Undergraduate Services
Contact: COSAS
Email: cosas@ucf.edu
Website: www.cos.ucf.edu/cosas
Phone: (407) 823-6131
College of Sciences Academic Services (COSAS)
COSAS is the primary office charged with providing academic assistance to undergraduate students within the College of Sciences. This office strives to efficiently and professionally advise and serve students and the public with clear communication, concerned care, and creative solutions to problems. This office helps students with matters concerning college and university requirements, policies, and procedures. Students access these services primarily by walk-in or by appointment for advising and special problems.
The COSAS website offers extensive online advice to prospective and current students, as well as information and resources helpful to academic advisers across the college.
Topics:
Administrative Record Changes
Handling Grade Appeals
Graduation
PERC Policies
Administrative Record Changes
If you are approving a late add of a course requiring the Undergraduate Research Agreement (URA) such as for independent studies and internships:
- please send the student to COSAS with
- the completed URA, and
- a memo explaining why the registration was not done by the deadline.
If you are supporting a late add or drop due to some type of university, college, or department error (something the student could not control and was in some way the responsibility of the university):
- please send the student to COSAS with a memo clearly explaining the situation that prevented the student from adding or dropping by the deadline.
All late add requests for should be submitted to COSAS by the end of the 2nd week of classes. Requests made after that date must include an additional explanation.
Students requesting other late add or drop requests should go directly to Academic Services in MH 210.
Handling Grade Appeals
This is the process and information for both undergraduate and graduate student grade appeals.
Contact: Dr. Teresa Dorman
E-Mail: Teresa.Dorman@ucf.edu
Updated: July 22, 2014
The request of a formal grade appeal is a very serious process and may involve a committee review of the appeal. For this reason, the college and the university encourage students and faculty to first attempt to resolve any grade conflict within the department/school. The informal process (as it is called in the Golden Rule) requests this direct resolution first, then – and if this is not satisfactory – resolution is sought at the department/school level where the chair reviews the information and provides the student with a written response.
Departments/The school may involve more steps including (but not limited to) a faculty committee review of the student’s appeal. Appeals by a graduate student must also be reviewed by the program’s graduate coordinator. The department/school may designate an assistant or associate chair to provide the final response; however, that individual cannot also be the faculty responsible for the course in question.
If the student is not satisfied with the departmental response, the formal process of a grade appeal begins. For this process, which is handled at the college level, we first direct the student to the grade appeal process described in the Golden Rule in the section on Student Academic Appeals (UCF-5.016).
Students are limited to three possible reasons for pursuing formal grade appeals:
- The instructor allegedly deviated from established and announced grading policy
- There are allegedly errors in applying grading procedures, or
- The instructor allegedly lowered grades for non-academic reasons, including discrimination.
We are careful to point out that the instructor’s professional judgment in assigning a grade or conducting a class is excluded as a reason for appeal.
Any student who pursues a grade appeal is also referred to a Student Government Association’s Judicial Advisor for assistance and advice. These advisors will work with any student who may be pursuing a grade appeal. (Contact the SGA Chief Justice, sga-cjus@ucf.edu for more information).
If the student still wishes to pursue a formal grade appeal, then the student has to file the appeal with the college (Dr. Teresa Dorman). The COS_StuGradeAppealForm-2019 (pdf) is required to be submitted with any appeal. Note that this needs to be printed for the student’s signature.
The onus is on the student to pursue the grade appeal process. If they choose to do this, they must be very aware of the deadlines that exist for each step, as outlined in the Golden Rule.
When do students apply for graduation?
Students are to apply for graduation the term before they plan to meet all requirements and graduate. Students must NOT be transient in their graduation term, they MUST be registered in UCF coursework during their graduation term (some students may be eligible for IDS4999 and should be directed to COSAS if they don’t have any more requirements to complete) and they must file an Online Intent to Graduate application through myUCF by the posted deadline for that semester.
How do students apply for graduation?
Candidates must submit their application for graduation through myUCF in the Student Center section. To access this section, students are to login to myUCF, select Student Self Service, Student Center, and then select Intent to Graduate: Apply in the drop down box under Other Academics.
What happens after the student applies?
Once the student has submitted their “Notice of Intent to Graduate Application” through myUCF, they should pull up a current degree audit in myUCF and go to gradform.cos.ucf.edu and complete the COS gradform using their degree audit. Once the gradform has been completed, students should check their student email account frequently throughout the term for additional information, including dates for graduation review sessions (accommodations are made for Regional Campus and Distance Learning students).
Where do students go for Commencement Ceremony information?
