Bioengineering

Student Policies

Please refer to the SEAS Undergraduate Handbook for policies and procedures.

Bioengineering Credit Increase Policy

Students with a 3.0 GPA or above can request to have their credits increased above the 5.5 cu maximum by contacting Kacy (kacy@seas). Credits will only be increased by 1 cu per semester. For example, if you earn a 3.0 GPA or above with 5.5 cu’s, Kacy will raise you to 6.5 cu’s. If you have only taken a maximum course load of 5cu’s, we can increase you to 6cu’s.  Students are not permitted to pre-register for more than 5.5 cu during advance registration. (A 6.5 cu maximum may be granted for dual degree students and seniors who need more cu’s to graduate on time.) Students may only register for more than 5.5 cu’s after grades and course load from the previous semester are available. Please refer to the SEAS policy on credit increases.

Petitioning for a Credit Increase

A formal Petition for Action must be submitted for any students requesting 7 cu’s or higher, or students below a 3.0 GPA that would like any amount of credit increase. You can find the online Petition for Action form here. Students needing to petition for a credit increase need to fill out the petition form, and include an academic plan. This plan should be all the courses you have taken while at Penn so far, and all of the courses you plan to take until you graduate, listed semester by semester with credits for each semester listed. This includes all courses for dual degree, dual major, minor, etc. if applicable. This cannot be a copy of your eCPG. Excel or Word format is best. Please include your reasoning for the credit increase during a specific semester, as well as the course(s) you will be adding. Read below for petition instructions and deadlines.

SEAS Petition for Action

Students requesting to petition must fill out the online Petition for Action form. The Petitions Committee meets every Wednesday, but petitions must be submitted online to RAS by Tuesday at noon. You will receive an email from the committee letting you know their decision. If you have any questions regarding the petitioning process, please contact Kacy (kacy@seas).

BE Course Substitution Form

BE undergraduate students who are requesting an Engineering or Technical Elective category course substitution, must submit the a Bioengineering Course Substitution form. This is only for courses that fall under the Engineering category (BE 100, 101, 200, etc) and Technical Elective category on the BAS or BSE eCPG. If students are requesting a course substitution for a different category on the eCPG (Mathematics, Natural Science, etc) they must fill out a Petition for Action form and go through the petitions committee, as seen above. The Bioengineering Course Substitution form must be completed by the student, signed by the faculty advisor, and must include a syllabus of the course they are requesting to replace it with as well as a justification for the request. The form should then be submitted to the BE office (Skrikanich 240), and the student will be notified by the BE office if the request was approved or denied. The student must submit the form BEFORE they take the course they are planning to substitute.

Permits

Permits are requested through CourseLeaf Path. You can see how to request a permit here. 

Please refer to our  BE Permit Request Information sheet. There will be no permits for the following courses approved during advance registration: BE 4900, BE 4920, BE 5270, BE 5290, BE 5620.

Students needing a permit for other BE courses not listed above will need to do the following steps:

1) Email the instructor of the course to ask for permission.

2) If approved, submit a permit request through Path@Penn.

3) Forward your instructor approval along with confirmation that you have submitted your permit request in Path@Penn to Colleen (cd0318@seas)

4) The department will then approve the request in the system and you must go in and register for the course. The permit does not automatically register you for the course.

Declaring a Bioengineering Concentration

Students who would like to declare a  concentration will need to use Path Forms.
Please click on the link below:
https://srfs.upenn.edu/registrar/forms
-Click on “Declare/Update Field of Study”
-Use the “Declare Major/Concentration” form

Concentrations will not show up on your Penn InTouch, but will be printed on your official transcript upon graduation from Penn.