To be eligible for financial aid at Carolina, you must maintain SAP – this means Satisfactory Academic Progress.
| After 1 full-time semester | 9 academic hours |
| After 2 full-time semesters | 24 academic hours |
| After 3 full-time semesters | 36 academic hours |
| After 4 full-time semesters | 51 academic hours |
| After 5 full-time semesters | 63 academic hours |
| After 6 full-time semesters | 78 academic hours |
| After 7 full-time semesters | 93 academic hours |
Instructions for checking your SAP status in ConnectCarolina can be found here.
Before submitting an appeal, please review the Appeal Resource Guide provided by the Office of Undergraduate Retention.
Please review and redact your medical records so you are providing only what is necessary.
If you prefer a paper process, please reach out to request one from our office.
| Term: | Priority Deadline: |
| Spring 2020 | December 19, 2019 |
| Summer I 2020 | April 30, 2020 |
| Summer II 2020 | June 5, 2020 |
| Fall 2020 | July 24, 2020 |
Appeal decisions are delivered to your UNC email address as quickly as possible, given the volume of work within the aid office. Submission of an appeal does not guarantee approval. Decisions of the appeals committee are final and cannot be appealed outside the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid.
The below glossary terms will help you to understand SAP and how it applies to your courses.
In keeping with Federal Student Aid policy, attempted hours include all those in which you are enrolled as of the end of the second week of each fall or spring term (the 10th day of the term, also known as the “census date.”) The summer schedule is determined according to the summer calendar.
Courses you successfully complete with a passing grade are ‘completed hours.’ Undergraduate degrees generally require 120 completed credit hours, and the maximum timeframe to complete most programs is 180 attempted credit hours. In addition to credits attempted at Carolina, this includes all transfer, test and “other” hours on your academic record.
Courses dropped prior to the census date are not considered attempted hours, though courses withdrawn after the census date are considered attempted hours. Retroactively dropped courses do not remove attempted hours from the SAP calculation. Please contact us if you believe a cancellation is impacting your SAP calculation.
In response to COVID-19 an emergency grading policy has been implemented for classes dropped during Spring 2020. The University will create a new grade of ‘CV’ as an alternative to the Incomplete (‘IN’) grade for you if you are an undergraduate student who was adversely affected by the public health emergency. This grade will also be used to identify courses that may need to extend past the Spring semester. ‘CV’ grades will not be included in your GPA calculation, will not count towards your credits earned, will not satisfy graduation requirements, and will not be calculated as a 0.00 GPA for eligibility and financial aid (SAP) processing. You can read more on the registrar’s website about the Emergency Grading Accommodation Policy.
A failed course counts as attempted hours but not completed hours. This is reflected in your GPA and adversely affects your completion rate.
Repeated courses affect both your GPA and your completion rate.
These grades affect your GPA. A grade of IN (incomplete) or AB (absent from final exam) is calculated as an F until a permanent grade is assigned. Grades of IN or AB will negatively affect your completion rate, counting as attempted hours but not completed hours. If a grade of IN or AB is converted to a passing grade, your GPA and completion rate will be recalculated at the end of the next enrollment period. If this occurs before the end of a semester, you can request a SAP review.
Transfer hours do not affect your GPA. Transfer hours are added to both completed hours and attempted hours in the completion rate calculation and count as attempted hours in the Maximum Timeframe calculation.
Withdrawals, medical or otherwise, do not affect your GPA, but they will adversely affect your completion rate. Please note that all classes dropped after the census date are considered withdrawals, even if retroactive actions are taken to display an effective date prior to the census date.
If your review shows you fail to meet SAP standards, you will be notified of suspension. This notification explains which standards have not been met and offers an opportunity to appeal for probation. If you are suspended from receiving aid, you are ineligible until otherwise notified. Future decisions of enrollment should be under the assumption that financial aid is not available and that tuition payments are your obligation.
Standard probation means your appeal has been approved, and you can receive financial aid for one semester (fall, spring or summer). At the end of the semester your progress will be reviewed again, and if you are not meeting SAP standards, you revert to suspension and will be ineligible for aid. You can appeal again if you have experienced additional special circumstances.
In very limited circumstances, you may be granted more than one semester of probation. In these cases, you will be offered an academic plan including more than one probationary semester. The plan will include appropriate and specific checkpoints and milestones to meet in the short-term, with the long-term goal of meeting all requirements at a specified future point in time.
Members of the appeals committee are considered Responsible Employees. When someone discloses an incident of discrimination, harassment, sexual violence, interpersonal violence, or stalking to a Responsible Employee, that employee must share that information with a staff member in the Equal Opportunity and Compliance Office. If you have questions or concerns about sharing your information contact us.