Grades
Grade Options
When registering for courses, Brown students must indicate whether they are taking a course for a grade (G) or satisfactory/no credit (S/NC). As an instructor, you may on occasion require students to take your course S/NC for pedagogical reasons. Otherwise, your students have the option to choose. They may change their grade option for a course online during the first two weeks of the semester or in the Registrar’s Office through the first four weeks of the semester by filing a Course Change Form. No grade option changes are allowed after the first four weeks of any semester.
Students use the S/NC option for a variety of reasons. You may even encourage a student who is concerned about your course to choose this option. But most students agree that S/NC allows for exploration of a particular topic without the stress and pressure that a graded evaluation may impart. They often do better in S/NC courses simply because they are intrinsically motivated to perform at a consistent and high level.
N.B. If a student has done extraordinarily well in a course taken S/NC, faculty have the option of adding a "distinction" to the S-grade to indicate the high quality of the work done. Academic honors such as magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa are awarded on the basis of the number of grades of “A” or “S with distinction” in a student’s record.
Course Performance Reports (CPR)
You should know that any student regularly enrolled in a course may request a Course Performance Report (CPR) and, at the instructor’s discretion, receive one. Instructors of mandatory S/NC courses are obliged to honor such requests. For all other courses, instructors may decline to submit such a form if they believe they have inadequate information to do so. Students who would like a CPR for a given course are therefore advised to request CPRs from course instructors before mid-semester.
Course Performance Reports are not part of a student’s official academic record or transcript, but a student may request that the University send out one or more CPRs with their official transcripts. In such cases, students must provide the Registrar’s Office with copies of the CPRs when submitting their transcript requests.
Changing Course Registration
Students may drop and add courses using the online registration system for the first two weeks of a semester without charge. Course changes made after the initial two-week period must be made in person at the Registrar’s Office and are assessed a fee for each change. First-year students will need the instructor’s and their advisor’s signature for each course change after the first two weeks of the semester.
A copy of each change form filed by a student is returned to the student for retention as evidence that he or she has in fact filed the appropriate form. Students are strongly advised to keep their copies in a readily available location in the event there is any question that they filed the required forms.
