Table of Contents

To The Faculty

Introduction

1: Academic Calendar

2: Responsibilities of Instructors

3: Course Administration

4: Examinations

5: Grades

6: Addressing Student Problems

7: Teaching Resources

8: FAS Directory

Makeup Examinations

The Administrative Board of Harvard College has sole jurisdiction over granting makeup examinations for undergraduates. The Registrar’s Office has been authorized by the Graduate School to approve or deny makeup petitions for graduate students. Course heads may not give a makeup midyear or final examination without notification from the Office of the Registrar. Moreover, course heads may not give a makeup examination at any time or location other than that specified by the Office of the Registrar. The granting of a makeup examination by the Administrative Board does not imply that the student may receive credit for any assigned work in the course not submitted by the end of the Examination Period.

Makeup examinations are ordinarily granted by the Administrative Board in cases of medically documented illness or extraordinary circumstances over which the student had no control, such as a death in the family. Makeups are sometimes granted to undergraduate participants in intercollegiate competition, but only when examinations in absentia cannot be arranged. By vote of the Faculty Council, makeup examinations may also be granted when a student who is in good standing in the course misses an examination because of inadvertence, provided the petition is supported by the course head and filed on time. Undergraduate and graduate students in the FAS may be granted a makeup examination on the grounds of inadvertence only once during each tenure at Harvard.

If called upon to do so, course heads must prepare appropriate makeup examinations and grade them. Makeup exams are usually administered at the beginning of the following term based on the schedule established by the Office of the Registrar. Ordinarily a makeup examination should not be a duplicate of the original exam. Course grades dependent upon makeup examinations should be reported to the Office of the Registrar no later than one week after the date of such examinations.

Makeup midterm examinations are not granted by the Administrative Board nor the Registrar’s Office. Offering such makeup examinations or substituting other work is at the discretion of the course head, except in the case of an absence for the observation of religious holidays. (See Hour and Midterm Examinations.) The Office of the Registrar has no role in midterm examinations.