How it works
You elect P/F by the published deadline; the instructor grades normally and the registrar converts anything at or above a set threshold to P (no GPA effect) and anything below to F (full GPA hit). Major, minor, and general-education requirements usually can't be taken P/F — check before electing.
When it helps and when it doesn't
Good for stretching into a hard elective outside your field without risking your GPA. Bad if you might want that course to count for something later, or if graduate programs in your field expect letter grades — some recalculate a P as its worst possible letter.
In and around Porter Falls
Curriculum decisions at Porter run through the departments that meet in Founders Hall and the Applied Arts Building, then to Faculty Senate, then to the Provost in Millwright Hall. The pace is deliberately slow and the review calendar is published.
The practical details
Limit: A capped number of P/F courses toward a degree; usually only free electives are eligible. Deadline: Elected by a date a few weeks into the term, and hard to reverse after. GPA: A Pass doesn't affect GPA; a Fail counts as an F. Anything time-sensitive — an accommodation, a booking, a deadline — is worth confirming directly before you rely on it, because the specifics here can change from term to term.
If you have a question
The office behind this is Office of the Provost (Millwright Hall, Room 300). Call (715) 555–0130 or email provost@uwporterfalls.edu during the fall and spring terms, or sign in to MyPorter to send a message or book a time. If it turns out another office owns the question, they will route it rather than send you back to the start.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.