Acceleration and Acceleration Credits
General Rules about Acceleration
The rules governing the use of acceleration credits, explained in the Academic Regulations section of the YCPS, are complex, and exceptions are not allowed. Students considering acceleration should make a point of reading the full text of the subsection "Acceleration Policies." A summary of some of the important rules regarding acceleration follows. Students who are considering acceleration should talk to their residential college dean.
- A student cannot use acceleration credit toward the 36-course-credit requirement for the bachelor's degree unless enrolling in fewer than eight terms at Yale.
- A student enrolling for eight terms cannot use acceleration credit to reduce the number of courses taken.
- A student cannot count acceleration credits toward any of the distributional requirements at Yale, including the foreign language requirement.
- A student receving a grade of B– or below in the first term of a yearlong course will not receive acceleration credit for that course, regardless of the second-term grade.
- The final term of enrollment for a student acquiring a six- or seven-term degree at Yale must be a spring term.
Acceleration credits earned as a result of courses taken during freshman year, AP scores, or scores on IB examinations are automatically added to students' academic records before the sophomore year. All other scores must be reported to the Registrar's Office and will be entered on a request basis.
Students have considerable latitude in determining when to petition to accelerate, although the deadline each term is the last day of classes before reading period begins (refer to the calendar in the YCPS). Note that to accelerate by one term, a student must have been awarded at least four acceleration credits; to Note that to accelerate by two terms, a student must have been awarded at least nine acceleration credits. It is also possible for a student to accelerate by completing 36 Yale course credits in six or seven terms instead of eight.
Petitions to accelerate are available in hard copy only in the offices of the residential college deans.
