Academic amnesty is one of those policies which most people don't pay much attention to unless they really need it, but then it is a handy option to know about. Academic amnesty is like an institutional forgive and forget policy. It works like this.

Let's say a student enters Northwest as an 18 year old and is not ready to settle down and put in the effort college requires. The student earns four D's and an F and is placed on probation. The student swears things will be different, but at the end of the second semester little has changed and the student earns one D and four F's. The College realizes the student is not ready for college and suspends the student.

After three years of working the evening shift at a fast food place, the student decides to give college another try. After the first semester the student has earned three A's and three B's for a nice B+ average. The student is feeling pretty good and thinks that this GPA is good enough for a scholarship and transfer to a good university.

And then the student checks on WebAdvisor and realizes that the GPA isn't 3.5. It's only a 1.5, or a D+ average, because those first two semesters are still being figured into the GPA. It looks like they will haunt the student forever.

That's where the academic amnesty policy comes in. The student can petition the Appeals Committee to have those first two semesters ignored for purposes of computing a GPA. If the student meets all the requirements, there's a good chance that the petition will be granted.

Here are the requirements:

The student complete 24 hours on a full-time basis before applying, and the GPA in those courses must be at least 2.5. In other words, the student has to prove that things have changed. Also, the student has to wait at least two semesters before applying.

Furthermore, the student must be currently enrolled. He or she can't be somewhere else and decide to improve his or her NWC GPA by dropping that first semester.

The student must make the request to the Committee in writing, and the request must specify the period for which amnesty is being sought. The student has to request amnesty for a period of time, like one or two semesters.

If the Committee grants the request, here's what happens:

The GPA for the requested period will not be considered in future GPA computations.

Any courses passed during that period cannot be used to fulfill NWC graduation requirements. In other words, amnesty wipes out everything. It's an all or nothing deal. All of the courses during that period are wiped out. The student can't save the courses which were passed and forget the ones which were failed.

The courses taken during the period for which amnesty is granted remain on the record, along with a note explaining the policy and its implementation.

Amnesty can only be applied once, and once it is applied it is irrevocable.

So, there you have it. Academic amnesty has some real advantages, but it may have some drawbacks, too. It is a serious action which should only be requested after careful consideration.