Courses, Credits and Grades

Courseload: The full year course load taken at a foreign university, no matter how many courses or hours this entails, is equivalent to a full course load at Holy Cross; eight course units. Required courses taken by students attending the Pre-University Language Programs in France, Germany, Italy, Peru, Russia and Spain will be recorded on student transcripts as ‘overloads’ and may not be used to make up a college deficiency. Grades earned for the required Independent Cultural Immersion Project are also recorded as ‘overloads.’ No college deficiencies may be made up at a Study Abroad Program.

Fulfilling Requirements: Students should not take more than the equivalent of four Holy Cross credits within their major in year programs. Moreover, Political Science students can take a maximum of 3 (one-semester) courses for major credit and Economics and Economics/Accounting students a maximum of 2 (one-semester) courses (one upper- and one lower-level elective) for major credit.  Spanish majors cannot take more than one course for major credit in the Coruna Semester program.

Courses are approved for Common Area Requirements by the Registrar and by individual departments for major, minor and concentration credit. For more information on the course approval process, see Accepted Students.

Grades: Grades earned in Study Abroad Programs are not calculated into the Holy Cross GPA, but they are ‘translated’ into Holy Cross equivalents (i.e., A, A-, B+, B etc.) and recorded on a student’s transcript.

See the Registrar's page on Study Abroad Equivalencies for more program-specific information.