What should a parent is to do if a child has 2.5 GPA and may loose merit scholarship if not improved next semester? My neighbor wants her to improve to get money or transfer to local community college. I didnt say anything to him but wondering if he is making the right choice. His DD is a good kid though not an excellent student or a hard worker but her high school GPA was 3.6 so this isn’t totally unexpected for freshman GPA. What are the other options for them if she can’t?
Can your neighbor get a CC account and ask questions?
Better not to interfere in your neighbor’s family and financial concerns.
Can the family afford this school only with the merit scholarship? Was the merit aid a significant factor in their choice?
If the answer to either question is yes, the college may no longer be “worth it” in the parents’ view if the cost goes up by $X thousand. That may be a factor.
Huh? The best indicator of college GPA is high school GPA… so why is this not unexpected?
This is not your information to share, honestly. Yes this is anonymous forum but you’ve shared enough information over your threads that, if true, could make someone you actually know put 2 and 2 together to figure out who you are and who you are talking about.
Our kids went to very expensive private universities. Both had merit aid awards. One was pretty substantial. The other was less so.
We made it VERY clear that we expected them to maintain them to maintain the GPA required to keep their merit awards…or they would be transferring back to a public university in our state.
For both this was a 3.0. Both had no issue with our requirements and both maintained the GPA needed.
If the student has only one semester to bring up a gpa, choose the courses for this semester carefully. Now is not the time to ‘try Chinese’ or knock off the required chemistry class if the student doesn’t like science. If the 2.5 gpa included some courses that were D or F, and the grades can be replaced by taking the courses again, do it!
Whether the 2.5 can be brought up to a 3.0 (if that’s the requirement), it will really depend on what that 2.5 is made of - one semester with 3 A’s and an F? Two semesters of B’s and C’s?
I’d hate to see a kid get booted to CC because she has a 2.5. College can be a tough transition and freshman year often has the lowest grades. It was that way for me in the 1970’s and true for D13 2 to 3 years ago.
I wonder if something else was going on. Were the courses hard? Was she studying? Partying? Sleeping?
Marvin says: ‘Better not to interfere in your neighbor’s family and financial concerns.’ That is absolutely true. If family wants your opinion they’ll ask for it.
Totally agree…MYOB regarding this issue. Even IF the neighbor asks your opinion, tread lightly.
If you neighbor want comments, s/he should post here on his/her own, rather than use you as an intermediary.
Kind of seems reasonable to me…you have chosen this college based on the fact that you get merit scholarship…and since the college gave them merit $$, it would indicate that they feel like they could do well. So if they cannot do well (or will not) and lose the merit $$, then that is too expensive a college. CC is more affordable.
I would suggest to you to tell the neighbor to make sure that their kid takes courses they can succeed in, and also
to do the following:
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GO TO CLASS, BUY THE BOOK, READ THE CHAPTERS, AND DO THE HOMEWORK!
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Go to Professor’s office hours and Ask this question: “I know this is a really difficult class-- what are some of the common mistakes students make and how can I avoid them?”
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If you have problems with the homework, go to Prof’s office hours. If they have any “help sessions” or “study sessions” or “recitations” or any thing extra, go to them.
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Form a study group with other kids in your dorm/class.
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Don’t do the minimum…for STEM classes do extra problems. You can buy books that just have problems for calculus or physics or whatever. Watch videos on line about the topic you are studying.
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Go to the writing center if you need help with papers/math center for math problems (if they have them)
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If things still are not going well, get a tutor.
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Read this book: How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less by Cal Newport. It helps you with things like time management and how to figure out what to write about for a paper, etc.
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If you feel you need to withdraw from a class, talk to your advisor as to which one might be the best …you may do better when you have less classes to focus on. But some classes may be pre-reqs and will mess your sequence of classes up.
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For your tests, can you evaluate what went wrong? Did you never read that topic? Did you not do the homework for it? Do you kind of remember it but forgot what to do? Then next time change the way you study…there may be a study skill center at your college.
