How to Fill Out and Submit the UIUC Grade Replacement Form

The UIUC grade replacement form lets an undergraduate retake a course and have only the second grade count toward GPA. To use it, confirm you’re eligible, fill in your UIN and the course details for both the original and current enrollments, and submit the form to your college advising office during the first half of the term you’re retaking the course.¹ Where you send it depends on your college.

Before You Fill It Out

The form assumes you already meet the policy’s rules. Check these first, because an ineligible submission won’t be approved.

You must be a currently enrolled undergraduate. Graduate and professional students can’t use the policy, and students who have already received a UIUC degree can’t go back and replace a grade from that program.¹

Across your time at UIUC, you can replace a maximum of four distinct courses totaling no more than 10 semester hours. A single course can only be repeated for grade replacement once, so a failed second attempt ends your options under this policy.² Courses with an officially reported academic integrity violation are not eligible.¹

Only certain original grades qualify: C-, D+, D, D-, F, or ABS. A C or higher cannot be replaced.¹ The repeat has to be the same course at the Urbana-Champaign campus — transfer credit from another school won’t work. Variable-credit courses must be retaken for the same number of hours, special-topics courses must cover the same topic, and the grade mode (letter grade versus credit/no-credit) must match the original enrollment.³

What Goes on the Form

You can pull most of what you need from your Self-Service account.⁴ The form typically asks for:

Your nine-digit University Identification Number (UIN).
The course rubric and number, such as MATH 220 or ECON 102. It has to match exactly between the original and repeated enrollment.
The original term — the semester and year you first took the course.
The current term — the semester and year of the retake.

A PDF version of the form is hosted on the Registrar’s site.⁵ Some colleges still use that paper form; others have moved to an online portal. Check with your college office before filling anything out so you’re using the version they want.

Where to Submit It

Each college handles submission differently. Talk to your academic advisor first. They can confirm your eligibility, and in some colleges they’ll complete the form with you.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

LAS uses an online Grade Replacement Request Form. After you submit it, LAS reviews eligibility and notifies you whether the request is approved.²

Gies College of Business

Fill out the grade replacement form (your advisor can help during Express Advising or a scheduled appointment), then email the completed form to Gies Records at records@business.illinois.edu. Gies Records will confirm approval.⁴

The Grainger College of Engineering

For standard in-person or online courses, submit the request through Grainger’s online Grade Replacement portal. For NetMath courses, online term OCE 7 courses, or situations where a Part-of-Term B course is replacing a Part-of-Term A course from the same semester, scan the PDF form and email it to engineering@illinois.edu or deliver it in person.⁵

Division of Exploratory Studies

Book an appointment with an academic advisor. You’ll complete the approval form together in the office.⁶

If your college isn’t on that list, contact your college advising office. The pattern is the same — form plus college approval — but the submission channel may be different.

When It’s Due

You have to file during the first half of the term you’re retaking the course. For a standard 16-week semester, that’s roughly the first eight weeks; for an eight-week session, around week four.²

The exact date depends on the Part of Term. For Fall 2025, the Registrar’s academic calendar listed September 19 for POT A, October 17 for POT 1 (full semester), and November 14 for POT B.⁷ These shift every term, so check the current academic calendar on the Registrar’s site before you count on a date.

Late requests are generally not accepted. College staff have some flexibility to grant extensions in extenuating circumstances, but relying on that is a poor plan.³ Miss the deadline and both grades average into your GPA under the standard repeat rule instead.

What Happens After Approval

Both enrollments stay on your official transcript. The original grade doesn’t disappear, but the first enrollment is permanently flagged as a course repeated for grade replacement, and only the second grade counts in your GPA. You earn credit once.¹ The Registrar recalculates the term GPA for the semester you first took the course, and the update flows into your degree audit and transcript.³

One warning before you submit: the second grade counts even if it’s lower than the first. A D replaced by an F leaves you with the F on your GPA.¹ If you originally passed and then fail the second attempt, you keep the course credit, but both grades fall under the general repeat policy and both factor into your GPA. The attempt still counts against your four-course and 10-hour caps.³

If You Need to Cancel

You can rescind a grade replacement request before the campus deadline. Dropping or withdrawing from the repeated course before the drop deadline voids the request and does not count against your lifetime limits.³

The rescind process varies by college. In Grainger, for instance, you have to meet in person with an advisor at the Grainger Academic Advising Center to complete a rescind form, and late requests are not accepted.⁵ Contact your advising office early if you’re thinking about backing out.

Two Things the Form Doesn’t Fix

Financial aid. Federal rules limit how many times you can receive aid for a repeated course. If you failed the first time, you can get aid for the retake. If you passed (even with a D-), you can receive federal aid for one additional attempt; a third attempt at a previously passed course isn’t eligible, no matter what your program requires.⁸ If the retake isn’t aid-eligible, those credit hours may be excluded from your enrollment total, which can reduce your aid for the semester, and repeated coursework can also affect Satisfactory Academic Progress. Check with the Office of Student Financial Aid before filing.

Graduate and professional applications. UIUC’s policy cleans up your campus GPA, but application services often recalculate using their own rules. LSAC counts all grades and credits for repeated courses as long as they appear on the transcript, which UIUC’s policy keeps visible.⁹ AMCAS does the same and requires you to report the original grade and attempted credits even if your school doesn’t; omitting them can lead to a returned application, missed deadlines, and forfeited fees.¹⁰ Grade replacement still demonstrates improvement, but it won’t hide the original grade from any application service that reads your transcript directly.

1
Student Code. Illinois Code 3-309 – Repeated Undergraduate Courses and Campus Grade Replacement
2
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Repeating Courses and Grade Replacement Policy
3
Office of the Registrar. Campus Grade Replacement Policy
4
Gies College of Business. Grade Replacement Form
5
Undergraduate Academic Advising. Grade Replacement
6
Division of Exploratory Studies. Grade Replacement
7
Office of the Registrar. Fall 2025 Academic Calendar
8
eCFR. 34 CFR 668.2
9
LSAC. Transcript Summarization
10
Association of American Medical Colleges. Grades Factored Into AMCAS GPA Calculations