Skip to main content
Careers & Experiential Learning
ELMS Login

T Grades Internship Policy

1805-62 4291.jpg

A grade of T indicates course work in progress and is used only in certain approved courses in which an internship may extend beyond the semester or term when it was begun. When the internship is completed, the T grade may be changed by means of a grade change form to A, B, C, D, E, or P, depending on the grade rule for the course.

The T grade is to be used at the department’s discretion in the following cases:

  • When the calendar start and end dates of a student’s internship do not coincide with the start and end dates of a BYU semester or term.
  • When a student is participating in an internship that extends across multiple semesters or terms. The student may enroll for the entire number of internship credits during the first semester or term and receive a T grade until the student completes the internship hours and course assignments, at which time the T grade will be changed to a letter grade or a pass/fail grade. (The student may also split the total number of credit hours and enroll anew for each additional semester or term that the student participates in the internship.)
  • When, in rare cases, students are not able to complete all the required hours on site for an internship within a given semester or term because the internship provider for some reason does not have enough meaningful work for the student to do for a period of two or three weeks. In such a case, a T grade may be given while the student completes additional work elsewhere to achieve the required hours.

However, there are two cases in which a department may not use its discretion but must follow these policies:

  • Students participating in an International Study Program through the Kennedy Center must be enrolled for every term or semester in which they are abroad (e.g., both spring and summer if they are abroad during both terms). Students proposing their own individual internship to International Study Programs will still be able to choose the number and the allocation of credits in conjunction with their academic department.
  • International students may receive a T grade only if the internship course is a requirement for the student’s declared major.

A T grade should be changed to a regular letter grade as soon as the student completes the work. After a T grade has been on student’s record for a year, the professor must submit a regular letter grade, even if the student has not submitted all the required work. Individual departments may, at their discretion, impose a deadline earlier than one year for changing a T to a regular letter grade.

The Office of Experiential Learning relies on the integrity and good faith of internship coordinators not to abuse the T grade policy. For example, by allowing students to enroll for an internship before it actually begins so that the students can avoid paying tuition for the internship during a subsequent term or semester, internship coordinators may cause enrollment counts and faculty workloads to be reported inaccurately. Such inaccuracies have implications for the way university funding is distributed.

In nearly all cases, it will be possible to determine at the outset of an internship whether the T grade will be necessary to use. In such cases, the professor should explain to the intern why the T grade will be assigned and when it will be changed to a regular letter grade. When students are enrolling for an internship that can reasonably be completed by the grade deadline for a semester or term, professors should not lead students to believe that they can receive a T grade if their work piles up and it is difficult for the student to finish it at the end of the internship.

In other words, the T grade is not to be used like the Incomplete grade, simply to give students a little more time to finish up work that should have and could have been completed within the boundaries of a regular semester or term. If students find it difficult to complete all the academic requirements associated with an internship (e.g., paper, portfolio, or project), perhaps the professor needs to set due dates earlier or scale back the scope of the requirements so that students can reasonably finish by the time grades are due. If the academic expectations are reasonable, and the student simply does not hand in the work on time, the student’s final grade should reflect the missing assignments. (For students who have legitimate difficulties that prevent them from completing work by the grade deadline, see the policy for I grades.)