Election of Courses
After approximately seven weeks of each term every student scheduled to be enrolled as ‘R’ or ‘O’ elects courses for the following term. All students make use of the newly published Timetable of Class Meetings each term which updates this Catalog.
On occasion a student who has already taken and passed a course will wish to elect it again, sometimes with the intention of improving upon the earlier performance. Such is not allowable unless a student gains permission from the Registrar to elect such a course as a no-credit, grade-only, non-averaged third or fourth course. Such a course does not count in that term’s course load. Students may not elect a course that has been renumbered but is wholly or effectively identical to one already passed; they should also make sure that a repetition in course number is not also a repetition in content that will lead to loss of credit.
A student who has failed a course may elect it again. In this situation both of the grades are recorded and hence both are included in the cumulative average; only one course credit is earned. The same general principle applies to Credit/No Credit courses.
Full directions for electing courses are outlined on the Registrar’s Office website. Numerous courses have enrollment limits set prior to release of the Timetable; others are limited as enrollments grow. If the demand exceeds the limit, students are enrolled according to priorities established by the offering departments and programs. Dartmouth College reserves the right to make changes in the offering of any listed course and to cancel it when the enrollment is fewer than five students.
Students registering for courses that require instructor permission, a prerequisite override, or any other special permission/override must first consult with the instructor and/or the instructor’s proxy, if appropriate, and provide the instructor with their ID number so the instructor may apply the appropriate permission/override to his or her record. After the permission/override has been applied, the student receives a confirmation email that the permission/override was applied. The student then registers for the course. Students who have not obtained a permission/override are not permitted to register for the course. After submitting their courses, students review their class schedule to ensure they have entered it correctly. Students are responsible for ensuring that their schedule is accurate. Students should note that addition of their name to Dartmouth's learning management system, Canvas, without registration in DartHub does not constitute official registration for the course and may result in a loss of expected credit.
Many courses at the College have prerequisites, either in the form of prior course work, permission of the instructor, or both. It is the responsibility of each individual student to see that he or she has met the requirements for each course elected. Failure to heed published prerequisites may place the student in an untenable position in the course. Effective in the 2003 summer term, an instructor may require a student to drop a course during the first eight class days of the term if the student lacks the published prerequisite courses. Some departments/programs use prerequisite checking and do not allow a student to gain entry without a prerequisite override, while some departments/programs simply list prerequisite requirements in this Catalog. In either case, the student is required to meet the prerequisites listed.
Each term, students who have filed proper course elections for the following term may make changes in them through the last day of classes in the current term.
Undergraduate students may enroll for graduate courses taught by faculty members in Dartmouth departments and programs within the Arts and Sciences with permission of the instructor of the course, and may receive credit towards their Bachelor of Arts degree. Undergraduate students may only receive credit towards their Bachelor of Arts degree for graduate courses offered by other Dartmouth graduate programs if the course is cross-listed as an undergraduate Arts and Sciences course. *Students must enroll in the undergraduate section of the cross-list and receive a final letter grade.
*(Arts and Sciences courses are those with undergraduate departments and programs overseen by the Dean of Faculty of Arts and Sciences. See "Divisions of the Faculty" for a list of those departments and programs.)