myPNWplan

In the audit on the Worksheets screen you will see your student profile information at the top.  This includes name, overall GPA, degree, major, concentration, minor, catalog year, classification and academic advisor’s name among other information. More than one advisor may be listed, especially if you are in the Honors College.  If you have a hold on your student record, it will be displayed in the “Holds” field. Please note that some holds affect your ability to register for upcoming semesters.

The program requirements in the audit appear in categories (or blocks) starting with the overall degree requirements followed by the components that make up your particular major. These blocks may include General Education Core, College Core (for some College of Humanities, Education and Social Science and College of Business majors), major, concentration and minor (if applicable).

The requirements that make up the audit are based on your particular program of study and the catalog year in which you declared your major.

If you have any courses that are not required for your current major, they will be in a separate category for Unapplied Courses at the end of the audit.

Your catalog year is determined by the semester you begin to study a specific major and is displayed in the degree block header area. For example, Catalog Year: Academic Year 2022-23.

Your catalog year may not necessarily be the year you started at PNW, especially if you have changed majors or elected to follow a more recent catalog year than the one you began when you entered the university. Degree requirements may differ between catalog years.  Refer to the appropriate Academic Catalog for an authoritative list of program requirements for your declared major.

Your catalog year along with your declared major determine the set of degree requirements you will see in your audit.

As individual requirements are fulfilled either by PNW courses or transfer credit, the circle next to each requirement is checked off.

• Courses that you have successfully completed that meet course or elective requirements in your major and/or minor will be applied directly to meet those requirements and be displayed with a checkmark in a green circle.
• Courses you are currently taking or have registered for in a future semester will be noted with a half-shaded blue circle and display a grade of REG for Registered.
• Courses that you still need to take will show up as “Still Needed” with an empty red circle.

Other important notations for course requirements in the audit:

• Courses you have yet to take with a blue clip board next to them have prerequisites. Be sure to plan course sequences carefully.
• Some elective requirements are listed with the @ symbol, which indicates a wild card in myPNWplan.  For example, “@ @ with Attribute GESE” signifies any course at any level that has been approved by the Faculty Senate as meeting the General Education requirement for Natural Science will fulfill this rule. Course attribute is one of the searchable fields in the online Schedule of Classes.

There is a legend at the bottom of the audit that displays these symbols and their meanings.

Unapplied Courses

Classes listed in the Unapplied Courses section do not meet any of the current program requirements. However, these courses may potentially be used if you change majors, add a minor or it is determined by your academic department that they can be used to fulfill degree requirements.

Insufficient

Courses that you withdrew from or do not meet minimum grade requirements are listed under the Insufficient heading. Also, any earlier instances of courses that you may have repeated will be listed here. These courses cannot be used to fulfill degree requirements.

Contact your academic advisor with any questions you may have about how requirements are fulfilled in the audit.

Meet with your academic advisor to review your program requirements and your completed coursework. If an adjustment (also called an exception) is needed, your advisor can submit a request where appropriate.

The most common adjustments are for transfer credit that is awarded as “Undistributed,” which means it was not a direct course-for-course equivalent. These course codes typically end with “XXXX” instead of actual numbers.  Approved exceptions will be noted on the degree audit under their corresponding requirement with the date the exception was made and a brief description.

Course codes ending in “XPND” are awaiting evaluation by the academic department to determine if their content is equivalent to a PNW course.  You may be asked to provide supporting documentation such as a course description and/or syllabus. Adjustments (exceptions) in myPNWplan will not be processed for courses that are still in a temporary “XPND” status.

If no supporting evidence is provided or if it is ultimately determined that the course does not equate to a PNW course, “XPND” will convert into “XXXX”.  At that time, your academic advisor may request an exception, if appropriate.

If “XPND” is determined to be an equivalent to a PNW course, then the course code will be adjusted. For example, CIS 2XPND gets converted to CIS 20400.  The course with the updated code may apply to a degree requirement without needing an exception.  However, if an exception is still needed, your academic advisor can request the adjustment.

• Before registration and meeting with an academic advisor
• After registration to ensure courses apply to requirements as expected
• After final semester grades are posted
• Anytime a change is made to your class schedule, grades or program of study

Look at all the requirements in each block of your audit. If there is a green checkmark, the requirement is complete. If there is a blue circle, the requirement is in progress (e.g. you are registered for the course in the current or a future semester). Remaining red circles indicate requirements that have not been met.

Even if all items are checked off, there may be other requirements you need for graduation, such as minimum scores on national or state exams, experiential learning requirements, minimum GPAs in major courses or other major-specific, non-course requirements not contained within the myPNWplan system. Be sure to verify your progress toward graduation with your academic advisor.

Very Important Step:

When you are registering for your final courses, you must submit the appropriate Application to Graduate for the semester you plan on completing your degree requirements. You can find the link to Apply to Graduate in the myPNW portal on the Graduation tab. It is required whether or not you intend to participate in a commencement ceremony and information from this form is used to order your diploma. Go to the Graduation and Commencement web page for detailed information about graduation and important deadlines. Failure to notify the Office of the Registrar of your intent to graduate may result in a delayed graduation date.

