Hello AAN,
I’d like to describe the English Department’s prerequisite checking process to you in case you receive questions from your advisees.
As you know:
- ENGL 1010 (or its equivalent) with a grade of C minus or higher is a prereq for ENGL 1020.
- ENGL 1010 and 1020 (or their equivalents) with a grades of C minus or higher are prereqs for ENGL 2201/2202
After grades are official, the Registrar’s Office runs a report that pulls the names of all students who are registered for a class but do not meet the prerequisite. There are a few reasons why a student ends up on the list, the most likely being that they failed the previous course in the series. For example, a student taking ENGL 1010 in Fall registered to take ENGL 1020 in Spring, but didn’t pass ENGL 1010 with at least a C minus. If they are still registered for Spring’s offering of ENGL 1020, they will show up on the prereq check report and I will subsequently submit their name to the Registrar’s Office to be dropped for not fulfilling the prereq for ENGL 1020 (more on that in a minute).
Other reasons why students are on the list:
- Incompletes
- The student was given an Incomplete in the previous course in the series. In this situation the student MUST complete the course to be allowed to continue on to the next course because an Incomplete is not a passing grade. So although the student has 45 days to complete a course when given an Incomplete (or, effective Sp 23, they will have a full term), if they want to take the next English class in the series they will need to complete the prereq course by the last day of regular registration (for Spring 2023, that’s Jan 13). Or, if they need the full amount of time to complete the course, they can delay taking the next course in the series.
- Incoming transfer students
- The student was given a permit because either (1) their transcripts have not been uploaded, or (2) they are still completing the prereq course at their transfer school. In this situation the student will need to show a passing grade in the prereq course by the last day of regular registration. If their final transcript from the previous school will not arrive in time, they can send an unofficial copy to me.
Sometimes students who do have prereqs end up on the report, for example, if a student has an approved substitution for ENGL 1010 but Banner doesn’t recognize it as meeting the prerequisite for ENGL 1020, they will be on the report. This means that the record of every student on the report is checked to determine whether or not to drop. Before dropping students they are notified and given instructions for alternate courses. For example, the student registered for ENGL 1020 that didn’t pass ENGL 1010 will be encouraged to sign up for ENGL 1010 in Spring so that they repeat it as soon as possible. I also include a line about reaching out to their advisors if they have additional concerns/questions about their schedule.
After students are notified of the intent to drop them I send the list to the Registrar’s Office, and they process the drops.
If a student has an Incomplete or still needs to submit a transcript, they are notified that they must complete the course or produce the transcript by the last day of regular registration to avoid being dropped.
So drops for Spring typically happen in two waves:
- those who failed the prereq course are dropped in December
- those who had Incompletes or missing transcripts but don’t resolve those issues by the last day of regular registration are dropping in January