Special Credit

Special credit is course credit awarded by a unit to a student who has satisfied an academic requirement based on an individual examination of the student's knowledge, work or experience that was not part of a regular course.  If a student meets a department’s requirements for receiving special credit, the department initiates an eSpecial Credit request. The request will be routed to all required approvers.

After the request has been approved and the credit posted to the student’s record, both the request initiator and the student will receive an email confirmation, and the credits will appear on the student’s transcript.

If a request isn’t fully approved within 120 days, it will be cancelled automatically.

Awarding special credit for proficiency

Students can receive special credit for testing out of a class or for life or job experience, personal skills or talents, or other demonstrations of proficiency. Academic departments have the option to grant course credit on a case-by-case basis.

Departments establish their own academic standards and evaluation methods. To establish their skill level, students may be required to:

• Sit for an exam
• Complete an assignment
• Audition
• Provide a portfolio
• Take more advanced courses before receiving lower-level credit

A department will generally grade work for a special credit S for satisfactory or else choose not to award special credit. In exceptional circumstances, the department may opt to award the student an A for outstanding work.  However, the A will not be used in computing GPA.

Sometimes a department may waive a student’s requirement to take a particular course. However, overall degree requirements remain, and students must complete another course to earn enough total hours to graduate.