Anyone have experience retaking an Option 2 course at McGill?

[verycaffeinated]

I searched through this forum but I wasn't able to find anyone sharing their experience about retaking Option 2 courses at McGill (e.g., BIOL 200, BIOL 201, PHGY 209, CHEM 212/222) to increase their prereqGPA

I bombed BIOL 200 pretty bad (RIP) and I just want to know if anyone in previous years has retaken a course at McGill; more specifically, is it even allowed? What's the process of doing so (i.e., would I need departmental/advisor authorization of some sort)?

 

[BubbleGut]

Take this with a grain of salt because I don’t know for sure and this is just what I understood from other people talking about the topic so it’s not at all verified. But from my understanding the only way you can redo a course is if you fail it (aka you qualify for the supplemental exam but decide to just redo the course instead) or if for some reason they accept a request to cancel courses or a semester due to extreme circumstances whereby you couldn’t complete assignments or failed many courses. In that case you can redo the course (which you need to anyways usually to graduate anyways) and both grades will be averaged in your cGPA with only 1X the credits counting. So say you got a D in BIOL 200 and redo it to get an A, you’ll get 3 credits worth of 2.5/4. If you got an F then an A, then you would have 3 credits worth of 2.0/4. Again, you should definitely just call the biology departmental advisor as they can tell you for certain what the procedure is. They also are the ones often dealing with degree requirements of all graduating students within their faculties so they can tell you how they count/view/consider course you’ve redone. 

[Readyforthis2018]

Agree with BubbleGut that you should reach out to the faculty advisor to find out about the process/eligibility to re-take a course. Take the following with a grain of salt too because I am not familiar with the process. However, I have heard from others that McGill doesn't allow students to retake courses that they have already passed. Perhaps you can look into taking similar course at Concordia/other Montreal universities as an independent student and verify that it is equivalent to BIOL 200. All the best!