<p>My son was accepted as a junior tranfer student to San Diego State University for the fall term. He is a native San Diegan and played NCAA basketball at an out-of-state school, but wanted to return home for his final 2 years. We went through the fairly elaborate on-line process of getting transcripts, fees, SAT scores to the school in a timely fashion, and constantly checked his "web portal" to make sure nothing was amiss. The last hurdle was scheduling his campus orientation, which we complted July 27th and scheduled for August 5th. The orientation was another $188 fee. I recieved an e-mail confirmation for his orientation.
When my son showed up on the S.D.S.U. campus on the morning of the 5th, he was taken aside and was told bluntly that his admission had been rescinded. Needless to say he was crestfallen. The reason given was that his final aggragate grade point average was 2.86, instead of the required 2.9, a 4/100's percent discrepency. When I called the admissions office, I was told the same thing. I ask the woman in the admissions office when they had recieved his final spring semester transcript and she told me June 28th, but that they hadn't reviewed it until July 27th, the exact date that we had scheduled the orientation and that they had accepted the latest fee. Unlike every other step along this process, I never recieved an email about this turn of events.
So here we are, 2 weeks before school begins and my son's hopes are dashed and it's clearly too late for plan B. Spring semester is already closed for S.D.S.U., and, for that matter, all other Cal State campuses. Apparently his only option is to take a community college class, raise his grade point average 4/100 % and hope for admission in the fall of 2010.
I am outraged at this on many different levels, but it's the late date timing that I find the most outrageous, and the cavalier and callous attitude of the admissions office at S.D.S.U. Any suggestion or advice would be extremely helpful.</p>
<p>No advice, just wanted to say how sorry I am. That’s pretty miserable.</p>
<p>Don’t give up. Ask to speak to the Director of Admissions and then keep moving up the chain of command if you need to. There are exceptions to every rule and this circumstance seems to justify an exception.</p>
<p>Hey, thanks! I’m working on that as we speak. The worst part would be when my son watches all of his buddies return to school in the fall…</p>
<p>I agree with LaurenThe Mom - even if you have to go all the way up to the chancellor/president! Good luck!</p>
<p>I would definitely not accept this… however, make sure your son is taking the bull by the horns (even if you’re giving him a script to follow). His impassioned pleas will probably be more convincing than his mother’s - especially as a rising Junior.</p>
<p>I don’t have any good suggestions other than going up the chain. I understand that they have to have a cutoff someplace but at the least they should have notified you of the rescind status prior to attending the orientation session. At a minimum they should refund that money.</p>
<p>However, just to look at this from the other perspective, was the particular GPA requirement stated in a contingent acceptance offer? If so then I think the fault isn’t with SDSU. Sometimes students assume they can ‘round-up’ the GPA but I think most colleges don’t accept that.</p>
<p>Another point - assuming he only has the CC option, make sure he checks with SDSU to ensure that the particular CC courses he takes will be accepted and whether they’ll accept the grades for the courses into his GPA calculation.</p>
<p>OP-your son may want to confirm his GPA with his old school. There may be some corrections that could be made on that end.</p>
<p>contact your state legislature assembly member or senator. let them know about the last minute stuff.</p>
<p>is there something like a “conditional admission” that would be possible?</p>
<p>Also be careful if taking classes at a community college to not earn too many cumulative units … there are strict caps, especially for transfer students who have units from a combined 4year school and community college. </p>
<p>I had a friend with a 4.0 from community college, but because he had more than 90 units, CAL wouldn’t even look at him. Each UC has its own rules/limits and you have to scour the FINE PRINT to find out about the unit limits. Don’t expect community college counselors to know this information or have the latest news… find it online in printed updated documents.</p>
<p>The reality is that CSUs and UCs are hit hard – and they have less room to wiggle than ever before. They need to shed students. The CSUs plan to accept <em>40,000</em> less students over the next two years. The UCs are being hit as well and I think it is likely to get worse over the next few years.</p>
<p>If Plan A doesn’t work out (and by all means talk up the chain of command and see what can be done) – Plan B might have to be recasting the net and applying all over the place for different options for transfer the following year. Your son will not be the only transfer (or freshman) student that ends up going to Plan B or having a 1 year delay in their process… whether that delay be in getting <em>into</em> a school, or even once there, because of the cuts in actual class offerings, another year delay <em>during</em> school on the way toward graduation.</p>
<p>I know a transfer student who had to leave school after she’d moved into the dorm, about a week into classes, when the powers-that-be discovered she hadn’t met the transfer GPA stipulated in her acceptance letter. As a junior transfer your son would need to take classes at a four year school to raise his GPA. He should be able to figure out how many credits of As and/or Bs he needs to get his GPA in the correct range, and hopefully he can find somewhere to get those credits before he reapplies.</p>
