Hi guys! Sorry this will be a little long, but in waiting to hear back from UCs I am kind of shooting myself in the foot if I end up not getting in as everybody at the CSU I am currently at is already signing leases for apartments next year.
I graduated in 2012 from a CA high school, and enrolled in a French grande ecole in a prepa integree (competitive two-year preparatory classes with ~30 credits per semester). I failed my first year, then retook it a second time (with barely passing grades). Knowing I wasn’t sure of passing, I applied to CSU’s, as I was pretty busy with schoolwork and didn’t want to spend time applying to UC’s without knowing if I would even need to come home.
Now I am a freshman at a CSU, but I came in with 42 AP credits and took 18 my first semester here, so I will have 82 by the end of this semester. I couldn’t transfer next year because I will have too many upper division units.
So here is the problem: I have a 3.6 right now at the csu I am at, but I got an email from admissions yesterday asking for my french transcripts as those grades will be counted in my application GPA. The way the french system works is that 10/20 is the class average, and my grades fall mainly between 8-12. However, the email said that anything below 10 would be considered failing.
Knowing this, my gpa will likely be around 2. I wrote about my issues in France in my essay, but do I have any chance of getting in? I applied to UCSD, Davis, and Irvine.
Have any international students had similar issues with regards to different grading scales?
Yes I did include it, so I’m not sure why they only asked for my french transcripts and not my csu ones.
I am taking my first upper div class right now, so I am still under the cap. However I will be taking all upper division classes next year, which is why I applied to transfer this year rather than waiting to be a proper junior transfer
If possible, when you send them your transcripts, include a note explaining that these do not reflect your current abilities, etc etc. It will hopefully soften the blow if your GPA takes a hit.
It’s not surprising they asked to see transcript early. The school is somewhat of a non-entity, the grading is weird, and OP said in app he didn’t do well.
Plus if this is int’l (I can’t quite tell, but it seems like it’s France), they usually need the transcripts early so an int’l specialist can go over it to determine transferability, etc.
If your GPA really lowers to a 2.0, that’s gonna be tough to overcome.
I included them in my application, which I also did when I applied to Sdsu. However sdsu didn’t count them at all and accepted me as a freshman, so I didn’t think it would be a problem with the UCs
Yes it is international and accredited by the CTI (French national accreditation body), but I haven’t been able to find any info on ABET-CTI equivalencies. Would this mean that SDSU accidentally overlooked my French coursework?
I have no idea. They might give you a break because you went out of your comfort zone. Maybe when you send transcripts in, send a note like luckie said, and say you wanted to take a challenge, push yourself, see the world beyond your limited view, but it didn’t quite come out as expected. Kind of go for the I failed, but I took a challenge. Not sure if they’ll care, but it’s about your best shot. They like that angle.