Current Student FAQ

You can find your currently assigned NTC Academic Advisor on your Student Tab in Gibson, near blue button for your degree audit. The audit also lists your current advisor at the top under student academic information.

You are welcome to call advising directly at 504-865-5798, email advising@tulane.edu, or log in to meet with a Virtual Advisor of the Day or Peer Advisor to look up your current advisor and learn how to prepare for an appointment.

While all NTC Academic Advisors can support getting started in your pre-health or pre-law ideation and coursework, we also have specialized pre-professional advisors to help get you on the right path to a strong pre-professional application. You can schedule an appointment to meet with a pre-health or pre-law advisor or check out their website for upcoming events.

If your question is urgent or feels like an academic emergency, you are encouraged to connect with a Virtual Advisor of the Day between 10:00-4:30 Monday through Friday or call advising directly between 8:30-5:00PM to connect to an available advisor for support. Drop in advising support is also available at certain times during the semester. Current offerings may be found here.

While you may still need to meet with your assigned advisor for more complex processes and planning, any individual academic advisor can help navigate short-term solutions for situations causing increased stress.

Changes in your NTC Advisor are never personal. Changes usually have to do with caseload balance and changing staff responsibilities that require strategic advisor changes.

NTC Academic Advisors are skilled in connecting you to new curriculum options and may be a good first step if you are looking to discuss your possibilities with a professional staff member on campus equipped with curriculum knowledge.

While your NTC Academic Advisor can help you choose courses to get started in any major, in-depth planning around your majors or minors is best support by the departments that wrote the curriculum. If you have not declared a major/minor, the department’s website and catalog are a good place to start researching your course requirements and major declaration processes.

We recommend getting familiar with the major or minor expectations on your own and then reaching out to the departments or faculty advisors for support in clarifying requirements or weighing course options that meet your individual academic goals.

A strong academic plan includes a plan to declare your major before the end of your sophomore year to ensure steady progress towards graduation. Some students declare in their first-year to connect to their department(s) and access major-only coursework during registration. Each department handles major declaration differently, so you should start the process by consulting departmental websites for declaration information.

Additional majors and minors can always be declared when there is time to complete them before graduation. Majors and minors may also be changed/removed, upon written request from student to advisor.

To earn a double major, you must complete all NTC core requirements, any additional school requirements for only the school that your primary major is housed in, and major requirements for each major. A double major is contained within a single degree and a student’s primary school requirements are matched to the primary major on record. Double majors/single degrees require 120 credits (122 credits for BSM degrees) and must include 60 credits of upper-level coursework (above 1000-level).

For a dual degree, you must complete all NTC core requirements, any additional school requirements for both schools housing each primary major, and major requirements for each major on each degree. A dual degree requires 150 credits with 82 credits of upper-level coursework (above 1000 level). Discuss this option with your advisor early on if considering.

No. You are not required to meet with an advisor to change your schedule or register for classes. First-time registration events in fall and spring for incoming students are the only instance during which meeting with an advisor may be required before adding the first schedule. Thereafter, students may log into the Schedule of Classes and add and drop courses if they are within the Academic Calendar deadlines for each action. Students are advised to consult with an advisor if there is concern about how the decision may impact progress towards graduation.

You can drop a currently enrolled class on the Schedule of Classes up until the Last Day to Drop with Record provided you will remain enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits after the dropped class credits.

Exceptions to the 12-credit minimum are rare and may impact financial aid. However, students with extenuating medical or personal circumstances are encouraged to consult NTC Advising as soon as possible to weigh options.

You should consult the current Academic Calendar and adhere to drop dates. If you drop a class after the last day to drop without record and before the drop with record deadline, you will receive a “W” on your transcript. Discuss with an advisor about any questions you have about “W” or weighing the decision to drop.

To change the grade type of a course to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory you will need to complete an online form on the Registrar Student Forms website. Policy restricts this option in some instances (see here).

