot apply advanced placement credit toward their one required First-Year Writing Seminar. B.Arch. students earning a score of five on either English literature or English language will have the corresponding credits applied toward the free / out-of-department elective credit only.

Advanced placement credit may not be applied toward core major requirements or distribution requirements. To submit your AP scores, please request them through CollegeBoard to be sent to “Cornell University” and they will be assessed accordingly. For additional information, please refer to the guidelines regarding advanced placement credit.

Undergraduate and professional degree students may not audit any classes. More information on the auditing policy can be found here.

Each semester, students are expected to enroll in the courses outlined in their published curriculum. AAP students are required to enroll in a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 20 academic credits. Physical Education credit does not count as academic credit. To exceed the credit limit, students must submit a petition.

Students wishing to deviate from degree requirements and / or request exceptions to any college or department policy or procedure must petition the academic department for permission. All petitions must be submitted prior to the act with the faculty advisor’s signature. Course enrollment petitions may also require the instructor’s signature. Petitions that are denied can be appealed, but cannot be re-petitioned. Petition forms are available online on the academic forms page.

For letter-graded courses, a minimum passing grade is a D-. For S-U-graded courses, a grade of S is equivalent to a grade of C– or higher; a grade of U, which is equivalent to any grade below C–, is a failing grade equal to an F. Grades appear on a student’s transcript. S-U graded courses are not factored into a student’s GPA. 

Programs have their own specific grading requirements. You can read more on Programs of Study.

Classes that fulfill specific graduation requirements must be taken for a letter grade. The satisfactory/unsatisfactory grade option may be used for free elective credit.

Grades are to be assigned only for work completed during the normal period of the semester. As a matter of equity, grades must not be changed after the end of a semester because a student may have subsequently done additional work. A grade, once given, may only be changed if an error in the original grade was made by the instructor.

Cornell University grants three types of leaves: personal leave of absence, health leave of absence, and required leave of absence.

• Personal leaves of absence (PLOA) may be granted for a variety of reasons. The student may request a personal leave of absence by submitting a completed Leave of Absence Request form.
• A health leave of absence (HLOA) is recommended when a student’s medical or mental health condition is found — collaboratively with the student and their health care provider(s) — to significantly impair their ability to function successfully or safely as a student. It is expected that the student uses the time away from the university for treatment and recovery. The college works closely with the HLOA coordinator to facilitate the leave. Students wishing to return from a health leave of absence must notify both Cornell Health and the college.
• Required leaves of absence (RLOA) for academic reasons may be required by the Academic Review Committee if a student is not in good academic standing. A required leave may supersede a previously approved personal leave of absence.

Students on any type of leave of absence from AAP are not permitted to enroll in courses at Cornell during their leave. Students may take courses at other institutions. 

To return from a leave of absence, a student must complete this form along with their projected academic plan. Requests for Spring-semester return must be made by October 1, and requests for Fall-semester return must be made by March 1.

To get permission to attend two classes whose times partially overlap, students must submit a Time Conflict Permission form. 

Adding and dropping classes is performed through Student Center enrollment pages. Students may add and drop classes during each Fall and Spring semester’s specified enrollment periods (pre-enrollment and add/drop). The university provides a calendar with key academic dates for add, drop, and withdrawal deadlines each semester.

The university offers a broad range of courses and some of these courses have overlapping content. Students who enroll in courses with overlapping content will only receive credit for one of those courses. Forbidden overlap information is indicated as appropriate on each course.

To request to update a student’s expected degree date this form must be submitted to AAP Student Services.

The grade of incomplete (INC) is appropriate only when two basic conditions are met:

1. The student has substantial equity at a passing level in the course with respect to work completed. As a guideline, at least two-thirds of all course requirements should have already been satisfactorily completed, or all work should have been completed except for a final paper, final exam, or final project.
2. The student has been prevented by circumstances beyond the student’s control, such as illness or family emergency, from completing all of the course requirements on time.

Ordinarily, the request for an INC must be submitted by the last day of classes, and an INC should be resolved within one calendar year from when it was assigned unless otherwise indicated by the program. An instructor may set a shorter time frame for completion, if appropriate. An incomplete may not be given merely because a student fails to complete all course requirements on time. For additional information, please refer to university guidelines on incompletes under the “Grading” drawer.

Students must have already completed the minimum number of semesters expected by their degree program to be eligible for prorated tuition in their final semester. Students applying for prorated tuition are required to meet with the AAP Office of Admissions and Student Services to confirm eligibility. Eligible students may apply to prorate up to nine credit hours during the final semester. 

All applicants for prorated tuition should be aware of the possible impact that this enrollment status may have on financial aid, student loans, scholarships, on-campus employment, health insurance, international student status, or other considerations. It is the responsibility of the student to resolve these situations prior to submitting the application.

Repeated courses are courses taken a second (or subsequent) time, even if a passing grade was earned.

• Repeated course credits count toward the minimum credits per semester required for good academic standing.
• Credits earned from repeating a course do not count toward the minimum number of credits required for graduation.*
• If a course is repeated, both courses and both grades are included on the official transcript (i.e., if a course is repeated, the second course does not replace the first course on the official transcript).
• If taken for a letter grade, both grades are included in the calculation of the GPA. 
• Some courses, such as special topics courses in which content is significantly different, do grant credit when the course is taken more than once (ex: CRP 3850/CRP 7850, ARCH 3819/ARCH 5819).

*Exception for architecture studio courses: In the case of architecture studio courses which are repeated because the minimum grade of ‘C’ or better was not achieved, the credits from the course with a non-advancing grade will count toward the minimum number of credits required for graduation if a minimum grade of D- was achieved. Those credits will be applied as departmental free elective credits.

In order for transfer credit to be accepted by AAP, the coursework must:

• Be completed at a regionally accredited institution in the United States or the student’s country of permanent residence;
• Be completed for a letter grade of C or better; and
• Be equivalent in rigor to a Cornell course, as judged by:
  • Course content and/or
  • The use of a textbook similar to that used in the parallel Cornell course and/or
  • The use of examinations, writing assignments, projects, portfolios, or other submitted work that is substantially similar to those required in a similar Cornell course and/or
  • Substantially similarity in meeting hours of the Cornell and non-Cornell course

The AAP registrar in the Office of Admissions and Student Services reviews all transfer credit to ensure that it meets the minimum college and university transfer credit criteria. This requires the submission of an official, sealed transcript. If the coursework meets college and university criteria, it will be applied as free / out-of-department elective credit. 

Current AAP students wishing to receive credit toward a specific degree requirement must submit a petition. Please consult with the AAP registrar regarding this process, and note that First-Year Writing Seminars and mathematics and quantitative reasoning courses have their own approval processes.

More information is available at the following links:

• Mathematics and Quantitative Reasoning Transfer Credit
• First-Year Writing Seminar Transfer Credit