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How much time outside of class do you spend studying/doing homework? It is generally expected that for each hour in class, you spend 2-3 outside doing homework. Treat this like a full time job.
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At first, don’t spend too much time other things rather than school work. (sports, partying, rushing fraternities/sororities, video gaming etc etc)
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If you run into any social/health/family troubles (you are sick, your parents are sick, someone died, broke up with boy/girlfriend, suddenly depressed/anxiety etcetc) then immediately go to the counseling center and talk to them. Talk to the dean of students about coordinating your classes…e.g. sometimes you can take a medical withdrawal. Or you could withdraw from a particular class to free up tim for the others.Sometimes you can take an incomplete if you are doing well and mostly finished the semester and suddenly get pneumonia/in a car accident (happened to me)…you can heal and take the final first thing the next semester. But talk to your adviser about that too.
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At the beginning of the semester, read the syllabus for each class. It tells you what you will be doing and when tests/HW/papers are due. Put all of that in your calendar. The professor may remind you of things, but it is all there for you to see so take initiative and look at it.
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Make sure you understand how to use your online class system…Login to it, read what there is for your classes, know how to upload assignments (if that is what the prof wants).
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If you get an assignment…make sure to read the instructions and do all the tasks on the assignment. Look at the rubric and make sure you have covered everything.
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If you are not sure what to do, go EARLY to the professors office hours…not the day before the assignment is due.
I hope you’re never my neighbor, @bopper --if someone came to my door and lectured me in such a way, I’d shut it posthaste.
So, privacy issues aside, I will say that it’s possible to bring it up. My situation was very similar–3.6 HS GPA and depression/homesickness-induced 2.3 first semester of college. Second semester was 3.6 which brought me to a 2.95, but since it was above 2.67 the scholarship was probationary for my sophomore year. After four semesters I had a 3.08, so the probation ended. But anyway, it’s not unreasonable to improve from a slip like that, IMO.
I’ve no intention to advise him but would like to know what measures to take if one of my kids or foster kid is facing same situation in future.
No need to worry about hypotheticals of what might or might not happen on some possible future situation. Plenty of other things to worry about.
Just my take but most people underestimate the transition to college for a lot of kids. I remember when I was in school, you could see kids coming in as freshman and you could tell which ones were going to struggle and which ones would be okay. I found that having that much freedom and independence was very difficult on some kids. They didn’t know how to manage their own time or prioritize school work versus fun.
In my experience, the kids who struggled grade wise in school wasn’t due to the work being harder, it was due to them not knowing how to handle their new found freedoms. Part of preparing kids for college is to also teach them to be responsible for themselves. I see a lot of helicpoter parents out there and if you do everything for your kids and don’t let them figure things out while in high school it makes the transition to college a lot harder.
I saw kids that couldn’t do laundry, cook, overslept because they couldn’t get themselves out of bed on time. I saw kids who had their first “adult” beverage and didn’t know how to handle that aspect of the social scene. All of these things add stress and can impact grades and overall self confidence.
In high school, most kids only had to focus on their school activities and studies, now in college they have to focus on school activities and studies plus basic life skills like getting fed, cleaned, perhaps paying some bills, etc. That’s a lot of new stress for someone that may be away from home for the first time ever.
Actually, we thought it was imoortant for our kids to know what we would do if their grades were poor…BEFORE they left for college. So we planned ahead…and they knew our stance.
It’s that one has little levarage left once they are 18, unless one is willing to threaten with stop paying for them. What would you do if they dropped out and became hobos or something?
I never said I wouldn’t pay for college. I said I wouldn’t pay for the very expensive private university if my kids didn’t make the grade to keep their scholarships.
I would want my kids to be successful with decent GPAs in college. So I would fund a public university in my state.
If the didn’t make the grade a second time, they would be asked by me to take a year off, and work.
Not your worry @WorryHurry411. If your son has the stats that you’ve reported on multiple other posts, it is not a realistic concern especially since you report having the funds to pay for his education. Are you employed as a college counselor? If not , I’d be hesitant to offer advice to neighbors and friends.