In the upper right of the worksheet, under the three vertical dots, there is a drop down menu.  Click on “Class History”. This will provide you with a listing by semester of all courses you have completed and the grades you have received. It will also show any transfer credit you have been awarded. Again, this is not an unofficial transcript, but you may use it as a reference.

Review your audit worksheet for areas that are not complete (“Still Needed”). If you have a question about a course, click on the course code link for more information including prerequisites. If your advisor has created a semester-by-semester plan for you to follow, it can be found under the Plans tab at the top of the Worksheet.  Work with your academic advisor on your plan to develop a strategy to meet your educational goals.

Students in a 120-credit hour program of study should take at least 15 credit hours per semester (or 30 credit hour per year) to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in four years. Speak with your academic advisor about taking 15 to finish!

The “What If” feature allows you to create a hypothetical degree audit using your current academic history. Use “What If” to see how your completed and in-progress courses apply to requirements in a different major, concentration and/or minor and what courses are still needed.

1. To use this feature, click on the “What If” link on the Worksheet in myPNWplan.
2. In the “Program” section, there are several fields with drop down options. Please note that the current Academic Year is the default setting for the Catalog Year.
3. In the Program field, select the degree type that corresponds to the major you wish to explore. The program contains the degree type plus the associated college.  For example, BSB in College of Business indicates the Bachelor of Science in Business which has a number of corresponding majors such as Finance, Human Resources, Management, Marketing, etc.
4. In the Major field the choices displayed will be filtered based on the degree type you selected.
5. If the major has a concentration, be sure to indicate the one you want. Not all majors have a concentration.
6. You can also add a minor.  Minors are independent of the major you select, so you will see the whole list of available minors.
7. In the Future Classes area you can select courses that you are considering by entering the subject and course numbers and clicking “Add”.  This is an optional feature that will allow you to see how these courses fit into the new program of study you want to explore.
8. When you are done making all your selections, click the “Process” button on the lower right to see the sample audit.
9. To navigate back to your current program of study, click on the “Academic” link.

If in your current major your advisor has requested exceptions for any of your degree requirements, please note that they will not be carried over into your What If sample audit. We encourage you to speak with your academic advisor about any questions you may have about changing your major or adding a minor.

“What If” scenarios do not officially change your major. To officially declare a new major, you must meet with your academic advisor to initiate the Change of Degree Objective (CODO) process.

The “What If” feature also allows you to create a hypothetical degree audit using your current major and minors to see how courses your are considering may fit into your program of study.

1. To use this feature, click on the “What If” link on the Worksheet in myPNWplan.
2. Click on the “use current curriculum” checkbox.
3. In the Future Classes area you can select courses that you are considering by entering the subject and course numbers and clicking “Add”.
4. When you are done making all your selections, click the “Process” button on the lower right to see the sample audit.  Courses will show up as “Planned” since they are not actual registrations.
5. To navigate back to your current program of study, click on the “Academic” link.

Your overall GPA is listed in the Student Information area near the top of your audit. This GPA includes all graded courses you have taken within the Purdue system. Pass/Fail courses, audited classes and coursework transferred from other institutions do not affect GPA.

In the upper right of the worksheet, under the three vertical dots, there is a drop down menu.  Click on “GPA Calculator” and go to the Term Calculator tab. Select the letter grade you anticipate receiving from the drop down options next to each course to get an estimate of what your overall GPA may be at the end of the semester. Then click the “Calculate” button on the lower right to view your results. Please note that this is an estimate only and does not take into account repeated coursework.

There could be various reasons you do not see an audit or a complete audit:

• You are in a non-supported catalog year (you declared your major prior to Fall 2018 or, in some cases, Fall 2019). You will see a list of completed and in-progress courses.  Contact your academic advisor for complete program of study information.
• There is missing information in your student record. For example, your concentration does not appear in myPNWplan (some majors require a concentration) or your catalog year needs to be updated.  Contact your academic advisor to confirm your declared major, concentration, minor and catalog year.
• You are a student in University College and have not yet declared a major. You will see a list of courses and will be able to use other features within the tool such as “What If” and GPA Calculator. Contact your academic advisor if you are ready to declare your intended major.
• You have a double major (two majors under the same degree type). You may see a partial audit for one of your majors, but this is not a complete view of all program requirements. Contact your academic advisor for complete program of study information for both majors.
• You have a dual degree (two majors in different degree types). You will have two separate, complete degree audits: one for each degree type. In the Degree field next to your name at the top of the audit, click the arrow for a drop-down list of the degrees. Click the degree types to toggle between the two audits.
• You are pursuing a graduate program. Graduate students use the electronic plan of study on the Graduate School tab in the myPNW portal.

Any undergraduate student may use the “What If” feature in myPNWplan to explore current majors and minors or the current catalog year requirements for their declared major.

• Contact your academic advisor if you have questions related to:
  • how your courses apply to degree requirements.
  • transfer credit that may need to be reviewed or missing transfer credit.
  • your declared major, concentration or minor not displaying in the audit.
• Contact the Customer Service Center at (219) 989-2888 if you are not able to access the myPNW portal or the myPNWplan link on the Registration tab.
• Contact the Office of the Registrar to request an official college transcript or visit the Transcript web site for more information about the online Transcript Request System.

For more information and help sheets visit the PNW Student Hub in Brightspace and click on “How do I stay on track?”