Grade and Refund Appeal Policies
Kalamazoo Valley understands that you may experience extenuating circumstances beyond your control that can prevent you from successfully completing or withdrawing from your courses, or which may warrant a tuition refund when the course has been withdrawn. The college considers extenuating circumstances to involve military duties, medical conditions, bereavement, permanent changes in employment, or if you are a victim of a crime, unexpected disaster, or life-changing event. Situations that were within your control, where you did not undertake appropriate communications or actions, and being unfamiliar with policies and procedures are not considered extenuating circumstances.
If you have received failing grades (0.0, NC) in courses due to a serious extenuating circumstance, you may appeal to have these courses withdrawn from your Kalamazoo Valley transcript. This process does not raise individual course grades or remove courses from your transcript. If you properly withdrew during a semester, or you have submitted a grade appeal, you may be eligible to receive a refund for extenuating circumstances for which supporting documentation can be provided.
Appeals must be submitted in writing no later than two years from the end of the semester for which the appeal is requested. All appeals must have attached supporting documentation. These requests will be reviewed by an appeal committee the first Friday of every month. A maximum of 16 credit hours will be considered for both grade and refund appeals.
Kalamazoo Valley also has repeat course and academic forgiveness policies. These policies do not require documented extenuating circumstances. You must only meet the required qualifications to have failing grades excluded from your grade point average (GPA). All attempts to complete a course successfully will remain on your transcript, but having lower or failing grades excluded will help your overall Kalamazoo Valley GPA.
The repeat course policy allows for the exclusion of previous or lower grades. Only the highest or most recent grade will be calculated into the GPA. The academic forgiveness policy is intended for students who struggled during a period of their academic pursuit and stepped away for a period of at least five years. Upon your return, once you have successfully completed 15 credit hours with grades of 2.0 or better, you may appeal to have a maximum of 16 credit hours in courses with 0.0 or NC grades excluded from your GPA. There can be no more than two withdrawals from class during the time in which the 15 credit hours are completed.
Contact the Admissions, Registration and Records office for more information and the forms to submit your appeal. You may email us at arr@kvcc.edu, call us at 269.488.4281, or visit us in room 9140 on the Texas Township Campus.