<p>Their response is just so ethically wrong. So they took your money on July 27th even though they had received the transcript on June 28th? I wonder what the fine print (if there is any, somewhere) says about that.</p>
<p>I would escalate it, raise a stink. Make phone calls, send emails.</p>
<p>Try to move past the minion in the admissions office who handled this. I do not for one minute believe that the President/Board/Trustees/Persons Who are Entrusted with Running this Campus would say that this is an acceptable way to treat people. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>I feel badly that your son is in this position, but don’t all the CSUs issue contingent acceptances and state the necessary GPA? Was your son aware that his GPA fell short and did he take action to take a course this summer or do what was necessary to secure the admission? I’ve seen several kids use the summer before to secure the spot.</p>
<p>With tens of thousands of kids and phenomenal overcrowding, they need to draw the line somewhere and they tell you where they draw it. They need to cut down on numbers. I’m thinking you’re not going to get much sympathy as you go up the chain.</p>
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<p>It’s a broke, understaffed systems obligation to open every transcript the moment that it arrives to ensure every kid has the GPA they’ve told them they need to have or the offer will be withdrawn?</p>
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<p>That’s where I’d focus.</p>
<p>Another suggestion (if going up the chain doesn’t work)…he could take classes as a non matriculated student and then those credits would apply towards his university credits. I researched a little and at SDSU it is called “Open University” [SDSU</a> Class Schedule: Fall 2009 Open University](<a href=“http://www.sdsu.edu/schedule/fall09/schedule_ou.html]SDSU”>http://www.sdsu.edu/schedule/fall09/schedule_ou.html)</p>
<p>My brother did this years ago when he failed out of his first university. University number 2 was happy to accept his money and put him up in a dorm etc. in a non-matriculated status. His job was to get a certain gpa and then all of those credits would transfer to matriculated status towards his degree. If they have the space, I’m sure they will take him.</p>
<p>That’s hard, and sad. Finding out he won’t be going to SDSU this fall, and so late, must be difficult for him to deal with.</p>
<p>But unlike some other posters, I don’t think it’s unfair. The admission was always contingent on his getting the specified GPA. At the end of June, he already (presumably) knew that his GPA was a little short. He might have hoped that San Diego State would be merciful and let him in anyway, but he certainly shouldn’t have expected it.</p>
<p>Is it possible that he can take one quarter/semester at community college and get accepted at San Diego State for the winter?</p>
<p>thanks all, for the suggestions and counseling. I’ve contacted several upper-echelon administrators at S.D.S.U. and will also contact Bob Filner, my local congressman (and a guy I know personally). A couple of the folks at 'State have responded to say they will forward my message on to the right people. Admittedly, I took a “shotgun” approach to this. As to the suggestion that this admission was somehow a “contingency” admission, if it was, nobody notified us about it. As most of you know, we most fiercely protect our children over consequences, when merely affecting us directly and personally, we might just rationalize away and wait for a better day. I’ve never been on this website before, nor ever even heard of it, but I commend this “community” for their thoughtfulness and caring. Thanks!</p>
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<p>With all due respect, there are parents who like to let their children experience the small pain of the consequences of their mistakes so that it may prevent bigger, more serious mistakes later.</p>
<p>Your son, like all applicants, should have read the rules and fully understood them. Knowing that he was close to the minimum allowable GPA, he should have been extra vigilant to make sure he had what he needed when Spring term ended and be prepared to take a summer class if necessary.</p>
<p>Do you really want the lesson he will learn here if an exception is made (which I highly doubt will happen in this environment) to be that they’ll break the rules for you if you scream loud enough, even though you didn’t do what you needed to do?</p>
<p>Take a breath, reflect, and then go ask your DS if he fulfilled everything on his end.</p>
<p>Given the admissions scandal going on in IL right now, I can’t imagine a congressperson from any state would be willing to step in on behalf of a student right now.</p>
<p>I am going to side with HMom on this. While I would encourage Son to go back to the beginning (i.e., his old school) and see if there is some room to wiggle. And he MAY get some sympathy from the admission’s office that informed him of the problem at hand. But I see absolutely nothing productive about Mom doing the work for a kid nearly 20 or most likely, older.</p>
<p>As for consequences. I believe fully in consequences and for the past four years we told our kids where they attended school was a privilege, not a right. If they screwed up, it would be theirs to fix and probably at the public school. Too many people haul in their attorney’s because, God Forbid, you hold them accountable so that it shows up on their transcript to colleges. Thing is, I would much rather hear from a kid how they made a mistake and truly learned from it, have that corroborated via his recommendations etc than the kid who never took a risk and continues to be methodical and middle-of-the-road. In any event, while hindsight isn’t going to fix it, my question would have been, “If you wanted to transfer, why wouldn’t you have kicked it up a notch to assure there would be no issues.” </p>
<p>I say, Mom, back off… and kid, step it up big time. It’s your life.</p>