It is recommended that you consult with NTC Advising before changing a class to S/U grading as there could be consequences to this decision that you may have not considered. You may contact an advisor at the Virtual Advisor of the Day or by meeting with your currently assigned advisor.

To access your degree audit, log in to Gibson online with your Tulane email and password. From the Student Tab, go to the bottom of the page and select “Degree Audit.” Select "Current Degree Program Audit" and click the "Submit" button.

For more information about how to read your degree audit, schedule an appointment with your advisor, and consult the following website: https://registrar.tulane.edu/degreeworks.

You must meet with the Transfer Credit Specialist in NTC Advising to have your course considered for transfer credit. Your NTC Advisor can help you determine how a transferred class may count towards your curriculum requirements and impact your path to graduation.

Newcomb-Tulane College encourages all who wish to study abroad to do so. First, research your program interest with a study abroad advisor (http://global.tulane.edu/osa), major/minor departments, or upperclassmen who have gone abroad previously. Next, meet with NTC Advising regarding your plan and interest to determine how study abroad may fit into your academic plan path towards graduation and identify when would be an ideal time for you to participate in a program abroad.

We recommend beginning these discussions early in your academic career to ensure key coursework is complete before your program abroad.

The Registrar’s Office handles transcript requests. You may order electronic and/or mailed transcripts through the “Order A Transcript” link in Gibson Online.

Pursuant to the Family Educational and Privacy Act (FERPA), you have a right to privacy regarding your educational record, meaning that access to your academic information is limited to university officials who need this information to perform their job duties. If you would like to grant another person access to your educational record (i.e., a parent), you must sign a Release of Information form and give it directly to a university official.

Without a signed and dated FERPA release form on file, your advisor will be unable to answer parent questions beyond general academic policies. More information about FERPA and to access the current FERPA form see the university registrar page.

Beginning in Fall 2013, all Latin Honors at Tulane are awarded based on cumulative GPA alone. Latin Honors are not rounded. Students achieving GPA in the top 30% of the class will receive Latin honors according to the following:

Summa cum laude = top 5% of the class.
Magna cum laude = next 10% of the class.
Cum laude = next 15% of the class.

The precise GPA standards will be calculated based on the grades of the previous class; these standards will be advertised to students each the summer and posted on the Newcomb-Tulane College website.

Departmental Honors are issued to students with successful completion of an honors thesis, unrelated to Latin Honor achievement.

The grade-point average (GPA) is determined by dividing the student’s total number of quality points by the total number of quality hours. Quality hours are all credits for which a letter grade was earned. This excludes transfer credit, AP and IB credit, and courses taken for a Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) grade type. Quality points are the sum of each course grade (on a 4-point scale) multiplied by the course credit hours. Example: B+ in ENGL 1010, a four-credit course, is worth 13.332 quality points (B+ = 3.333 quality points x 4 credits = 13.332 quality points) Graduation requires a 2.000 grade-point average, equivalent to an average grade of C, in all courses as well as in the major. Newcomb-Tulane College GPA Calculator (This tool is UNOFFICIAL)

The retake policy (updated in spring 2021) dictates how repeating courses are factored into your GPA and when they may be retaken without request. If you earn a D+ or lower in any course, you may repeat the course at Tulane (meaning that you can register for it again without request from registrar and NTC advising). When you complete the second attempt at the course, the newly retaken grade will factor into your cumulative GPA (regardless of whether it was a higher grade). Both grades will continue to appear on your transcript.

If you earned a C- or higher on the initial course, you need to complete a course retake form from the registrar’s office to request permission to enroll in the repeated course. In most cases, you will want to consult with NTC Advising when weighing whether it will benefit you to retake a course you have already taken.

You may only receive course credit once, so you may not earn new credit on a repeated course unless you failed (earning no credit) the course initially. You will need to be enrolled in a full-time schedule (12 credits) in addition to the repeated course. You may only repeat one course in a single semester.