Auditing a Course

Policy

If you audit a course, you attend classes but do not turn in assignments or take exams. No grade is issued and you do not receive credit for the course. The course will appear on your transcript with a notation of "AD" (audited). If you stop attending an audited course, the instructor can issue a notation of "WA" (withdrawn from audited course).

There are only a few circumstances where an audit is useful. These include:

  • if you want to explore an area unrelated to your major and the course is outside of your primary interests;
  • if you want a review of an area you are already knowledgeable in, or;
  • if a course is of particular interest but would require an extraordinary effort for you to take for a grade along with your other planned courses.

You cannot repeat for credit a course previously audited at Duke or at another college or university. Therefore, you should be sure not to audit (at Duke or else-where) any course that you might later need for a major, minor, or certificate, or

as a prerequisite for postgraduate study (e.g., medical school).

Once you have enrolled in a course for regular credit, you cannot later change it to an audit after the drop/add deadline has passed. You may not audit physical education, studio art, applied music, dance technique, or performance courses. You should also not audit a foreign language course if you are planning to fulfill the foreign language requirement in that language and there is any reason to believe that you may need to take that course for credit.  Courses taken on an audit basis fulfill no curricular requirements. 

Note: an audited course is counted as part of your course load, and hence you may generally enroll in no more than 4.5 cc additional credit.  Audited courses are also counted toward the total credit limit of 6.0 that no student may exceed.

Procedure

In order to register as an auditor in a course you must obtain written, signed permission from the instructor and submit it to the Registrar's Office prior to the end of the drop/add period. A form has been developed for this purpose (download PDF Form, 49KB).