DARS FAQs

Answers to questions commonly asked by HSSEAS students
specific to the Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS)

Degree Audit Reporting System (DARS)  Frequently Asked Questions and Issues the Office of Academic and Student Affairs (OASA) is already aware of:

 

There appears to be an issue with my credit – what should I do?

BEFORE contacting your academic counselor, consider what the issue may be as follows:

Advanced Placement (AP) credit. 

Does the issue appear to be that the audit is not recognizing Advanced Placement (AP) credit? AP credit should update during Fall quarter.  If you see that your AP credit is not applying correctly, please contact an academic counselor via Message Center.

194/199  credit.

194/199 courses automatically fall into excess units only.  If you wish to apply a 194/199 course to your major field area, please read your department 194/199 policy for instructions.

Transfer credit?

New Students: New freshmen and transfer students should not expect transfer credit to appear on DARS audit or to be finalized until sometime during the winter quarter (their second academic term).

Continuing students, if you took a course at another university make sure you have followed the process at  /undergraduates/summer-session-and-transfer-course-equivalence

Undergraduate Admissions will post the course credit to your degree audit automatically.  However, this can take a while.  You should contact the engineering credit evaluators via Message Center when you see that the credit appears on your degree audit. Then HSSEAS credit evaluators will update our records with any course evaluations or petitions we have approved for the courses taken.

UCLA course renumbering or Department name change – if a UCLA course was renumbered or an academic department changed its name, you may no longer see credit on your audit in the correct category and the course may be listed under excess units.

If the credit issue cannot be resolved by petition or notifying the credit evaluators as outlined above, then please contact an academic counselor via Message Center
with the following information:
Name:
ID:
Specific credit issue:

Why are my GE courses not satisfying the GE requirements I want them to on my audit?

In most cases, DARS will automatically adjust your GE credit to give you the maximum amount of credit possible for the courses you have taken. For example if you take a GE course that can satisfy more than one requirement, ie: if Classics 30 satisfies LCA or SAN, DARS will initially place Classics 30 in LCA. If you take another GE that also satisfies the LCA subgroup then DARS should adjust Classics 30 to satisfy SAN and the new GE course to satisfy LCA so that both requirements are satisfied.

However, in rare cases, DARS may not give you all of your GE credit in your subgroups. If the course is appearing in “Unit Check – General Education,” but not in any of your subgroups and you feel you should be receiving credit:  Please send a message via Message Center and include your full name, UID, the GE, and the subgroup that you feel it is missing from.

Grades – I am a transfer student and I see grade of T or U – what does this mean?

For transfer students grades will appear with a T or a U before the grade you received to indicate a transfer course.  Note:  courses transferred from UCs may not show the plus and minus grades on the audit, however, these are calculated into the DARS gpas.

GPAs – where can I see information specific to my grade point average?

The GPAs in the graphs at the top of the audit only display GPAs to the second decimal place. You can find your full GPAs to the third decimal place at the bottom of the audit labeled Major Field Upper Division GPA, Upper Division GPA, and Cumulative GPA.   Please note that all students need to maintain a 2.000 minimum in these three GPA categories in order to graduate.

How is the GPA in “Important message…” generated? This is the same GPA calculation as the cumulative GPA on your DARS audit.

I have an approved petition for a graduate course to satisfy a major field or Technical Breadth Requirement, but this course is not being calculated in my Upper Division or Major Field GPAs? DARS is not currently able to calculate graduate courses into Upper Division or Major Field GPAs.

Why does my audit say “Greetings senior…”? 

This message appears on the audits of all students who have completed at least 150 units and have a 2.000 or higher Cum GPA.

How are “In-Progress (IP)” units handled on the audit?

In Progress “IP” courses are shown in the requirement categories sections at the beginning of the audit but are not included in the “unit checks”.

Major – should I be aware of any special issues specific to DARS and my major?

Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, and Material Science Engineering majors NEED to ALSO DECLARE OPTION/PATHWAY/TRACK:
Please log on to MyEngineering ( my.engineering.ucla.edu)  to declare your option for your major. See instructions below.
1. Login to my.engineering.ucla.edu
2. At [MyEngineering], in “My Profile” box, click on “About Me”
3. Locate “Major Option” in the “View/Edit Profile Information”
box and select your major option.
If you are uncertain which option you plan to follow, please select the
option
“undecided”  then at a later date update the information.

Your major field option/pathway/track selection on MyEngineering will not be reflected on your audit until the next day.  DARS loads this nightly.
BY MAJOR:

Computer Science
CS Sci-Tech electives will “fall into” CS major field first until this requirement is satisfied before the audit will try to satisfy your Sci-Tech requirement. The audit should automatically adjust your credit once your major field requirement is satisfied.

 

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering students’ departmental breadth courses are duplicated in the Technical Breadth Area. This shows that the department breadth course(s) could apply either place, but you will receive credit for each course only once.   If you are following the Technical Breadth Area in Engineering Science please read the MAE FAQ page to
see how it affects AE and ME majors.

New student admitted this Fall – how come some of my credit is missing?

Note to New Students: New freshmen and transfer students should not expect transfer credit to appear on DARS audit or to be finalized until sometime during the winter quarter (their second academic term).

Technical Breadth – I am unsure how to declare my technical breadth areas and/or I am unsure of the course restrictions, will DARS monitor this requirement?

Instructions for declaring your technical breadth area on MyEngineering are as
follows:
1. Login to my.engineering.ucla.edu
2. At [MyEngineering], in “My Profile” box, click on “About Me”
3. Locate “Technical Breadth Area” in the “View/Edit Profile Information”
box and select your TBA.

Your technical breadth selection on MyEngineering will not be reflected on your audit until the following day. DARS loads this nightly.

 

Technical Breadth Restrictions are tentatively enforced on the audit.

You are responsible for checking your complete Technical Breadth Requirement here: /undergraduates/undergraduate-technical-breadth-area-tba

Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering students’ departmental breadth courses are duplicated in the Technical Breadth Area. This shows that the department breadth course(s) could apply either place, but you will receive credit for each course only once.

Unit Checks — why do some of the “unit check” categories appear not satisfied when I have satisfied that category?

The only unit check that you need to satisfy is the Unit Check – Total Units. You can ignore
the other unit checks. Do not worry if any or all of the unit checks appear “Not Satisfied”.
They appear this way for many students since they do not include in progress course work,
units for courses waived by petition and credit for transfer course work.