I was expelled from university about a year ago from a prestigious and competitive university in the U.S. because I had a psychological disorder that affected my concentration and memory, which in turn resulted in very poor grades (cumulative GPA of about 1.73) I was previously given a year of suspension after my sophomore year to deal with my problem, but I did not deal with it effectively, and I was expelled for good after my first semester of junior year after another series of very bad grades.
I have been seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist for a year now and have markedly improved my mental condition, and am considering my next steps. As the universities in my country of origin are very poor, I am currently unwilling to consider higher education in my country. Furthermore, my parents have informed me that they are willing and able to pay for my education in the U.S. I was wondering which of the following options is more realistic for a person in my position:
Go to community college, get a respectable GPA and then transfer to another, less competitive university to finish my degree.
Take the SATs again, get a respectable score and transfer to a less competitive university without going to community college. (Bearing in mind that my GPA at my previous university is very low and I can’t get recommendations from my professors for obvious reasons.)
Which option is more realistic, or are my chances of ever attending a U.S institution of higher education permanently closed?
You have already been enrolled in college…taking the SAT is for those who have not been IN college. You did a couple of years of college.
In addition, you will need to provide the transcripts from your previous college when you apply to other schools. You will be considered a transfer student.
How many credits do you have to transfer?
I would suggest the community college option, but do be careful about the number of credits you expect to transfer from all schools.
Get your mental health taken care of first.
Clearly you thought you did, but you didn’t.
So make sure this time you are ready.
Go to a CC and get good grades, at least for a year. Retake anything you got an F on.
When you are thinking about transfering, talk to a transfer counselor at the state school
of where you are living. Your CC classes should transfer, and you can see which of the classes you previously took at the other college could transfer.
LostStudent…you are REQUIRED to provide transcripts from all previously attended colleges when you apply for admission to a college here…any college. You will be required to provide transcripts from your first school.
Some four year schools have a limit on the number of credits for which they will accept transfer students.
Agree…talk to someone at a college you are interested in attending.
You probably aren’t the first international student to flunk out of your first university, so my advice is that you get in touch with the international students’ office there, and ask their advice. They may be able to recommend a specific CC for you to start over at. If none of those counselors can help you, surely they have professional colleagues at other colleges and universities who will have useful ideas.
If you are outside the US, you need to get good help with this because you need to be able to convince even a CC to admit you so that you can get a new I-20. Even then, the visa officer might deny your application for a new F1 visa if they think that you don’t have your act together.
He was only expelled once. I happen to know someone who was expelled from an elite college for bad grades and was subsequently able to successfully re-apply. It may be that this student’s relationship is severed, but possibly not. It’s worth being sure; that’s all I’m saying.
Because many schools won’t accept you as a transfer student if you didn’t leave your last school in good standing, you need to find open admission schools that don’t care about your GPA.or your standing at a previous school. These what are usually referred to as community colleges.
Do you have visa? Green Card? American citizenship?
Long time ago (in a galaxy far away) I came to USA on student visa. It was directly linked to the university and was not transferable. In either case, I would not mess with immigration authorities.
You have to attend community college and retake anything you got an F in (as many colleges will consider the second grade only, not the first; or will average your F with your new grade and thus erase the F). Keep seeing the therapist and get better. Once you’re healthy and have brought your GPA back to as close to a 3.0 as you can, come back to this website for advice about where to go.
Choose your community college carefully, check out its articulation or transfer agreements (with 4 -year universities).
From a legal point of view you’ll need to transfer your F1/I20 to the new college.
The most generous schools seem to allow 90 credits to transfer, with the final thirty taken in residence. Others will accept fewer credits or require at least 45 or 60 credits taken in residence in order to graduate.
You will need to go school by school to check policies for transfer students.
It is college dependent but most colleges will require you to do 2 years worth of credits at their institution to graduate . And some do not want to admit student with excess units, but that may not be widespread.
You should pick a state with enough target 4 year colleges and start at the CC there. They may have articulation agreements that you can fulfill a transfer path. Then you can do repair of your transcript and preparation for your major there. And you can get advising on the well traveled transfer path after you enroll. The only problem with the CC is that it is lower division units.
does the number of credits I have already taken make me ineligible for community college and transferring to another university after community college?
It’s going to be hard to find classes you can take, but remember that any class where you got a D or F won’t count. You’ll have to take each class where you got a D or F in community college. Then you’ll have to take the CC’s required classes, which may or may not match the ones you took at your 4-year college. If you still don’t know what classes to take, take statistics, computer science, American Studies, Women’s studies - the first two will always be useful to have on a resume, the last two will be useful to your general knowledge of the US and of the world where you live (plus, they tend to be easy).
In any case, you won’t be able to transfer all your credits, so you’ll have to choose which ones don’t. Most universities require you to take 4 full time semesters of classes for you to receive a degree bearing their name, so you have to accept the fact that you’ll lose a lot of the credit you have.