Students may meet an academic requirement, within specified limits, by passing a waiver examination at least equal in scope and difficulty to a final examination in a course. Successful completion of the examination waives the curricular requirement for a specific course but does not result in credit earned. Waiver credits will not reduce the total number of semester hours required for a degree; however, they will increase the available number of elective hours for a degree. Waiver examinations must be taken prior to the final semester at DigiPen Institute of Technology Europe-Bilbao, and they may not be repeated.
Students have the opportunity to waive designated courses by demonstrating mastery of the material in two steps:
- A waiver petition to the respective department, indicating prior academic coursework and relevant work experience in the subject area; and
- Performance on a placement exam offered by the respective department at the beginning of each term.
To petition waiving a course, the student must complete a waiver request for each course, submit a transcript or photocopy of the transcript with relevant coursework highlighted, and submit the requests to the Office of the Administration. Waiver requests may be completed online through SRS. Once submitted, waiver requests need to be approved by the department appropriate to the courses. For waiver requests received by July 1, students will receive notification by August 1. Waiver requests arriving in the Office of the Administration after July 1 will be handled on a rolling basis, as faculty schedules allow. Results of waiver requests received after the July 1 deadline are not guaranteed to be available before the start of classes.
It is not possible to predict the results of faculty review of course waiver requests. Courses generally include intermediate-level material, so a student who has completed only introductory work in a subject is not likely to be granted a waiver. Faculty take many factors into consideration, including the academic caliber of the school where the course was taken, the difficulty of the text, the grade received, and the time elapsed since completion of the course.
The following restrictions apply to all waiver examinations:
- A student must have an approved waiver request on file before credit by examination can be recorded on the permanent record.
- A student must be currently enrolled before a waiver examination can be recorded on the permanent record.
- A maximum of 15 semester hours may be waived toward a bachelor degree.
- Examinations may not be repeated.
- Repeat course work and “F” grades (or 0 quality points) or “NP” grades are not open to waiver requests.
- Students may not take waiver examinations on courses they have audited.