College Students: do your classes have attendance policies?

Really, it depends on how large the class is. If the class is a large lecture there is no possible way that the professor is going to be able to enforce any attendance policy. They can only round-about enforce it by assigning quizzes with material strictly from the lectures but that’s not done often at my school. My smaller higher level courses tend to not have any attendance policy. You are responsible for any and all material and homework that you miss out on. This includes in-class quizzes which can’t be made up. That’s just how it is here. I assume that there is a wide range of policies throughout.

It seems as though the attendance diminishes a lot as the semester goes on. Part of the reason being that at the beginning of the semester when syllabuses go out, professors have just told the class of their attendance policies, which can be very strict, but as the semester goes on, and students see how strict the professors really are (which for my courses isn’t nearly as strict as was stated in the syllabus), they can tend to take advantage and sleep in.

Another part could just be general fatigue of the course by the end of the semester.

I my case it depends on the class. Most of the upper level classes I have taken have pretty strict attendance policies, the lower level classes – not as much.

@SuperMouse In my school it seems to be the opposite. It’s like they know you need to go to the tough classes to pass so they aren’t that strict on those. But our lower level intro classes have strict attendance policies because they know people are going to skip which is lame…

No real policies here either. My school has a university wide policy that says if you miss more than 25% of the classes you fail. Most of the professors don’t really follow that. At the most they say that they can fail you if you miss that much class.

I had one professor who told us that if we were able to pass the class without actually going then there’s no reason for us to be there. But most of my professors would tell us that we’re paying for the class and if we want to waste our money by not going then that’s our problem. But also that we shouldn’t expect any help if we’re not in class and we better make sure that we have people in the class who will tell us if their at any changes from the syllabus at all.

(Community college, here)
Typically, if you miss the first few classes, you’ll get dropped.
But once you’re really into the semester, teachers barely care if you’re there or not. This semester, I have one teacher who takes role, but he does it like once every 2 weeks or so. But that’s just to he knows who to give “participation” credit to for the grades.
Like @buckyboy28 mentions, the syllabi 99% of the time sound WAY more strict than the teachers actually are.

As far as the “still ace the class” part goes.. All of my teachers have some sort of class website (through the college’s website. http://faculty.mycollegename.edu/professorname/, that kind of thing), on which they post study guides showing what the tests will include.
So if you miss lectures (intentionally or not), you can just catch up studying on your own. Homework, and any other projects, are a different story alltogether.
I have some classes which haven’t had a single bit of homework ever (Economics or Logic, for example), classes which I literally could show up only for the day of the test and do fine. Some other classes, like my History class, every homework assignment can be turned in electronically.

At my university the attendance to lectures was normally pretty lax, you could turn up to whatever you wanted.

However, labs were a very different matter, you had to turn up to every one, only the best of excuses would be tolerated, and even then you would get a pretty firm warning.

At Community College, the rule of thumb is pretty much, miss three classes and you’re dropped..no refund. Some teachers allow up to five absences. That’s rare though.

When I attended a University, with very large classes, it was more difficult to keep track. It really depended on the professor. A lot of mine did some sort of roll call, or have us sign in. And some had rules such as, if you’re more than 20 minutes late…don’t bother showing up because it still counts as being absent.

I take a lot of smaller studio art courses, and attendance is extremely important. In general students are allowed 2 or 3 unexcused absences (or, in the case of a class that meets just once a week, only 1 unexcused absence). After that, your final grade is lowered by a certain amount (A to A-, etc, usually) for each absence. After a certain number of absences you automatically fail the course.

But as others have said, large lectures don’t usually have strict attendance policies. It’s just too much work for the professor to keep track of 50+ students (unless they have a TA or something to take care of that), and at that point it’s really the student’s responsibility to attend class. That’s both the nice and not-so-nice thing about college.

It’s possible to pass a course without attending class, yes, but usually those people are ridiculously smart, have someone to help them with what they missed, or are just taking an easy class. But in most cases I find that people who don’t go to class do badly. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? You’re not there to learn the material, you won’t know it for the test. Even professors who post their lectures online will most likely talk about stuff not listed on their PowerPoint. Besides, spending thousands of dollars on college just to skip class half the time seems like such a waste.

It’s generally dependent upon the school’s general policy and each individual professor’s adherence to such. As a rule a professor usually has a minimum requirement. Regardless of syllabus, paper and test requirements he/she may look poorly and/or be personally insulted if too many of his lectures are missed as well. Check with each professor. Don’t guess.

Can I chime in as a college instructor?

At the college I teach at now, there is a policy for the degree students. Similar to what @casheroo said, miss 3 classes and they can drop you from the class with no refund – but it’s at the teacher’s discretion.

I currently teach nights in the continuing education program where there’s no attendance policy at all.

Now at the college I taught at before (three years ago) they had a very strict policy. You would start receiving phone calls and eMails if you missed 1 class. 2 classes was a reduction of your “participation grade” and 3 absences got you bounced from the class. What’s more, if you did this in 2 or more classes, they could drop you from the program.

Most of mine do, some take attendance everyday while other’s take it randomly so you never know when you might miss it.

In my general education college courses, attendance was left up to the professor. Generally, there was some sort of policy, although some classes were pretty lax on this.

Once I was in the film school (at Florida State), there was a very strict attendance policy. We were allowed one unexcused absence per class- anymore than that and your grade was dropped (I believe by a full letter each time).

No, my college has no attendance policy. As long as you show up for exams and turn in your papers they don’t really care how often you actually show up. Of course, if you don’t show up and then you fail then that’s your fault.

I am a freshman at a large state school, so many of my classes are large lectures. Most of my classes do not have a strict attendance policy. Some instructors get students to come to class through different ways. For example, in my Chinese class, we have a quiz every day of the week except for Thursday. Thus, it is nearly impossible to skip classes without having a negative effect on one’s grade. Other instructors have pop-quizzes to keep students coming to class. Really, what it boils down to is that it is in the student’s best interest to go to every class, and not doing so will almost always negatively affect one’s grade.

I go to a Community College as well and you can only miss 5 hours of a single class anymore and you will get drop. Some instructors will work with you though.

The rule at my community college is ‘you can miss more classes than you would miss in two weeks.’ Some are strict, some aren’t. Half of my classes, as long as you pass, you’re fine. The other half aren’t so lenient.

Most of my classes let you off with 4 unexcused absences (no doctor’s note).
After that, your grade is docked by a percentage, a number of points, or even an entire letter grade per additional day missed. Sometimes, you fail instantly for missing more than four days. The grace period varies by class, but it is typically 4 days.