Students who dropped out of Rutgers University at least 10 years ago may have the opportunity to return with a clean slate.

Rutgers is one of many universities now offering an academic forgiveness program. The program will allow students to wipe their old GPAs clear to have a fresh start upon returning to college.

The forgiveness policy at the Rutgers-Camden campus was created for nontraditional students, ages 25 and up, said Joseph Schiavo, the chair of the Scholastic Standing Committee at Rutgers-Camden.

‘Our goal was to try to bring back these students who dropped out for whatever reason,’ Schiavo said. ‘We wanted to give these people an opportunity to come back to school, and obviously, they have a low GPA.’

The program started at Rutgers’ main campus in New Brunswick in fall 2007, followed by Rutgers-Camden in spring 2009. The program currently has had about 30 people, and the numbers have been increasing. Rutgers has not done any official advertising for the program, but plans to do so in the future, Schiavo said.

‘We’re committed to students having a higher education. For those who have started in the past, we would like to see them finish,’ said Erica Anderson, an assistant dean in the Rutgers-New Brunswick School of Arts and Sciences and director for scholastic standing, probation, retention programming and assessment.

Each of Rutgers’ campuses — Camden, New Brunswick and Newark — have slightly different policies when it comes to eligibility for academic forgiveness, said Michael Beals, the vice dean for undergraduate education at the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick.

‘Academic amnesty polices are determined by the separate academic units since they represent the college wisdom of separate faculties, and one size does not fit all,’ Beals said.

But at all Rutgers sites, only some of the students’ past grades are forgiven when calculating the GPA: the D’s and the F’s. At the maximum, 12 credits can be forgiven by Rutgers-Camden, Schiavo said. Whether they factor into the GPA or not, all of the grades will appear on students’ transcripts, according to the Rutgers website.

‘We do not rewrite history by granting academic amnesty,’ Beals said. ‘The transcript represents a complete representation of academic performance at Rutgers.’

Like other schools with similar programs, students can only apply for amnesty once at Rutgers. Students must fill out a form with their application to request academic forgiveness, and then their cases are heard by the Scholastic Standing Committee before they are granted academic forgiveness, said Nancy Gulick, the assistant dean in the Office of Academic Advising at Rutgers-Camden.

Only students who dropped out of Rutgers 10 years ago are eligible at the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers-New Brunswick. All students must complete 12 new Rutgers credits on a temporary re-enrollment status with a minimum 2.75 GPA to be awarded the forgiveness.

Other schools with academic forgiveness policies require students to have left the university for three or five years. Rutgers-New Brunswick chose ten years because it is more than enough time to ensure a person has evolved into a different individual, Anderson said.

‘These are individuals who, otherwise, would have no way in the door without applying this program,’ Anderson said. ‘It’s a very exceptional and forgiving program.’

medelane@syr.edu

Published on September 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meghin: medelane@syr.edu | @meghinwithani