Exam Guidelines

General Guidelines

• It is the responsibility of all students to be properly informed as to time and place for each of their final examinations.
• Whenever possible, exams will be administered in the regularly assigned classroom. No exams should be administered at a time other than that specified in the Final Exam Matrix without prior approval of the Registrar. Exceptions should be clearly announced in the course syllabus. Departments must notify Academic Scheduling - Office of the Registrar to reserve meeting space for exams that are not administered during the official exam period.
• For courses that meet at non-standard times (this is allowed as an exception and not as a common practice), the final exam should be scheduled according to the Final Exam Matrix based, as closely as possible, on the first day that the class meets during the week and the start time that most closely matches a standard start time.
  • Academic Scheduling must be notified at the same time to assign a classroom.
  • Confirming the correct day/time block should be done at the start of the semester and the information should be listed in the syllabus.
  • If this isn't workable, a proposal must be submitted to the Registrar's Office for assignment of a final exam time. Then, once the final exam time is determined, Academic Scheduling must be notified to assign a classroom.
  • It is the responsibility of the department/school to contact Academic Scheduling to have a classroom assigned once the final exam time for that course has been determined and approved by the Registrar as needed. This is done after the final exam assignment process has been completed.
• Each regularly scheduled lecture course of 2-credits or more at the Institute shall have a final examination which is to be administered at the time specified on the Final Exam Matrix. Regularly scheduled lecture courses of 1.5-credits or less must be scheduled directly with Academic Scheduling as they are not automatically assigned a final exam in alignment with the published matrix.
• Students will have the full two hours and fifty minutes to complete the final, unless otherwise stated on the syllabus. Students must be notified of any changes to the duration of the final exam at least two weeks before the first day of Finals Week.
• All students, including degree candidates, will take final examinations in all courses in which they are registered on the days specified on the Final Exam Matrix.
• A student reporting to a final examination room more than 15 minutes after the scheduled starting time shall not be allowed to take the examination unless a satisfactory explanation is presented to the instructor conducting the examination. Rules & Regulations XIIc

Three Examinations Scheduled In One Day

No student is to take more than two examinations on one exam day. If three examinations are scheduled on one exam day, the examination for the middle period will be rescheduled to the conflict period or to another period mutually agreed on by the instructor and student. Should the exam period be changed to the period for the other days, then it will be the responsibility of the instructor making the change to accommodate all conflicts created. Contact Academic Scheduling with any questions about eligibility for rescheduling exams.

Time Conflicts

• Any time conflicts with common exams are to be resolved by the Department/School hosting the common exam, and not by a professor giving their exam in their officially scheduled period.
• Any course that is offered outside the normal scheduling format must make arrangements to give way to courses offered in the normal time slot. If a conflict arises between two courses that offer finals outside the normal scheduling format, the time conflict will be resolved by the instructor rescheduling the examination for the course with the lower number. The common final for any course may not take up more than one exam period.
• All students should check the Final Exam Matrix against their own class schedule and report any time conflicts to the instructor(s) as soon as possible. It is the responsibility of each student to see that all possible conflicts are resolved by the instructor and the proper authorization received no later than 2 weeks before the Monday of exam week. A special period is provided as a time conflict period in which to reschedule conflicting examinations. Refer to the Final Exam Matrix for the time conflict date. Other periods within the exam week may also be used for conflicting examinations provided no student is forced to take more than two examinations in one day.

There are two major classes of time conflicts: