All graduate students in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) must abide by the policies set forth by the Graduate School. These policies are posted at
www.grad.buffalo.edu/policies/ 
The following additional rules also apply to all SEAS graduate students.
NOTE: There may be further restrictions imposed by your home department. To ascertain what departmental policies are applicable to you please examine the Graduate Handbook posted on your department’s website and/or contact your department’s Director of Graduate Studies.
GPA:
Grad School policies state that minimum GPA of 3.0 is needed for courses that are listed on the student’s application to candidacy (i.e. those courses that the student would like counted towards their degree).
SEAS uniform policies state that minimum GPA of 3.0 is needed for all courses that could be counted towards the candidate⁽s degree (e.g. this could include courses that are not listed on the student’s application to candidacy).
Dissertation:
Grad School policy does not have a restriction on the number of credit hours for a dissertation.
SEAS uniform policies restrict the maximum number of credit hours (out of 72) that can come from Master’s thesis and Doctoral dissertation to be 30.
MS Thesis or Project:
Grad School policy does not have a restriction on the number of credit hours for an MS thesis or project.
SEAS uniform policies restrict the maximum number of credit hours from an MS thesis or project to be 6.
ME Project:
Same as MS Thesis or Project.
S/U Grading Limitation:
Grad School policy states that no more than 25 percent of required course credits in a student’s graduate program (not including courses taken as research, thesis, project, portfolio, or dissertation guidance) shall be graded on an S/U basis.
SEAS uniform policies state that no S/U grades can be used except for project, thesis, dissertation, or courses taken as research or seminar.
Repeating Courses:
Graduate School policy states “If a graduate student repeats a course that is normally not ‘repeatable’ (‘repeatable’ courses include dissertation, research, thesis, project or portfolio guidance; independent study; directed readings, etc.), only the highest grade earned in the course will be counted toward the degree and used to calculate the grade point average associated with the graduate degree program requirements. However, the student’s official transcript will record all courses attempted (including repeated courses). All resulting grades earned are calculated in the GPA reflected on the student’s final official transcript.”
SEAS uniform policies place the additional stipulation that at most two such repeat attempts can be made for courses other than normally “repeatable” courses. This limit can be met in two different ways — by repeating the same course twice or by repeating two separate courses once each. In addition, there is a limit of four courses on which a student can receive an “R” grade.