Forgiveness is Divine: Moving Past "Look to Your Left, Look to Your Right"
By: Tony Rehagen | Categories: Alumni Interest
Even as a high schooler in Johns Creek, Ga., Aanjan Sikal knew of Georgia Tech's tough reputation. The Institute was renowned as the standard for academics in the state and the region, an establishment that prided itself on holding students to the highest rigors of classroom performance. “Tech has always been known as the bar-setter,” says Sikal, now a third-year industrial engineering student at Tech. “It was the hard school that everyone was scared of.”
That challenge is part of what appealed to students like Sikal. During his senior year of high school, he and a few classmates enrolled in online Tech classes that would give their Yellow Jacket careers a head start. In doing so, they read about a little-known grade forgiveness policy that allows Tech undergrads to retake up to two classes in which they received a D or F to try to boost that grade. It helped put their minds at ease. “This helped us feel safer signing up,” says Sikal. “We wanted those As and Bs, but we knew if we did get a D or F, we had a safety net.”
Grade substitution for undergraduate students was added to the Tech catalog in 2005. At the time, it signaled a significant shift in thinking for an administration that had for years traditionally told assembled freshmen to “look to their left, then look to their right—only one of you will be here in four years.”
“By this time the discussion and the culture had changed,” says Reta Pikowsky, Georgia Tech associate vice provost and registrar. “The thought was maybe we should be a little more forgiving. We were seeing these bright, competitive kids that had always done well, and when they got to Tech, it was a shock, a bucket of cold water. We’ve known for years that students who go through a rough time can certainly recover—and you want them to recover. That’s what everyone wants.”
Still, even proponents of grade forgiveness wanted to be sure the policy wasn’t seen as a watering down of requirements or standards. Knowing the competitive nature of Tech students, they also didn’t want the policy to be used to polish resumes by boosting a C to a B or a B to an A. That’s why students could only retake a course with a D or F. Further, the new grade would replace the old in calculation of cumulative grade point average, but the original grade would still be permanent on the student’s transcript. Other stipulations are that the course must be repeated within one calendar year and the student can’t have any academic misconduct on their record.
Initially, the policy only applied to first-year students, who had to retake their classes within the first two terms of enrollment, but the policy was later expanded to the first four terms, then to all undergraduates. In 2020, transfer students were also included. And just last year, a similar graduate student policy was implemented, for only one course and for grades C, D, or F.
To date, there is no hard data indicating exactly how many students have taken advantage of the policy, especially since the expansions to all undergrad, transfers, and grad students are all relatively new. But Pikowsky says that’s not really the point. “Even if we look at it and see that only a small percentage of students have used it—or if it had never been used at all—I think it’s worth it to have it,” says Pikowsky. “I think it makes a difference to know that it’s there for peace of mind.”
Sikal agrees. He has not yet used his two course corrections, but in his role as undergraduate student body vice president of academic affairs, he’s seen several students who have. In a time when everyone is more aware of mental health, particularly emerging from the pandemic when there was so much added strain on students, Sikal says that this safety net has been a boon. Tech, as it turns out, is not such a scary place after all.
“Instead, it’s a place where they’d rather see you succeed,” he says. “And if you need help, we’ll be there.”
