SMC Extends Withdrawal deadline; Transcript adjustments available for instructor-initiated drops

The checkout desk in the library on the Santa Monica College (SMC) main campus, in the morning of the first day after the college's adminstration announced plans to initiate online classes in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, in Santa Monica, California, on Thursday, March 12th 2020. (Marco Pallotti/The Corsair)

As of 5 p.m. on March 31, Santa Monica College (SMC) announced to its faculty via email that all instructor-initiated dropped courses taking place on or after March 4 through the “Guaranteed Withdrawal deadline” will be recoded, in which the W will be removed from transcripts. SMC will perform a “catch-up batch job” today, April 1, to take care of any outstanding W’s on student transcripts resulting from student or instructor-initiated drops, according to the announcement.

The recoding is only applicable for classes that started within the first six weeks of the semester (February 18 through March 27), and if the drop occurred on or after March 4, the same day the Chancellor’s Office declared a COVID-19 emergency.

Students who experience the aforementioned drops will be eligible for a class refund. The refund process will begin on April 29. According to SMC Dean of Enrollment Services Esau Tovar, “it normally takes another 2 weeks for the student to receive reimbursement.”

This recoding is not applicable to late start classes that experience an instructor-initiated drop “since students will now be aware the classes are taught using remote learning modalities,” according to Tovar.  This includes classes offered Week 10-17 or 10-18.

SMC also extended the deadline to request a Pass/No Pass (P/NP) grading scale for classes to coincide with the Guaranteed Withdrawal deadline. The Guaranteed Withdrawal deadline is subject to each class and can be found on each student’s Corsair Connect account. The deadlines are set to the percentage of course that has been completed. The original P/NP deadline was set to the maximum allowed by law, which was 30% of the class. It is now set to the 75th percentile of the class’ length.

In the announcement, Tovar warns that “[taking] classes on a P/NP basis… can have deleterious effects on transferability and graduate school admission.” He also encouraged students to consult a counselor before changing to P/NP grading. 

Previously, SMC placed a 14-unit cap on transferable units that may be taken on a P/NP grading scale. This has been temporarily suspended for the rest of the Spring 2020 semester. Students who maintain F-1 visa status must obtain approval from an international student center counselor before dropping below 12 units.

These updates follow a recent announcement from SMC’s Admissions department on March 18 regarding class drops and refunds in relation to the COVID-19 impact. The state of California approved the removal of W’s from student transcripts if the student drops the class before their class’ final drop deadline; for most full-semester courses, this deadline is May 16. Students were previously required to submit a “petition for withdrawal due to extraordinary conditions,” but this petition is no longer necessary.