Failed to meet a condition of agreement after being accepted to UCD. Is there any hope?

Transfer Students UC Transfers
1

I had a total GPA of 3.39 last fall and then this past spring, I got a B in physics, A in engineering Materials, and a D in Linear Algebra. I am a Mechanical Engineer major and Linear algebra was definitely one of the pre reques that needed to be completed at the end of spring. I have already signed up to retake it in the summer, but because of that, I failed the condition of getting a c or higher in all my classes and now my admission is under evaluation and potential termination. They want me to write an essay to explain why I didn’t pass the class. I’m not sure what to say.

I mean, I know why. The class was hard. No doubt in my mind I worked really hard. I did all the homework. I went to office hours often, I studied with a buddy every weekend, and I even formed several study groups. It worked the first two exams (88% and 94%) but then I was crushed with the new stuff after the midterm. I just couldn’t understand it because it was very different especially with all the writing that needed to be done to explain the proofs. I bombed the last exam and the final and since 90% of that class is based on Exams, I didn’t have enough points to pass.

Anyways, I don’t know if putting the honest answer will help me or not. I mean, I live with just my mom and 2 little syblings, and I work 20+ hours a week as well. I also have other classes. My responsibility load is a bit more than the average student but I’ve been able to do so alright throughout my years in community college. All that has never been a burden I couldn’t manage, so I don’t feel like that had anything to do with me not passing.

The material was just hard and I got my butt kicked by linear. I feel like crap, but I kinda don’t either because I know I gave it my all. But I don’t know how the admissions will view this and if anyone ever had this situation, did they make it through or did they ended up getting dropped if they didn’t have a story like someone dieing in the family. I feel like a class being really hard just won’t cut it as an extenuating circumstance. Any advice would be really much apprieciated.

2

The good news is that they’ve given you a chance to keep your admission rather than dropping you. So try to put yourself in their shoes. They want to admit students who are going to be able to succeed in the program, and engineering is about as hard an undergrad degree as their is. And while the rest of the ME curriculum will not be writing proofs, linear algebra will still play an important part in the work you do. See https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-point-of-linear-algebra

So in your letter you need to give them reason to believe you can learn difficult material. At least 2 ways of doing this are to (1) claim your performance doesn’t reflect your actual ability (2) explain what went wrong and what you’ll do differently at Davis. (1) is covered by the stories, like you said, of grief affecting performance. You don’t have that. So that brings you to (2). Before you write your letter, spend some time thinking about what you’d do differently if you were taking the class again.

Best of luck to you.

3

You’re not cut out for UCD engineering yet if you’re failing lower division classes, and I think lying will only hurt you in the long run.

Just be honest with them and tell them what happened. Tell them you gave it your all and will take it in the summer.