Dental School Repeat Policy

Dental students, who repeat a course, may do so under certain conditions:

1. The repeated course may be taken at Marquette or another institution of higher education approved by the associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Dentistry.

2. The repeated course must be substantially similar to the original course in content and must be approved by the course director and the associate dean for academic affairs.

3. The repeated course may be graded with the same grading options as the original or the grading scheme utilized by the institution offering the course. (Students may not exercise a Pass/Fail option for a repeated course unless it is the required grading scheme.) Courses that are failed may be repeated once if permission is obtained from the course director and the associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Dentistry. A failed grade is determined as any grade that is lower than the minimum grade needed in a course, as per university policy and/or the requirements of the School of Dentistry. A passing grade is determined by the minimum grade required to receive credit for the course, or to fulfill the program requirements of the School of Dentistry, as published in the academic program requirements of the university/college/school/department.

4. Once a passing grade is earned in a course, the course may not be repeated.

5. These courses allow unlimited repeats: continuation placeholder (i.e. Extended Clinical Practice), honors/independent study/research, and variable title courses (e.g., topics). Permission of the course director and associate dean for academic affairs may be required prior to registration for these courses.

Credit hours earned in a repeated course are only awarded once; however, all previous courses and grades remain on the permanent academic record. The grade in the original course is excluded from the cumulative grade point average calculation and only the repeated grade is included in the cumulative grade point average—whether that grade is higher or lower than the original grade. The cumulative grade point average is adjusted at the time the repeated course is graded. When students audit or withdraw from the repeated course, the earlier grade remains in the cumulative grade point average. When students repeat a course at an institution other than Marquette, it is not included in the term or cumulative GPA but it does fulfill the graduation requirement for the School of Dentistry.

At the time of registration, students must file a course repeat form in the School of Dentistry Office of Student Services for all courses being repeated that term. The ‘Request Permission to Repeat a Course’ form found online at the Marquette Central academic forms website. This request is only approved when students have not earned a passing grade in the course, as per university and/or program standards that state a specific minimum grade must be earned in that specific course and have has not previously earned the required minimum grade.