Please see the following page for information on major & minor P/NP policies for Fall 2020.

Please see the following page for information on major & minor P/NP policies for Spring 2020. 

If you have any doubts on whether to take a course P/NP please contact a Sociology Advisor in the Virtual Advising Center (VAC).

Please note that these updated policies are unique to the specified quarter. In all other quarters our regular policy is in place:

All courses taken for the major and minor must be taken for a letter grade, with the exception of Special Studies courses (Sociology 199, 198, and SOCI 198RA), which can only be taken P/NP. Only one such special studies course may be applied toward the major. No Special Studies courses can be applied towards the Minor (see exceptions above).

If you have further questions or concerns, please touch base with a Sociology Advisor in the Virtual Advising Center (VAC).

To petition to apply course work completed from an outside university (summer school, community college, study abroad, etc.) or another department at UCSD towards your upper division electives in a major or minor in sociology, students must submit a General Petition to the department once the coursework has appeared on their degree audit or prior to enrolling in the course. It is recommended to gain pre-approval for courses prior to enrollment. 

Students are strongly advised to retain the syllabi, course papers, examinations, and all other paperwork from courses taken outside of UC San Diego. These materials may be useful after you return to facilitate the admissions officer's decision about credit transfers, as well as departmental approval of courses toward the major/minor requirement. The same materials may help resolve any debates that might arise in the department over possible duplication in course content, or especially if there is any doubt about the difficulty of the course or its sociological content.

Submission/Notification of Petition

Petitions must be submitted online. Petitions cannot be submitted through the VAC, as the web portal does not allow students to upload any documents.

Our general petition process can be found on the courses and scheduling page.

For EAP coursework/ or Courses that have not yet been taken:

• Please note that if you receive an approved petition for a course that you intend to take while at EAP (or similar study abroad program) or if you haven't taken the course yet, your petition is only a pre-approval.
• Once the the transcripts from the university have been applied to UCSD please notify us in the VAC. At that time, the course will be reviewed for the following criteria: Upper Division course, transfers over as 4+ units, taken for a letter grade. If the course meets the criteria it will be applied towards your requirements.
• As a reminder only 4 outside Upper Division courses (whether from a different department at UCSD, or from an outside institution) are allowed to apply towards the major.

      Transferring Courses after a Grade has been received:

• Please see the following UCSD resource on how to transfer outside coursework to UC San Diego 

Yes, all courses are required for the major. If for example you completed most of your upper division courses prior to completing SOCI 1 or SOCI 2, you'll still be required to complete SOCI 1 and 2. The same is the case for all other lower division and upper division requirements for the major. You'll want to plan accordingly as certain courses like SOCI 1 and SOCI 2 are only offered during specific quarters.

For the Sociology major you cannot substitute an Upper Division Course for a Lower Division course and vice versa.

SOCI 1 is offered each Fall quarter of an Academic Year. SOCI 2 is offered each Winter quarter of an academic year. Both courses may be offered over the summer at UCSD, but this is not guaranteed and will depend year to year.

You'll want to plan accordingly to ensure that you are taking the courses when they are offered during the academic year. 

Please refer to the following link from the UCSD Career Center for helpful tips on requesting Letters of Recommendation:

• Career Services Center- "A student's Guide to Obtaining Letters of Recommendation"

After you've touched base with an instructor to establish a letter of recommendation, please provide the following statement to an instructor in our Department to authorize them to release information:

• “I consent to the release of personal and educational information about me in the letter of recommendation that I have requested from you. This authorization allows you to release all information about me, within the university’s possession, to /[fill in details (e.g., any other educational institution, any centralized application processing services (list by name if possible), etc.]/. This authorization shall remain valid unless and until it is rescinded in writing.”

Letters of recommendation contain detailed information about the student who is the subject of the letter. This information may include such information as scores on specific exams, grades and in other class performances, grades earned from other faculty in the department, upper division GPA in the major, grades in related departments, and standardized test scores, among other things. As your personal information is protected information please grant your instructor consent to give our your information.

To receive Departmental Honors in your Sociology major, students must participate in the Honor's Program.  Information about the Honor's Program and eligibility requirements can be found on our Special Academic Programs page.

To receive College Honors, also known as Latin Honors, students must be within the top 14% of graduating seniors. More information can be found on the General Catalog.

There is also an International Sociology Honor Society called Alpha Kappa Delta. Students may apply for membership to this program through the UCSD Department of Sociology.  For more information, view our Opportunities & Involvement page.

Special studies courses give students the opportunity to explore in more detail what they have learned in the classroom. Students engage in field research in a topic of their choice, under the guidance of a faculty member. If a student wants to work individually with a professor, they enroll in SOCI 199, Independent Study. If several students want to work as a team on the same project, they take SOCI 198, Group Independent Study.

Please see our Special Academic Programs page for further information on requesting an independent studies course.

1. Fall 2020 P/NP units will count toward the 25% maximum allowed by the university.

1. Course work must be equivalent to C- or better to receive a P
2. A change from a D grade to an NP will result in a loss of units (i.e., no units will be earned for an NP).
   
