Student Enrollment and Attendance

Attendance

Regular attendance and participation in all classes are important student obligations. Attendance is an integral part of student success.

Attendance at First Class through Census Date

Students must attend the first scheduled meeting of each class in which they are enrolled or risk being dropped by the professor. Instructors shall clear their rolls of inactive students no later than the end of the last business day before the census day (typically Monday of the third week for full-term classes). ­Students who are dropped or drop themselves by the published, class-specific Add/Drop deadline are entitled to a refund.

Attendance During the Semester/Session

A professor has the right to drop any student who has accumulated excessive absences. Generally, excessive absences are defined as 10% of the total hours of class time or the equivalent of two weeks of a full-term class. The application of excessive absences may vary by department and/or instructor according to the demands of the curriculum. Any exceptions to this policy will be communicated to students by professors in the class syllabus. A student dropped by a professor in error may petition for reinstatement to the class. Following the Add/Drop deadline, students who choose to stop attending class(es) retain the responsibility of officially withdrawing themselves from the class(es).

Dropping and Withdrawing from Classes

Stu­dents may drop or withdraw from classes online through mySierra or in person at a campus Admissions and Records office. Students should re­fer to the website for spe­cif­ic drop and with­draw­al dead­lines.

Full-term classes dropped by the Add/Drop deadline (within the first two weeks of the se­mes­ter) will not appear on the stu­dent’s ac­a­dem­ic record. Short-term and sum­mer session classes have class-specific dead­lines which can be found on the student schedule/bill, by checking mySierra, or by ver­i­fying with an Ad­mis­sions and Records office. Instructors shall clear their rolls of “no show” and inactive students no later than the end of the last calendar day before the census day. Students who are dropped or drop themselves by the add/drop deadline are entitled to a refund.

Classes withdrawn from after the add/drop pe­ri­od will ap­pear on the stu­dent’s record and cannot be removed. It is the stu­dent’s responsibility to with­draw from classes that they do not wish to attend and to verify that they are no longer enrolled.

A student may withdraw up until the with­draw­al dead­line for the class. Students enrolled after the last day to withdraw will receive a grade for the class. Students are limited to receiving a “W” and/or a substandard grade (“D”, “F”, “NC”, “NP”) no more than three times for the same course. After the third such enrollment attempt, students will be blocked from additional enrollment. (Excused and Military withdrawals are not included in this limitation.) Please see Administrative Procedure 5075 for more information. 

Enrollment Status and Workload 

To complete the average Associate degree (approximately 60 units) in two years, students should complete 30 units each academic year. However, for official enrollment verification purposes, students enrolled in 12 or more units per semester are considered full-time, students enrolled in 6-11.5 units are considered half-time, and students enrolled in less than 6 units are considered part-time. 

For the summer session, 4 units is considered full-time; however, this does not apply in the determination of financial aid eligibility. Credit is not given for courses in which a student is not officially enrolled.

Students should expect to spend about 2 hours of time studying, reading, and completing assignments for each enrolled unit. For example, a student enrolled in 15 units should expect to spend about 30 hours per week outside of the classroom completing these activities. 

Students may not enroll in more than 18 units with­out submitting an over­load request. To be granted an overload of up to 20 units, a student must:

1. Have completed 12 or more units with a 3.0 GPA;

2. Not be on probation;

   1. Be eligible for ENGL 0001A by assessment or satisfactory completion of ENGL 0000N, ESL 0030C, or equivalent; and

3. Have satisfactorily completed ENGL 0001A, ENGL 0001B, ENGL 0001C, ENGL 0011, ENGL 0000N, ESL 0030C, PHIL 0004, or equivalent.

If a student’s GPA is 2.8–2.9 and all other requirements have been met, the student must have completed 30 or more college units.

Students wishing to enroll in 21 units or more, in addition to the above listed requirements, must have a minimum of 18 units completed, 15 of which must have been completed in a single semester, and obtain approval from a counselor and Dean of Enrollment Services.

