The enrollment and registration policies and resources at River Parishes Community College (RPCC) provide students with the information needed to successfully register for courses each semester. This section outlines procedures for course selection, schedule changes, withdrawal, and maintaining enrollment status. Understanding these policies helps ensure a smooth registration experience and supports timely progress toward academic and career goals.

Auditing Courses:

A student who desires to enroll in a college credit course and who does not want to earn college credit may apply to audit the course. Students who wish to audit a course must meet all pre-requisite or co-requisite requirements for the course. The tuition and fees assessed for a course being audited are the same as those for courses taken for credit. The decision to audit a course should be made at the time of registration. Changes from audit to credit or credit to audit must be made by the official “Last Day to Register or Add Classes” as published in the Academic Calendar. A student auditing a course will not be eligible to obtain credit for the audited course through a credit examination or any other non-traditional source. However, a course previously audited may be taken for credit by enrolling in the course. Audited courses are not included in calculating the student’s grade-point average or enrollment status (full-time, part-time) for insurance, financial aid, or other purposes.

Changing Program of Study

Students may change their program of study by completing a Change of Major form on the RPCC website. Upon receipt, the Registrar’s Office will change the students’ Program of Study. Requests received before census date (see Academic Calendar) will be effective for the current term. Requests received after census date will be effective the immediate, following term.

Course Pre-Requisites and Co-Requisites

To register for some courses, students must first satisfy a prerequisite. A prerequisite is a requirement that must be met before a course is taken. Some courses have a co-requisite, which is a requirement that must be satisfied concurrently. In other words, the two courses must be taken at the same time. If a course has a prerequisite or co-requisite, it will be noted in the course description in this Catalog.

Credit Hour Maximums per Semester

Students will be allowed to enroll in a maximum of 19 credit hours in the fall and spring semester and 10 credit hours in the summer semester (including any cross-enrolled hours at other institutions). Only an exceptional student may, upon the approval of the Dean of the respective academic division enroll in more than the credit hour maximums.

Dropping Courses:

Students are allowed to drop a course by logging into their online LoLA account and officially dropping the course(s) from their schedule by the deadlines published in the Academic Calendar.

Students will not receive a “W’ or letter grade, nor credit for a course that is dropped on or before the “Last Day to Resign/Withdraw from Classes without a W Grade,” as published in the Academic Calendar. Students will receive a “W” if the course(s) is dropped after the “Last Day to Resign/Withdraw from Classes without a W Grade.” Students who stop attending class without dropping the course in LoLA by the stated deadlines are subject to receiving a grade of “F” posted on their RPCC academic record. All drops are final upon submission.

A retroactive withdrawal is a withdrawal from a course that occurs after the “Last Day to Resign/Withdraw from Classes with a W Grade” as published in the Academic Calendar. Students must appeal for a retroactive withdrawal. Appeals will be granted only when a student can demonstrate that they were unable to withdraw from the course by the “Last Day to Resign/Withdraw from Classes with a W Grade” or continue the course after the deadline due to circumstances that were beyond their reasonable control. Examples of appropriate conditions for appeals include:

• Death of an immediate family member (spouse/domestic partner, child, sibling, parent, grandparent)
• Onset of a mental health or medical condition, including pregnancy with physician-documented complications, that prohibited continued attendance
• Accident or injury that prohibited continued attendance
• Call to active military duty or training or voluntary armed services enlistment
• Relocation or required to leave the country to take care of the health of an immediate family member (spouse/domestic partner, child, sibling, parent, grandparent).

Supporting documentation must be included with the appeal. Appeals submitted without documentation will be denied. Appeals must be submitted to the Office of Student Services, by completing the General Appeal Request Form (on the RPCC website). Appeals will be reviewed by a committee of RPCC staff members.

Students are responsible for the repayment of any unearned financial aid award funds (such as scholarships, Title IV Pell grants, and loans) that were awarded to them, resulting from a retroactive withdrawal. Likewise, a retroactive withdrawal may not eliminate any tuition and/or fees that are owed to the college. Students who owe money to the college will not be able to register for future semesters until the balance is paid in full. The retroactive withdrawal will be back-dated as appropriate based upon the documentation provided in the appeal, and that date will be used in consultation with the published refund dates on the Academic Calendar to determine if the student owes money to the college or is due a refund.

Repeating Courses

When a course is repeated, the highest grade earned will be used to determine acceptability of the course for prerequisite and degree requirements at RPCC. Both grades will be flagged as repeated and maintained on the academic record, but only the highest grade will be used in the computation of the student’s semester GPA, RPCC/Institutional GPA, and Cumulative/Overall GPA. Students should also be cautioned that the colleges and universities to which they wish to transfer might not honor the repeat policy applied at RPCC.

Students trying to determine if they should repeat courses are encouraged to meet with their Advisor. They may also wish to consider the following: students are required to pay for all repeated courses. Repeating a course in which a grade of C was earned is seldom recommended. If a “D” is earned, the student is required to repeat the course only if the student’s degree program specifies that the course must be completed with a “C” or higher. Even if a “C” is not required, the student may wish to repeat the course if it is a prerequisite for another course that the student plans to take. If a student earns an “F” grade, the course must be repeated when it is required for the student’s degree program.

Resignation from the College

Resignation from RPCC is the dropping of all courses in which a student is enrolled for the semester. Students can officially resign by logging into their online LoLA account and dropping all course(s) from their schedule by the deadlines published in the Academic Calendar.

Transferring from RPCC to Another College

To successfully transfer students to other institutions, River Parishes Community College has established relationships with Louisiana colleges and universities to which RPCC students transfer most often. Students planning to transfer to another college/university should consult with an RPCC Advisor as well as an Advisor from the transfer institution to ensure that courses taken at RPCC will count toward the fulfillment of degree requirements at the transfer institution. Students may also refer to the Louisiana Board of Regents Statewide Student Transfer Guide and Articulation System to determine how general education courses will transfer from one Louisiana public college or university to another. These matrixes are available through the Board of Regents website. When applying to a transfer institution, students will be required to submit an official RPCC transcript. Students may request that their RPCC transcript be sent to another college through their LoLA Portal.