Grading System–Doctoral Program
The grading system for doctoral studies includes the letter grades A, B, C, D, and F for all courses except Dissertation. The grades of S or U will be assigned to the Dissertation. Courses with grades below B- or U must be retaken. Research and statistics courses with an earned grade of C+ or below must be retaken before proceeding forward in the doctoral program. The third grade below a B- (i.e., C+ or below) in the same attempted course leads to permanent termination from the program.
A grade point average of 3.0 must be maintained for satisfactory academic progress. Grades of F or D will likely result in permanent termination, unless an emergency circumstance arises or the student files a successful program appeal. Emergency circumstances are: hospitalization of self or immediate family member; death in immediate family; and military deployment. Students are welcome to appeal to the Program Director.
For content courses, incompletes are permitted only in the event of sickness or emergency reasons near end of course and must be approved by the professor and the program director. Incompletes are not permitted for simply not completing work. The “I” must be removed by the end of the subsequent semester.
For dissertation credits, Incompletes may be permitted provided all of the following circumstances are met: the student has not previously earned a U or I in dissertation; there is a timeline issue outside the student’s control; student makes a written request for the incomplete no later than the eighth week of the current semester; the Program Director approves the request for the Incomplete. The “I” must be removed by the end of the subsequent semester.
Research-Based Technology, Scientifically-Based Research I and II, as well as Technology-Based Statistics, and Applied Statistics courses are gate-keeping benchmarks within the EdD program. For these courses to be completed successfully, students must earn a final grade of B- or higher. Students will not be allowed to proceed in the doctoral program until these courses are successfully completed.