All commencement information can be found on the UCF Registrar’s website: http://registrar.sdes.ucf.edu/. No other source should be used for commencement information.
Graduation Review Process:
Departments are contacted by Chauntrice Riley-Stanford twice within each semester:
- The first contact is within the first few weeks of the current graduation term. Chauntrice sends over degree audits for students who have declared one of your programs and filed for graduation for the current term, but has deficiencies within the program. Chauntrice requests an early review of this subset of your graduating students, so that when she sends them a status letter, she will have all approved exceptions entered into the audit.
- Note: You will still receive a FULL set of your audits after the Withdrawal deadline for the current semester to review and sign for certification.
- The second contact is after the withdrawal deadline for the current term. Chauntrice sends over a FULL set of degree audits for all students on the current graduation list (major/minor and certificates as applicable). Departments are to review only those areas of the audit that contain major, minor or departmental requirements for your programs. A memo with the complete set of instructions will be attached to the degree audits.
**ANY EXIT EXAMS, EXIT INTERVIEWS OR OTHER EXIT REQUIREMENTS THAT ARE NOT ADDRESSED ON THE FINAL CERTIFICATION AUDIT, MUST BE EMAILED TO COSGRADUATION@UCF.EDU PRIOR TO THE ENDING OF THE TERM.**
PERC POLICIES
Prerequisite Drop Process (PERC)
Each semester, the College of Sciences runs the PERC process to ensure students who are not qualifying for certain courses with their prerequisites are removed from their courses before the end of add/drop week. This process is designed to prevent students from enrolling in courses that they will be unable to succeed in and ensure proper sequencing of courses for targeted majors.
Late in registration each semester COSAS runs a PERC report to determine which students are not satisfying their prerequisite requirements for enrollment and adds these students to a drop list. This list is then used to check student records, determine why they are not meeting prerequisites, and should the student not have a legitimate qualification for being in the class they are administratively removed by COSAS.
As of the Spring 2014 semester, the following units are participating in the PERC process:
Biology
Math
Physics
Chemistry
Psychology
Communication
Programs may choose to participate in PERC by contacting Ryan.Sexton@ucf.edu.
Who gets flagged by PERC?
There are many reasons a student may be flagged by the PERC report and be placed upon the drop list. The two primary populations are:
1. Transfer students with PENDING overrides for in-progress coursework.
2. UCF students who received a less-than-passing score in a prerequisite course (such as an F or D, or occasionally a C- depending upon the specific prerequisite).
In rare cases graduate students, honors college students no longer in the honors program, and students with unusual overrides may also be flagged. Due to the diverse nature of this student population, participation and coordination with the department and school advising offices is critical to the success of PERC.
How PERC Works:
Each semester a large number of overrides are processed by advising offices across campus. Each override, when placed in MyUCF, has a comment area required for completion of the override. In this comment area, advisers MUST indicate “PENDING” or “COMPLETED” to make the process for pre requisite drop run smoothly. PENDING credit indicates that the student has yet to finish the course that is satisfying the prerequisite, while COMPLETED indicates that a grade is on file and pending transcript processing.
Approximately 2 weeks before add/drop period, COSAS run a master PERC report for each department that is participating in the drop process. This report is then made available for participating departments and schools via the COSAS Share Drive. Departments then review the list of students flagged by the report and indicate if the student has department approval to be removed from the drop list and remain in the course.
For all students not approved in this fashion, COSAS then sends multiple notifications warning the student that they will be dropped from the course unless they provide proof to COSAS before the deadline (typically 9:00 am of the Tuesday during Add/Drop). Students may come into COSAS with physical proof of satisfying the missing prerequisite, provide COSAS with an override from the department, or email COSDROPNOTIFY@ucf.edu with digital proof (students are given exact specifics of what digital proof will be allowed each semester).
Should students not have their proof into COSAS by the deadline, the final drop list is then sent to departments and schools for final review and, upon confirmation by the department that no additional students need to be removed, COSAS then drops all students from the flagged courses.
Should a student be able to provide proof after being dropped, they may be re-enrolled into an open section of the course in question however COSAS will not override a student into a closed or waitlisted class should they be dropped by PERC. Departments may allow an override to enroll a student in this fashion.
Questions and Information:
For additional questions concerning PERC, please contact:
Ryan Sexton @ Ryan.Sexton@ucf.edu in CSB 250 for all general questions for Math, Physics, and Communications
Brooks Pingston @ Brooks.Pingston@ucf.edu in CSB 250 for Biology, Chemistry, and Psychology