Final Exam Information
This page contains the following information about final exams:
Fall 2009 Final Exam Schedule 
General Guidelines for Faculty
Conflict Resolution Rules for Faculty and Students
Scheduling Methodology
Special Requests, Classrooms, and Questions
Fall 2009 Final Exam Schedule
Final exam period: Wednesday, December 9 - Wednesday, December 16
Final grade submission deadlines via ESTHER:
Friday, December 25, 2009
Undergraduate students are encouraged to make their travel plans for after the end of the final exam period because take-home exams may be due on the last day of finals. According to the General Announcements
page 31, “The due date of the take-home exams may be no earlier than the end of the examination time assigned to the class by the Registrar. Instructors may specify due dates later than this time but not later than the end of the last day of the examination period.”
Click this link to see the Fall 2009 Final Exam Schedule .
General Guidelines for Faculty
In accordance with the Final Examinations section of the
General Announcements
,
"The decision to give a final exam as a required part of the course rests with the instructor. All tests and examinations are conducted under the honor system. No examinations or other course assignments may be due between the last day of classes and the first day of the final examination period.
Examinations are considered final examinations when they:
- Cover more than the material learned since the last exam, or
- Are the only exam in the course, or
- Require comprehensive knowledge of the entire course
Such exams may be given only during the final examination period.
All class periods will be assigned a final examination time by the Office of the Registrar. Instructors may choose to use that time for a scheduled final. If they choose this option, the Registrar will assign a room, and the final exam will be administered in that room at the designated time. Instructors may choose instead to give a take-home exam or no exam at all. Some instructors assign end-of-term projects or papers rather than final examinations. With regard to due dates, final papers or projects will be treated the same as take-home exams."
Consequently, the Office of the Registrar schedules a final exam period for all undergraduate-level courses, regardless of whether the course has a scheduled final exam, a take-home final exam, or no final exam. Instructors can decide how they want to use their scheduled final exam period.
Students should be able to determine whether a course has a scheduled final exam, a take-home final exam, or no final exam by consulting their course syllabus or their instructor(s).
In accordance with the General Announcements
(page 31),
" . . . students can not be required to take more than two scheduled exams in two consecutive calendar days. Students also can not be required to complete more than two take-home and/or scheduled final exams on the same calendar day (unless this is the last day of the examination period). In both instances, if the student wishes to make alternative arrangements and is unable to work out such arrangements with the instructor(s) involved, the instructor of the third and any subsequent exams will be required to allow the student to reschedule that exam."
As noted, if a student wants to reschedule a final exam due to conflict, the student should contact the instructor(s) involved to make arrangements for taking the final exam at an alternate time. If the instructor(s) involved in the conflict are unwilling to offer an alternate time, the instructor of the third and any subsequent final exams are required to allow the student to reschedule that final exam.
Due to the large number (1000+) of courses to be scheduled in only eight exam days, the Office of the Registrar can not consider the above stated conflict rules when building the final exam schedule.
The methodology used to construct the final exam can be seen by clicking this link.
Since the Office of the Registrar constructed the final exam schedule with the goal of minimizing exam conflicts, it is virtually impossible to honor a request for a change to an assigned exam time slot. A single change to the exam schedule may introduce a myriad of new conflicts, so each change request must be analyzed to assure that no direct conflicts would result. Even a request to reschedule a final exam to a later time slot may not be granted because such a delay may affect student travel plans. Consequently, we are cautious about modifying the final exam schedule. Nevertheless, if you would like us to consider a special request, please contact Debra Roberts, Assistant Registrar, at debra.j.roberts@rice.edu.
Classroom assignments for final exams are posted on the Office of the Registrar web site two (2) weeks prior to the start of final exams. Classroom assignments are made from the requests indicated on each department's Course Offering Schedule Review. For courses added to the schedule after completion of the schedule review, or for any changes to classroom use plans, please contact Chris Higgins, Classroom and Scheduling Manager, at chiggins@rice.edu.
The Office of the Registrar may be unable to assign a classroom for a request received less than two weeks prior to the start of the exam period.
If you have any other questions about the final exam schedule, please contact Debra Roberts at debra.j.roberts@rice.edu.