So I am planning on going to Carleton College for the Fall Term. Unfortunately I have received two cs in my final semester on senior year in high school. I usually earn a mix of A’s and b’s. I also take all AP and honors classes. What are the chances that I’ll be rescinded from Carleton as a result of my two cs? Can they take away a scholarship? I’m really nervous!
You got a scholarship? You may have a problem. It’s possible the terms of your scholarship don’t allow Cs. Usually, colleges only care about D or F grades. I would go see your counselor and ask him/her to contact Carleton and find out. Or, just pick up the phone and call Carleton’s admission office yourself. I assume you have looked at the website and the terms of your scholarship already though.
^ The only “scholarship” Carleton offers is for NMF ($2K per year last I saw it). The rest is aid based on income.
It’s very doubtful you’ll be rescinded for two Cs but call to put your mind at ease.
By now, you might have contacted the admissions office to receive an answer to your concerns. Best wishes to you.
For clarity regarding Carleton’s few “MERIT” scholarships, here are links to the college website pages that I find describing each of them:
National Merit Scholars: https://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/afford/national_merit_tips/carleton_merit_scholars/
International Student Scholarships: https://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/afford/international_scholarships/ as well as the following: https://apps.carleton.edu/intl/looking/scholarship/
Fritch Scholarship: https://apps.carleton.edu/media_relations/press_releases/?story_id=891770 as well as: https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/sfs/Useful_links/calendar/?event_id=908885
James Woodward Strong Scholarship: https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/sfs/prospective/fritch/
To summarize the above scholarships –
National Merit Scholarships are $2,000/year for all four years; Those receiving a “National” MNS of $2,500 their first year will also receive $2,000 for each of the three subsequent years. NMS finalists who apply RD qualify for 1/2 or up to $200 of airfare costs to visit the college.
International students might qualify for the up-to-six full scholarships (full comprehensive fee, which includes tuition, room& board, fees, etc.), and the up-to-six scholarships covering one-half of the comprehensive fee.
The Fritch Scholarship funded by Herb (Class of '73) and Barbara Fritch was first offered to students entering Carleton in fall 2013 (Class of 2017), and is aimed at “middle class” students hailing from communities with populations of less than 200,000. The $10,000 scholarship is for each of four years, with $4,500 of that amount replacing $4,500 in need-based aid that Carleton would otherwise provide the student. Effectively, this provides the scholarship recipient with $5,500 of annual aid beyond what he/she would normally receive in need-based aid. I believe five or six of these scholarships are given annually to incoming freshman.
The James Woodward Strong (Carleton’s first president) Scholarship appears to be a new offering in the past year, and it follows qualification criteria similar to the Fritch Scholarship except it is aimed at incoming freshman (renewable for another three years) who hail from communities with populations of more than 200,000. This appears to be funded by the college’s own financial resources.
As long as you passed all your classes, you should be okay.
2 Cs? gasp! Well, I received a D and a couple of Cs in my final two quarters of high school. Nothing ever happened to me (other than my mother going ballistic); I matriculated at Carleton without any problems. [li] The most important thing is that you fulfill all your high school’s graduation requirements and graduate on time, without any conditions such as being required to take summer school classes. You need to send Carleton a final transcript this summer. Don’t be embarrassed; I believe the purpose of that final transcript is mostly to confirm that you actually graduated from high school. Send that in by the requested deadline. Be sure to follow the checklist [/li]
https://apps.carleton.edu/newstudents/checklist/
and observe all the deadlines (several coming up tomorrow) and you should be fine, at least as far as your admission is concerned (I don’t know about the scholarship part). You don’t need to write any letters apologizing or explaining what happened, unless the college asks (unlikely, in my estimation).
[*] Some caveats: This was more than 30 years ago. Those Cs and D were balanced by a handful of A+s (all in AP classes) and several other As and Bs (including some honors classes). I believe my weighted GPA and class rank actually went up, IIRC. I won a couple of awards, too, during that time. Finally, Carleton didn’t give me a scholarship, so I don’t know how this might’ve affected something like that.