EPFL's Supplementary Program will continue

EPFL welcomes the ruling of the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, which has upheld the school’s appeal of the decisions made by the ETH Appeals Commission (CRIEPF). The Court’s ruling supports EPFL’s position that the Supplementary Program has a sound legal basis, ensures fair treatment, is not based on arbitrary criteria and is not a case of numerus clausus. This ruling overturns the decisions of the Appeals Commission, which in the spring of 2018 sided with three students who had been dismissed from EPFL after failing the Supplementary Program, as the Appeals Commission felt that the Program was not legally grounded.

“We are pleased with this ruling, since the Supplementary Program specifically helps students who are struggling. It teaches them concepts they may not fully master as well as effective study habits for doing well at EPFL,” says Pierre Vandergheynst, Vice President for Education.

The Supplementary Program is mandatory for students whose average grade is below 3.50 out of 6.00 after the first semester of their first year at EPFL. In the second semester, they must take classes in math and physics as part of the Supplementary Program. If they pass the Program with an average of at least 4.00, they can retake their first year. Otherwise, they are dismissed from EPFL.

EPFL introduced the Supplementary Program on 1 September 2016 after consulting with Swiss federal officials and ETH Zurich. The school decided to implement the Program after observing that students whose average grade was below 3.50 in the first semester of their first year usually ended up failing the year. “We saw that most of their problems were in the core technical classes, which are fundamental building blocks for the rest of their degree programs. We quickly realized the utility of reinforcing these fundamentals through a special semester for those students experiencing the most trouble,” says Vandergheynst.

The Supplementary Program helps students who got off track in their first semester build up their knowledge of math and physics – two essential subjects at EPFL – and give them an opportunity to quickly make up lost ground. EPFL does not want to simply stand by and watch struggling students fail further.

The Supplementary Program has been broadly effective: 74% of the students who repeated their first year after successfully completing the Program passed the year (based on figures for the 2017–18 school year). And an anonymous survey carried out among the first class of students to take the Supplementary Program revealed that they found it was useful and helped prepare them for their subsequent studies. In addition, the level was considered appropriate for the first year at EPFL.

Today EPFL is happy to be able to keep offering the Supplementary Program and thereby help struggling students addresses their weaknesses. As a public-sector university, EPFL has a responsibility to leverage its expertise and adopt innovative teaching approaches so as to continually enhance the education it provides.