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Graduation Requirements
Students at commencement

In order to receive a baccalaureate degree from SUNY Geneseo, all students must:

1. Complete a minimum of 120 credit hours.

Note: No more than 60 hours may be transferred from two-year institutions; some restrictions apply on health/phys. ed. courses. (See the Undergraduate Bulletin for details.)
Note: Repeated D courses or "illegal repeats"--courses you repeated in violation of the repeat course policy--could add hours to your 120 minimum.

2. Attain at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA at Geneseo.

Note: Grades from other institutions, including overseas studies, do not count toward your Geneseo GPA.

3. Attain at least a 2.0 GPA in each of the following:
  • all courses taken in your major department,
  • all courses listed as co-requisites for the major,
  • Education majors only: all courses required for education certification and all courses taken for concentration. New York State requires a minimum GPA of 2.5 for certification. A minimum GPA of 2.75 is required for admission to the School of Education.

4. Complete all requirements of the major, including the Departmental Writing Requirement. (Consult individual major descriptions and your department faculty advisor.

5. Complete the General Education requirements.

A. Two courses (outside of your major with different departmental prefixes) in each of the following:

  • N/Natural Science
  • F/Fine Arts
  • S/Social Science

B.

  • H/Humanities (HUMN 220, 221)
  • INTD 105--Critical Writing and Reading

Note: You must obtain a passing grade (D or better) in each course used to fulfill the General Education. Courses taken to fulfill the General Education curriculum may not be taken on a Pass/Fail basis.

Note: Changing your major may well affect the applicability of courses toward the common core. A shift from English to Sociology, for example, will mean that you can no longer count SOCL 100 toward the Social Science core requirement.

Note: It is a common error to take two courses in the same General Education area (e.g., Natural Science) with the same departmental prefix (e.g., Biology).

C. Complete one course in each of the following:Complete these Additional General Education Requirements:
  • Non-Western Traditions Requirement (M/)
  • Numeric and Symbolic Reasoning Requirement (R/)
  • U.S. History Requirement (U/)
Note: M/ and R/ courses may do double duty by also fulfilling major, minor, concentration or General Education area requirements. For example, a course labelled both S/ and M/ may be used to fulfill both the Social Science General Education requirement and the Non-Western requirement.)
D. Foreign Language Requirement

Note: The Foreign Language Requirement is fulfilled successful completion of a foreign language at the 201 level or its equivalent.

6. Complete at least 45 hours of coursework at or above the 200 level.

7. Complete the required minimum number of credit hours outside the major department.

Note: For most majors this number is 69, but for some majors and professional programs the number is 60. See Undergraduate Bulletin for details.

Note: Students and advisors commonly overlook this requirement.

8. Complete at least 30 hours, including the final 12 hours, in residence at Geneseo.

Contact the Dean's Office right away if you have questions.