Honors Courses

Many courses offered at Sierra College may, with the instructor’s permission, be taken for honors credit. Students who are interested in a more challenging classroom experience may contract with a willing instructor for honors credit. Completion by a student of the honors contract together with an earned course grade of A or B will result in a notation on the student’s transcript indicating that the course was completed “With Honors.” For more information, visit the honors page on the website.

Illness or Emergency Leaves of Ab­sence

Sierra College does not grant medical leaves of ab­sence. Stu­dents who are ab­sent for at least two con­sec­u­tive weeks due to ill­ness should obtain written doc­u­men­ta­tion from their care provider to give to class professors. Re­gard­less of ill­ness, the stu­dent is re­spon­si­ble for all missed as­sign­ments and ex­am­i­na­tions.

Open Courses

It is the policy of Sierra College that, unless spe­cif­i­cal­ly exempted by statute, every course of­fered and main­tained by the District shall be fully open to en­roll­ment and ­par­tic­i­pa­tion by any per­son who has been ad­mit­ted to the college and who meets such pre­req­ui­sites es­tab­lished ­pursuant to Title 5.

Overlapping and Multiple Course Enrollment

Students may not enroll in courses which meet at the same or overlapping time. Also, stu­dents may not enroll in more than one class section of the same course in the same semester or session. This is also true of courses des­ig­nat­ed as re­peat­able, unless the class sections don’t have overlapping time frames.

Prerequisites, Corequisites and Advisories

It is the intent of Sierra College to guide stu­dents to cours­es in which they will have the great­est chance of ac­a­dem­ic suc­cess. There­fore, some cours­es listed in this cat­a­log have either a pre­req­ui­site, a corequisite, or ad­vi­so­ry prep­a­ra­tion. If no pre­req­ui­site, corequisite or ad­vi­so­ry in­for­ma­tion is indicated there are no con­di­tions of en­roll­ment. The fol­low­ing are the def­i­ni­tions for pre­req­ui­sites, corequisites and ad­vi­so­ry prep­a­ra­tion:

“Prerequisite” means a condition of en­roll­ment that stu­dents are required to meet in order to dem­on­strate cur­rent readiness for enrollment in a course or ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­gram. “C” is the designated minimum grade for prerequisite courses.

“Corequisite” means a condition of en­roll­ment con­sist­ing of a course that students are re­quired to si­mul­ta­neous­ly take in order to enroll in an­oth­er course.

“Advisory” means a condition of enrollment that stu­dents are advised but not required to meet be­fore or in con­junc­tion with enrollment in a course or ed­u­ca­tion­al program.

Prerequisite Clearance Procedures

Students who have met a prerequisite in high school or at another college may submit transcripts for review and prerequisite clearance. All documents, including the Prerequisite Clearance form (available online), should be submitted to Placement and Testing Services, emailed to assessment@sierracollege.edu. Results are available within 3-5 business days after submission and are accessible online via mySierra.

Prerequisite/Corequisite Appeal Procedures

Any prerequisite or corequisite may be appealed by a student on one or more of the grounds listed below:

1. The student has the knowledge or ability to succeed in the course or program despite not meeting the prerequisite or corequisite;
2. The student will be subject to undue delay in attaining the goal of his or her educational plan because the prerequisite or corequisite has not been made reasonably available;
3. The student believes that the prerequisite or corequisite has been established in violation of reg­u­la­tions and/or the College’s policy and procedures; or
4. The student believes that the prerequisite or corequisite is unlawfully discriminatory or is being applied in an unlawfully discriminatory manner.

Prerequisite/Corequisite Appeal forms may be obtained at the following locations:

• Placement and Testing Services
• Counseling Centers
• Academic Division Offices.

The Prerequisite/Corequisite Appeal form must be submitted to the appropriate academic division office for the prerequisite/corequisite being appealed. The appeal will be reviewed within 5 working days, and the results will be accessible online via mySierra. If approved, the student will be permitted to enroll in the course.

Reference: Sierra College Board Policies/Administrative Procedures Chapters 4 and 5.