Students who enroll in the St. Mary's Project will ultimately receive their 8 credits by the end of their project work. They may take 4 credits each semester while working on the project, may register for all 8 credits in a single semester, or may take 2 credits across four semesters. A grade of IP (in progress) will be submitted in semesters prior to the completion of the 8 credits of St. Mary's Project work. The mentor will assign letter grades to each semester during which a student was working on a St. Mary's Project.

No specific requirements are mandated for number of sources or for length of the final project.   However, the project should reflect the amount of work expected for satisfactory completion of 8 credits of work at St. Mary's College.   For a time-commitment guideline, we suggest that at least one and a half hours per week should be devoted to each credit of the project; thus, in a semester in which the student is registered for 4 credits of SMP, he or she would be expected to devote at least 10 hours per week, on average, to the project.

Grading for the St. Mary's Project will be based on the quality of the final product (using the criteria described above) and on the process (observable level of investment and self-initiation in the project) used to arrive at the final product.