C- and D Grades: Weinberg College - Northwestern University

C- and D Grades

The grades of C- and D represent cut-off points for a variety of requirements:

You need to earn at least a C- in all major courses and all minor courses, including all related courses for the major. If your major or minor is one that has prerequisites, you must earn at least a C- in these courses too.
You need to earn at least a C- in the last quarter of a foreign language sequence you're using to satisfy the foreign language requirement.
You need to earn at least a D in all courses you use to meet distribution requirements.
You need to earn at least a D in both of your first-year seminars.
You need to earn at least a D in a course taken to substitute for the writing requirement.
No more than one-fifth of the courses offered to meet degree requirements may be completed with the grade of D and/or P.

The grades of C- and D also relate to another College rule: You need a grade point average (GPA) of at least 2.00 for all courses counted toward your BA degree. What courses count? Courses used to fulfill your freshman seminar, distribution, foreign language, writing proficiency, and major and minor requirements, including related courses for majors, plus enough additional courses to bring the total to 45 units. (This GPA will generally differ from the overall Northwestern GPA, both because many students have more than 45 units and because some have courses in which the grade received was too low to count. For example, although a course in which you earned an F is included in your overall GPA, it cannot count toward your BA degree.) Back to top

Weinberg College
of Arts & Sciences

C- and D Grades

Northwstern's Grading System