<p>Hey,
Ok. So I just finished my first year in college. The first semester didn't go so well. I took 17 hours and it was just a little to much for me. Plus I was new to the whole college thing. I ended up failing 4 out of 5 classes. I know, tragic. My GPA was .35 and I was put on academic probation. My second semester was really good though. I took 18 hours and passed everything with at least a C. I got my GPA up to a 2.2 and I'm off of probation. I thought all was good until I got this letter saying that I was on academic suspension! WTH?!?!.. So I called the financial aid office at my school and asked what this meant and what i could do about it. She said that it means that i can't get any financial aid next semester because i didn't finish enough credits and i can either pay for the next semester out of MY OWN FUNDS or i can get it appealed. I come from a poor family so there is no way i can pay out of my own funds, so i guess i have to get it appealed. But how? What do I write in the appeal? Have any of you been on financial aid suspension? Did you get it appealed?</p>
<p>Every school has to have a SAP (satisfactory academic progress) for financial aid. Usually it includes having to complete a certain % of all classes ever taken (usually between 67-75%), a minimum GPA, a maximum # of credits taken. If you fail to meet SAP then FA is suspended.</p>
<p>You need to ask the school exactly what the appeals process is. In a lot of cases it involves writing a letter explaining why you failed SAP and what you plan to do differently in the future. If the school grants the appeal they will probably put you on FA probation with minimum standards that you must meet in order to keep the aid. Make sure you do meet those standards or you will lose aid and there will probably be no 2nd appeal.</p>
<p>When you write your appeal (there may be a form to turn in with it, too), focus on what happened that caused you to do poorly your first semester, what you changed your second semester, and how the changes resulted in a greatly improved GPA. Explain that you feel that you have now gotten on the right track and will continue to do well because of the changes you made between first and second semesters.</p>
<p>Be polite. Concentrate on showing the growth you had between semesters that resulted in an improved GPA. The key is to persuade the reader that you have learned to succeed in college & that it is worth giving you a chance to continue on the path of improvement you have already begun to walk.</p>
<p>Academic suspension and fin aid suspension are two different things. You may have two different appeal processes to go through, so contact your academic advisor as well as fin aid. </p>
<p>Your math isn’t adding up for your GPA calculations. You don’t move from a .35 at 17 hours to a 2.2 at 35 (17 first sem + 18 second) unless your second semster GPA was at least a 4.0, and that’s not possible if you had Cs. I think you got a 2.2 second semester, which puts your cum around 1.3, a strong improvement over a .35, but still not enough for good academic standing. Find out if you need to appeal an academic suspension in addition to fin aid. Same strategy, though. Stress the fact that you improved considerably and will continue to do so.</p>
<p>Ordinary lives, some schools allow courses to be repeated and the intitial grade to be excluded from the GPA. The first time the course is taken stays on the transcript, but not the GPA.</p>
<p>I was just explaning how the GPA came to be. I am not certain who takes these redone class GPA seriously. I understand the better law schools recompute.</p>
<p>I have wondered that about the redone GPA when it comes to future applications (job, grad school etc). I know med and law school will want all the grades. If a job asks then what grade does one report?</p>
<p>Our college allows up to 4 classes to be retaken if the grade is below a C. The original grade still appears on the transcript but is not included in the graduation/retention GPA. But the school actually shows 3 GPAs. Graduation/retention (all grades from college level work but excluding up to 4 of classes that have been repeated), Institutional (only grades from classes at the school - i.e. no transfer grades), and cumulative (all grades for all classes taken including transfer and repeated classes). Of course the ideal is for all 3 to be the same.</p>
<p>My firm recomputes every GPA we get in. We demand to see transcripts. These transcripts typcially report all grades, but dont compute both classes in the GPA. We regard retaking a class in the major as pretty near fatal, worse than a W. Becuase the second time, the kid SHOULD be getting an easy A.</p>
<p>Very true. Big increases are certainly possible with grade replacement. Often, though, it’s hard to retake all of them them the very next semester. Students sign up for courses before they know they’ve failed. Sequencing means some are only offered fall. I guess I thought it unlikely the OP got a second chance at the whole kit and caboodle, especially since the number of credit hours was different second semester.</p>
<p>We regard retaking a class in the major as pretty near fatal, worse than a W. </p>
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<p>Pretty harsh. There must be an overabundance of talent knocking down your firm’s door.</p>
<p>I know quite a few engineers who failed a class or two. They repeated them - while overloading (up to 25 credits in a semester) - and went on to very successful careers.</p>
That is a scary thought. My daughter has to retake 2 classes that she struggled with and ended up with Ds in (one this semester well over 50% of the class either got a D or failed - the first half of the semester the class is taught by one prof and she did fine in his classes, the second half is taught by a different prof and nearly everyone struggles - one girl actually had an emotional breakdown during the final and started sobbing hysterically ).</p>
<p>I know that those Ds are not good but I would hate to think that they would weigh so heavily against her mostly As and Bs,</p>
<p>Can you take some summer school courses at a local CC (cheap?) and would the school add those to calculate the total percentage of units passed? I don’t know if that will work or not, but it might be a way around the issue</p>
<p>If the student does a grade replacement if the original and the new grade are on the transcript the lsac calculates both grades and it is part of the lsac gpa. </p>
<p>IF the old grade is deleted from the transcript, then the LSAC only calculates the replacement grade (which on the transcript looks like the student only took the course once. The lsac transcript contains grades from all schools attended (even college courses taken in high school). Law schools will receive the lsac transcript along with the school’s transcript.</p>
<p>Ha, ha. My son withdrew, flunked and retook so many courses, sometimes more than once, maybe even more than twice, he made my head spin. But he graduated in 4 years somehow.</p>
That is a scary thought. My daughter has to retake 2 classes that she struggled with and ended up with Ds in (one this semester well over 50% of the class either got a D or failed - the first half of the semester the class is taught by one prof and she did fine in his classes, the second half is taught by a different prof and nearly everyone struggles - one girl actually had an emotional breakdown during the final and started sobbing hysterically ).</p>