   
3. Because financial Aid packages may be affected by receiving NP grades, it is recommended to contact the financial aid office should you have questions about how it might affect you.
   
   
4. A change to P/NP for a Fall 2020 course will be allowed for a repeat of a class in which a D or F grade was earned in an earlier term.
   
   
5. For Fall Graduates, the processing of DDAs (Degree and Diploma Applications) as well as honors designations may be delayed for by switching to P/NP. Fall 2020 Graduates should be aware that initiating this process could delay the processing of your degree. Fall 2020 Graduates, If you are planning to submit the retroactive petition to change a letter grade to the P/NP option, please notify your college and major advisors via the VAC no later than Friday, January 8, 2021 (end of Week 1 of Winter Quarter). (This only applies to students planning to graduate in Fall 2020.)
   
   
6. Students who plan to apply to graduate school should be aware that graduate, medical, and other professional programs may not accept a grading option of P/NP for some courses. Students will need to check with the specific graduate/professional school they are applying to and inquire what courses are required to apply and if those courses can be graded as P/NP (see the Career Center website for additional information).
   
   
7. Students trying to raise their GPA, especially in an effort to return to good academic standing, or students who are attempting to maintain satisfactory academic progress for financial aid, should also be careful. Those who need to raise their GPA above a 2.0 to be in good standing or for purposes of financial aid may not benefit from taking P/NP grades. We recommended that you check in with your College and the Financial Aid Office to determine how taking a course as P/NP will impact your academic progress or financial support.

• Sociology Dept. Majors:
  • Any Sociology class taken P/NP in Spring Quarter 2020 will count toward the major and/or the minor. If you do not see this automatic change, please send us a message in the Virtual Advising Center to adjust it. 
  • P/NP courses taken in Spring 2020 will not count towards the 25% cap on P/NP courses for the Bachelor’s degree (This is University Policy but helpful to note).
  • Students may change their selection of P/NP or Letter Grade through the end of the Friday of Week 11.
    • UPDATE: Due to our current social situations, the University has approved a new one-time exception for SP20 to permit undergraduate students to change their grading option and select a Pass/No Pass grade up until the end of Friday of Spring Quarter 2020 finals week, June 12, 2020.
    • Previously this deadline was Week 10, but has now been updated
  • P/NP courses are not included in calculations of GPA.  
  • This new policy is in effect for Spring Quarter 2020 only
    
    
• Sociology Minors:
  • Any Sociology class taken P/NP in Spring Quarter 2020 will count toward the major and/or the minor. If you do not see this automatic change, please send us a message in the Virtual Advising Center to adjust it. 
  • /NP courses taken in Spring 2020 will not count towards the 25% cap on P/NP courses for the Bachelor’s degree (This is University Policy but helpful to note).
  • Students may change their selection of P/NP or Letter Grade through the end of the Friday of Week 11.
    • UPDATE: Due to our current social situations, the University has approved a new one-time exception for SP20 to permit undergraduate students to change their grading option and select a Pass/No Pass grade up until the end of Friday of Spring Quarter 2020 finals week, June 12, 2020.
    • Previously this deadline was Week 10, but has now been updated
  • P/NP courses are not included in calculations of GPA.  
  • This new policy is in effect for Spring Quarter 2020 only

• Students should carefully consider taking additional units under the assumption they will need to devote less time to each course if it is graded P/NP. The expectation is students will apply the same amount of time and energy towards each enrolled course regardless of how the course is graded. If adequate time is not planned for each course, a student could easily find themselves overwhelmed at the amount of work required for the quarter.
• Students who plan to retake a course to replace a previously earned grade- For Spring 2020 only, D or F grades may be repeated on either a letter grade or P/NP basis. All grades you earn are recorded on your transcript, but the first 16 units of repeated classes for which you received a D, F, or NP won't be used to calculate your cumulative GPA. 
• Students who plan to apply for postgraduate study. Graduate, medical, and other professional schools may not accept a grading option of P/NP for some courses. Students will need to check with the specific graduate/professional school they are applying to and inquire what courses are required to apply and if those courses can be graded as P/NP. 
• Students who are veterans and receive financial assistance need to check with their campus Veterans Affairs liaisons to determine how taking a course as P/NP will impact their financial support.
• Student-athletes should check with their athletic advisor (Mary Angell or Katie McGann) to ensure a student's SP20 coursework and/or GPA will still meet NCAA eligibility requirements.
• Students trying to raise their GPA, especially in an effort to return to good academic standing. Students who need to raise their GPA above a 2.0 to be in good standing or for purposes of financial aid may be harmed in taking P/NP grades.
• Students maintaining satisfactory academic progress for financial aid. In addition to GPA, a student must maintain “Satisfactory Academic Progress” (SAP). Students are still considered to be making SAP according to the standard “PACE formula” even if they get a C-, D+, or D. For example: If a student with 15 units received 10 (C)’s and 5 (C-)‘s, they would be fine in terms of GPA and SAP. The same student receives 10 (C)’s and 5 NP’s would show a lack of SAP and may have issues with financial aid. Students should always check with the UCSD Financial Aid Office to verify how taking courses as P/NP would impact their aid.