Grades, repeats and progression in UL Lafayette nursing

The rules by program

UL Lafayette's grade rules come in three layers: the program's own catalog entry, the ICMSN handbook for MSN students, and the Graduate School rules that cover every graduate student. All three apply at once, so the strictest one sets your real limit.

A D or F, and the clinical F

The ICMSN handbook draws a hard line at the bottom of the scale: an MSN student who earns a D or an F, in any course at all, can no longer progress in the graduate nursing program. The repeat rule covers grades below B; a D or F works as a stop, and the path back runs through an appeal, described below.

Clinical courses carry a second route to an F. The handbook states that when a preceptor or faculty member gives an unsatisfactory final evaluation in a course with a clinical component, the course grade is an F, however your exams and papers went. That puts real weight on the preceptor match. A preceptor whose patients do not fit the course's population, or who leaves halfway through, makes a strong final evaluation much harder to earn.

Louisiana's rules have faculty judge your performance with input from preceptors, and they call for a faculty check-in with you and your preceptor every week of the precepted experience, so feedback should reach you well before the final evaluation. Faculty oversight and evaluations explains how that works.

Graduate School rules: GPA, Cs and the appeal

Every UL Lafayette graduate student also answers to the Graduate School. You must keep a 3.0 GPA at all times, may receive no more than two grades of C, may carry no more than 6 credit hours of C, and may receive nothing lower than a C. Break any of those and you become ineligible to register. A grade of F leaves a graduate student ineligible to go on past the current semester, and an unreported grade counts as an F.

Incompletes deserve attention too. An I that is not changed by the posted deadline becomes an F automatically, so unfinished practicum hours have a hard stop; the academic calendar lists the 2026-27 deadlines.

Once you are ineligible, the only route back is an appeal to the Graduate Council Standing Committee on Graduate Appeals. The appeal pairs a petition letter from you with a response from your program's committee.

Protecting your grade from the placement side

Many clinical grade problems start before the first clinical day: a preceptor outside your population focus, a site without enough patients for your course, a preceptor who leaves mid-semester. We build placements to head those off. Whether or not UL Lafayette arranges any part of your placement, we match you with a Louisiana preceptor certified in your population, confirm the practice can carry your course's hours, and stay on call to line up a replacement quickly if the preceptor drops. You keep the same placement advisor for the whole sequence, so the search for the next course's preceptor starts before the current one ends.

If that has already happened, preceptor dropped out is the page to read next. If your next practicum is still ahead, tell us the course and semester in the form below.