Skip class, don’t pass.

University of North Georgia students who miss more than 10% of any class meetings prior to the midpoint of the term will be assigned a grade of a W. Those who stop attending after the midpoint can be assigned a WF.

Professors have discretion about whether to excuse it or not. A student can get an excused absence if it falls under what the faculty handbook determines is an extenuating circumstance. The handbook says, “Extenuating circumstances for which an absence may be excused include participation in university-sponsored activities, hazardous weather conditions, personal hardship, extended illness or hospitalization, family emergencies, or death in the immediate family. Instructors may request documentation to verify the extenuating circumstances.”

Delilah Parkes, a freshman education major, says, “I think the attendance policy is fine, but as a student, when you hear that you can only miss six classes it does not sound like a lot but in reality, it is.” Six classes are the maximum number of meetings a student can miss for a course that meets three days a week. “This is not high school, and it is up to you if you want to go, and if you don’t, that is just you wasting your money,” says Parkes.

“I have had to make sacrifices in my personal life to attend a class to not go above my maximum number of absences,” says Maria Hatcher a freshman education major. She highlights the reality of the situation at UNG. She says, “The attendance policy is not bad in practice because most professors do what they want and do not always take attendance.”

Instructors have the final say on their account of student attendance. “Individual instructors or departments may have attendance policies stricter than that of the university, as long as the policies are stated in the class syllabus” according to the UNG faculty handbook student attendance policy.