Course Requirements and Eligibility

Program course requirements help staff make clear, consistent decisions about which course a student can join.

This guide explains the rules in plain language so admissions teams, academic staff, and administrators can understand how the system decides course eligibility.

The simple idea

Each program contains levels, and each level contains courses.

Every course can have one or more requirement sets. A student is considered eligible for that course when they fully satisfy at least one active requirement set.

In simple terms:

• one course can have several acceptable entry paths
• each path is stored as a requirement set
• inside one set, every requirement must be met
• across different sets, meeting any one full set is enough

How the eligibility decision works

When staff run an eligibility check for a student and a course, the system follows this order:

1. It confirms the student profile is approved.
2. It looks for the student's current placement result in the same program.
3. It checks the course's active requirement sets.
4. It compares the student's placement against the requirements in each set.
5. If one full set is satisfied, the student is eligible.
6. If no full set is satisfied, the student is not eligible.

This means the decision is based on the student's current placement for that specific program, not on a general assumption or a manual guess.

What a requirement set means

Think of a requirement set as one complete acceptance path.

For example, a course might allow entry in either of these ways:

• Path A: the student is placed directly into the course
• Path B: the student is placed at or above a certain level and also has a minimum score

In the system, Path A would be one requirement set, and Path B would be another requirement set.

The three requirement types

Placement at or above a level

Use this when a student must be placed at a certain level or higher.

Example: a course may require the student to be placed at Intermediate 2 or above.

Placement into a specific course

Use this when a student must be recommended for one exact course.

Example: a placement result may recommend Academic Writing B1, and that recommendation can be used as the rule.

Minimum placement score

Use this when a student must reach a minimum score.

Example: a course may require a placement score of at least 75.

Why this helps staff

Course requirements make decisions more consistent because they:

• reduce guesswork when placing students
• make course entry rules visible and reviewable
• support more than one valid admissions path
• help explain why a student is eligible or not eligible
• keep eligibility decisions tied to the program's own placement structure

Important rules to remember

Only approved students can be checked

If the student profile is not approved yet, the system does not treat the student as eligible.

The system uses the current placement result

Eligibility is based on the student's current placement result for that program. If the current placement is missing, the course cannot be confirmed as eligible.

Rules are program-specific

Requirements stay inside the same program. A course in one program uses placement evidence from that same program.

Only active requirement sets are used

If a set is inactive, it is ignored during the eligibility check.

If no active sets exist, the course is not ready for automated eligibility

If a course has no active requirement sets configured, the system cannot confirm eligibility for that course.

Example

Imagine a course called Upper Intermediate Writing.

It has two active requirement sets:

Set A: direct course placement

• Placement into Upper Intermediate Writing

Set B: level and score path

• Placement at or above Upper Intermediate
• Minimum placement score of 80

Possible outcomes:

• A student placed directly into Upper Intermediate Writing is eligible through Set A.
• A student placed at Upper Intermediate with a score of 84 is eligible through Set B.
• A student placed at Upper Intermediate with a score of 72 is not eligible through Set B.
• A student placed below Upper Intermediate is not eligible unless another active set matches.

What the result usually means

When the system returns an eligibility result, staff can understand it in three parts:

• Eligible: the student matched at least one full active requirement set.
• Not eligible: the student did not fully satisfy any active set.
• Blocking reason: there was a basic issue that prevented the decision, such as no approved student profile, no current placement, or no active course requirements.

The system can also show which requirement set matched, along with the requirements that were met or not met.

Good practice for staff and admins

• Keep the student's current placement up to date.
• Review requirements whenever levels, courses, or admissions policy change.
• Use multiple requirement sets when a course has more than one valid entry path.
• Keep inactive sets for old or draft logic, but activate only the sets that should drive live decisions.
• Use notes on requirements when staff need extra internal context.

In one sentence

Program course requirements help the system decide whether a student can join a course by checking the student's approved profile and current program placement against the course's active entry rules.