What are your experiences with trying to get help through Science Advising/using the Academic Calendar to get answers? Personally I’ve never used Science Advising and found all of my info through the Academic Calendar. Inspired by the linked reddit post.
Reddit post for context (not my words):
"No seriously. Like what’s the point of having faculty advising that just gives you incorrect information? I deferred my Math 101 exam at the end of April because I was pretty sick, and was specifically told that deferring the exam wouldn’t impact registration or major selection because “being able to defer an exam means that you have proved thusfar to be successful in the course as you were in good academic standing up until taking the final exam. Therefore we assume you would have been able to pass the course and get the credits.”
I’m now being told by Science Advising that actually, standing deferred doesn’t give you the credits for the course, because you haven’t taken the exam and thus have not completed the course.
What?
I made a pretty impactful decision based off the original answer from Science Advising. If I knew that deferring an exam wouldn’t enable me to register for 2nd-year math courses (and presumably, also reject my math major application since I don’t have the credits for MATH 101), I would’ve just taken the exam sick because even if it affected my GPA, I would’ve at least gotten the credits for it."
Also, I note that finding the answer to this on the academic calendar was pretty hard for me.
There are like four references to deferred standing, I list them in order of google search results (standing deferred “ubc academic calendar” course registration):
- https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/campus-wide-policies-and-regulations/grading-practices/standings (does not mention impact on registration)
- https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/campus-wide-policies-and-regulations/academic-assessment/deferred-and-supplemental-examinations (does not mention impact on registration)
- https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/faculties-colleges-and-schools/faculty-science/bachelor-science/illness-academic-concession-and-deferred-standing (has a hint, I guess? “Some science courses offered in Term 1 of Winter Session that are prerequisite to courses in Term 2 have scheduled deferred examinations in January. A student with Deferred standing in one of those courses is expected to write the January examination.”, which somewhat implies that you need to write the exam to keep the post-req)
- https://vancouver.calendar.ubc.ca/faculties-colleges-and-schools/faculty-arts/bachelor-media-studies/academic-concession (about a specific degree in faculty of arts? has some lines that definitely could be misinterpreted to be about registration)
On the Science Academic Calendar registration page, it does mention that “prerequisites are courses that must be successfully completed before taking a course”, but without explicitly mentioning standings there’s no way I would find that without specifically worrying about this issue (which I probably wouldn’t, given that I’ve already been assured by my advisor).