At the January 2022 meeting, the MRU General Faculties Council (GFC), the legislative body dealing with academic matters that makes recommendations to the MRU Board of Governors, voted to approve a COVID-pass/COVID-fail (CP/CF) letter grade option for the Winter 2022 semester. This motion was presented as many Mount Royal students continue to experience heightened stress due to the pandemic and ever-changing instruction delivery methods.

While students now have the option to select a CP/CF option for the Winter 2022 semester, students still have the option to maintain the originally-assigned letter grade if they wish to do so. CP/CF still registers as a credit attempt and will count towards your full-time or part-time status however, there may be other implications and impacts to your degree that are important to consider before you choose the CP/CF option.

Student Impact and Risks

• Non-letter grades do not contribute to the calculation of GPA. This poses a risk for graduating students who intend to apply for undergraduate, graduate, or professional degree programs, as well as students who are wholly or partially funded by academic scholarships.
• Taking a non-letter grade may affect admission to subsequent levels of post-secondary education and/or transferability of the course to another university, particularly beyond the Fall 2022 semester.
• Access to programs within MRU may be affected (e.g. Honours program selection).
• About one-third of MRU’s applicant pool is made up of MRU students who are not currently in the program to which they are applying. Non-letter grades will affect their ability to apply to programs at MRU since these classes will not contribute to the GPA calculation.
• Non-letter grades will not count toward the GPA requirements for graduation that some programs have.
• Removes the opportunity for I-grades (Incomplete) that are applied when a student has not completed semester work to the satisfaction of the instructor and has been granted an extension to complete that work. Course requirements must be completed within a maximum of 60 days after the end of the semester.
• CP/CF grades could have implications later in a student’s academic career (e.g. graduate school applications and scholarship/funding applications)
• May have implications for programs that require accreditation or professional designations.
• Alternate grading structure will have cross-impacts with Collaborative Degree partners as well as implications to downline admissions.
• Non-letter grades restrict the ability to ensure proper prerequisite knowledge or minimum required grade in subsequent courses. CP grade will not meet minimum grade prerequisite requirements.
• Might have implications towards the limit of attempts a student has to take a course.
• Non-letter grades restrict the ability to assess in-course awards that have minimum GPA requirements as well as determining the highest GPA. Alberta scholarships are awarded based on specific GPA, which is reported to the government.
• Programs at MRU have specific grade requirements on individual courses that are required for graduation. The use of non-letter grades could affect students’ ability to meet graduation requirements for those programs.

Long story, short…

If you’re a credit student or a student in an occupational program, you have the option to choose the CP/CF grading option (Academic Upgrading is excluded). MRU strongly encourages students who receive a letter grade of C- or C (or higher) to keep that letter grade.

Have additional questions? Let us know!