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Course Substitution

As you work toward meeting your graduation requirements, you may need to substitute one course for another. To learn more about when this may be required, visit the “Academic Regulations” section of the Undergraduate Catalog.

Preparation

To avoid prerequisite issues or a delay in graduation, your course substitution request should be submitted as early as possible. Some colleges do not consider requests in the last semester, so it's best to submit prior to applying for graduation. Only courses that you have already completed or are currently pre-registered for can be used in a substitution request.

This is a request for a change to the curriculum requirements for an individual student and approval is not guaranteed. Approval for you (or a peer) also does not imply that the same request will be approved for others.

You will be notified via email once your request is approved or denied.

Submit Course Substitution Request

Student Responsibilities

Before submission of this electronic substitution request, the details of the request should first be discussed with your primary advisor. Completing your request will require completing a mandatory detailed justification section with the applicable information. A clear and detailed justification will expedite the review process.

You may be asked to provide additional documentation upon review by approvers. If additional documentation is needed to further justify your request, you will be notified via email.

General Education Course Substitution Review Process

The Clemson Crossings/General Education curriculum has some areas that are driven by student learning outcomes rather than by content alone: the Global Challenges area, the Cross Cultural Awareness area (in catalogs prior to 2022-2023), and the Science and Technology in Society area (in catalogs prior to 2022-2023). You may request review of a course via a course substitution form for courses not listed in the General Education areas in the catalog.

To prepare the course substitution form:

  1. Check the Undergraduate Academic Catalog for the General Education student learning outcomes for your catalog year. The course for which the course substitution is being prepared must be a good fit with our student learning outcomes.
  2. You should work with your academic advisor to create a new note in CU Navigate and upload the syllabus from the course. If the course syllabus is not available, you should provide a narrative describing how the course and the work performed on assignments meets the student learning outcome. You will then need to upload a sample of your work from the course. All documentation should be in CU Navigate. (Substitution requests without documentation will not be approved.)
  3. Submit the substitution request, add a note that the documentation is in CU Navigate. No course may be used to fulfill two General Education requirements (i.e., Mathematics and Global Challenges), so course substitution requests should be submitted only for courses not already fulfilling a General Education requirement. If you are unsure, check your Degree Works audit. Global Challenges course substitution requests can be for Clemson courses only, not courses taken elsewhere.

Transferring Credits from Another School

An Approval of Credits to Be Earned at Another School (PDF) must be submitted prior to enrolling at another institution. Course substitutions are not permitted in situations where Academic Forgiveness has been previously applied.

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