From: Joe Loffredo
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 9:22 AM
Subject: Student Credit Hours Converted to Semester Values
The message is being sent to Deans, Associate Deans, Academic Department Chairs, Directors, Deans’
Delegates for Advising, Advisors Council and Scheduling Officers.
A key milestone for the SIS and the Quarter to Semester (Q2S) projects has been to implement the
process to convert students’ cumulative quarter credits to semester credit equivalents. I am pleased to
announce that after months of development and testing, this process will become operational starting
this weekend. It is important to have this in place prior to the start of the fall enrollment cycle to ensure
that year-levels are correctly established using semester credit hours. Fall enrollment carts open and
enrollment appointments are assigned on March 27th.
I want to give some background on this conversion process and also provide information about what
you should expect to see on a student’s record in SIS.
1. Starting March 1st, the initial conversion will begin and we expect to convert the credit hours of
all currently active students by the end of March 2nd. (We are still considering if and when we
will run this conversion for former students. We will notify you when we have more information.)
2. In general, the process will convert cumulative credits to semester credits by multiplying by
.6666667*.
Examples:
180 quarter credits = 120 semester credits
100 quarter credits = 66.66667 (rounded up to 67)
151 quarter credits = 100.66667 (rounded up to 101)
Note: All fractional results will be rounded up.
3. Cumulative GPAs will remain unchanged.
4. Year-levels will be recalculated using the semester cutoffs and the resulting year-levels should
remain unchanged. Below are the semester credit hour cutoffs.
4 Year Programs
Year
1
2
3
4
Credits Earned
0-26
27-55
56-84
85 & above
5 Year Programs
1
2
3
4
5
0-26
27-55
56-75
76-95
96 & above
5. From this point forward, any changes to grades or credit hours prior to fall 2013 for a student
will trigger the recalculation of this conversion for the student, which will occur overnight. As a
result you will need to wait until the next day to see the changes take effect.
6. All calculations for the conversion are maintained in a special academic term in SIS which is
coded as 2130, which falls between summer 2013 (2124) and fall 2013 (2131).
7. As this process completes, those with advisees will notice the change on the “My Advisees”
page in SIS under the column of cumulative hours, which will from this point forward represent
semester credits.
*This is a very simplistic summary of the conversion. There are actually five possible buckets
of credit for a student. Each is individually converted and then summed up to calculate the
total cumulative credits earned. As a result, the semester credit results can vary slightly
from the simplistic calculation noted above. The five buckets are:
– Credits Included in GPA. (To preserve the GPA separate enrollment records are created in
the 2130 term to capture the gpa units for each grade value.)
– Credits Not Included in GPA (Thesis, S/F, X). This bucket is also used to add credit to the
“credits include in GPA” calculation to have a rounded result.
– Transfer Credit
– Test Credit (used for AP credit since fall 2012)
– Other Credit (used for credit by experience since fall 2012)
The attached document provides screen shots of what you should expect to see in SIS.
Please let me know if you have questions about this.
Thank you,
Joe
Joe Loffredo
Assistant Vice President and Registrar
Rochester Institute of Technology
Office of the Registrar
27 Lomb Memorial Drive
Eastman Building
Rochester, NY 14623-5603
Phone: 585.475.2829
Fax: 585.475.7252
Go to Term History – Cumulative Statistics tab:
This shows the student’s cumulative stats for the last quarter: 115 credits toward GPA and 36 Transfer Credits,
total of 151.
Below shows the 2130 Conversion Term: Notice that total cumulative credits is now 101, which comes from 77
credits earned + 24 transfer credits.
Below is how the data is presented in Advisor Center.
Go to the “Academics” tab and select the term. Below is statistics for the student’s last term in quarters. Notice
the 115 passed units toward GPA and the 36 transfer units, for a total of 151.
*We agree that this page needs to provide a total. In the future we intend to have this modified.
Now go to Term 2130 – the conversion term:
Total Credits = 76.660 (toward GPA) + .340 (“Not for GPA” rounding bump) + 24 (transfer) = 101
Below shows how the GPA credits are accounted for to force the GPA to remain unchanged. There are actual
enrollment records to track the units for each grade value.
Unoffical Transcript will also show the conversion term statistics
Prior to the Conversion Term
After the Conversion
“My Advisees Page” – Note that the “Cum Hours” will be in semester credits.