<p>We didn't set a minimum GPA for ds (despite cc wisdom!) before he headed to his top 10 LAC. He ran into a bit of trouble with a math class that he ended up dropping. Never occurred to us that he'd have so much trouble, and we agreed over the break that we'd talk about establishing a minimum GPA needed for continued financial support.</p>
<p>He hasn't declared a major, but it won't be engineering or something known to have a lot of weed-out classes. He doesn't know whether he'll be going to grad school. I'd say it's likely.</p>
<p>What is a reasonable number? 3.0? 3.5?</p>
<p>ETA: Upon rereading "a minimum GPA needed for continued financial support" sounds kind of harsh, but I think y'all know what I mean. ;)</p>
<p>yds - Does your S have any merit aid that is tied to maintaining a minimum GPA? If he does then I would say that should be a reasonable expectation.</p>
<p>Here’s what we did. Our kids both had merit scholarships. They had to maintain a 3.0 GPA to keep them. We made it clear that we would NOT make up for a lost scholarship. In addition, before they enrolled in college we told them we were paying for the FOUR year plan only. We didn’t pay for summer courses (one kid took some, she paid). We would not have paid for additional years for undergrad beyond four. And lastly, we told our kids we would NOT pay for failed course or courses they had to retake. SO if they got an F in a course, they would have been expected to reimburse us the cost of that course’s credits. If they got a D in a course and wanted to retake it to get a higher grade, that was on their dime.</p>
<p>There’s minimal merit aid but lots of FA. The threshold for FA is a 2.0 and “progress” toward graduation. A 2.0 is a pretty darn low number, if you ask me, but maybe they know something I don’t …</p>
<p>I wouldn’t set a ‘minimum number’. I think you’re better off doing an assessment of whether he’s making a reasonable effort (and therefore the ‘investment’ is sound) or not. There may be times he takes a ‘stretch’ course, whether it be an advanced math course, honors o-chem, or something similar where he may take a GPA hit yet he made a sincere effort to do well. It also depends on the particular college and their grade deflation/inflation - and it looks like you’re already aware of how engineering majors can be hit in particular. The course load can be another factor. Illness can be another factor. Based on these variables and others a 3.0 might not be reasonable.</p>
<p>If the student were maintaining a set number, ex: 3.0, yet really they’re partying a lot and taking a light course load of easy classes then the 3.0 may be too low.</p>
<p>I understand this is more difficult than just picking a random number, like a 3.0, and using that but I really think one needs to take a look at it from a more individual perspective.</p>
<p>3.5 is Deans list level at many colleges. That’s too high for a minimum, in my book.</p>
<p>Why choose an arbitrary number? As long as you’re convinced he’s working to his ability, that’s what matters. If you need a minimum, I’d say no more than a certain number of C’s, and NO D’s or F’s. If you use a GPA, 2 A’s and a D gives you a GPA of 3.0, but a D is clearly not acceptable (unless it’s an isolated course in which a student struggled mightily).</p>
<p>I second ucladad’s opinion. I don’t know that there should be a minimum because UNLIKE high school, college isn’t (shouldn’t be) all about the grades, but is about stretching and learning.</p>
<p>Thank goodness my parents didn’t set that minimum and didn’t freak over the D I got in Man and Religion (I am an engineer and that quarter I was taking an overload, plus, I wasn’t very invested in that material, LOL ) and then didn’t stop my funds when I got the F in thermodynamics. <em>I</em> was upset, but I had enough other credits and again the overload that I made progress towards graduation and didn’t lose my college scholarship just for that one horror class.</p>
<p>If you want to suggest more study / less party, then that is a whole other discussion from “minimum GPA”. But I agree that if you are going to impose something, then you should do it beforehand and not retroactively.</p>
<p>We don’t have a minimum set as long as I am doing my best. My mom hears about my ups and downs and knows how much work I do so I don’t think she’s too concerned about whether or not I am working hard enough. For us, setting a minimum is just an unnecessary stressor. I perform much better when left to my own devices, and I already am aware that there will be consequences for failure.</p>
<p>We never set a minimum number, but we said that you have to be out in 4 years. Your little sister is coming up and we need the college money for her tuition.</p>
<p>Unless there is a reason to believe that S is blowing off school and wasting his time and your money, I can’t see pulling financial support. He knows that he will probably need to have a 3.0 minimum for many grad schools. </p>
<p>You have to remember that if your S is going to a top 10 LAC, he is now competing with kids from all over the nation who were the smartest kids from their schools. (And the 15 year old kid sitting next to him in math class is probably a certified genius!) </p>
<p>Remember that 50% of those kids have to be in the bottom half of the class. If he is doing the best that he can, what is the point of having an arbitrary GPA requirement that isn’t related to graduation requirements or FA awards?</p>
<p>The NCAA sets GPA minimums, and that leads to athletes taking courses in dog grooming, Constitutional originalism, and other such pabulum. If that’s the message you want to send your kid, fine.</p>
<p>I’m not much of a helicopter parent, but if my kid is in trouble I would want to know that a long time before cumulative GPA dips below some minimum line. I would want to know WHILE he was screwing up the classes that would sink his GPA, not after they had sunk it.</p>
<p>Also, when you think about it, the notion that you would withdraw financial support for failure to maintain an adequate GPA – how long is that threat good for? Are you going to pull him out before his last semester because his second-last was a down tick? How about one semester before, at the start of his senior year? After his first semester? Are you going to give him a chance to bring it up if he misses the bar by .01? There are maybe three actual weeks in a college career when you could really act on that threat. It may be a great thing to say to a kid going off to college, to put a little motivating fear into him, but if he thought about it he would know that other than in extreme situations (for which no arbitrary test is necessary), it was either a bluff or a really bad idea.</p>
<p>hmm…not where my kids went to school. Two As and two Cs gave you a 3.0. A’s each counted as 4, and C’s counted as 2. D’s counted as 1. Two A’s and 2 D’s would have been a total of 10 quality points divided by 4 courses…(assuming they were the same number of credits per course), and that would have been UNDER 3.0.</p>
<p>I agree that there might be extenuating circumstances like illness.</p>
<p>I know how you feel–been through it once and going through it for the second time. These schools are NOT your local high school, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>I’m sure that he has felt blown away with the quality of of his classmates and the difficulties of his classes. I’d let him give you the real skinny about his troubles in the classroom before I lowered any boom.</p>
<p>Well, we decided to have the discussion tonight at dinner, and we couldn’t reach a number anyway. He said his goal would always be at least a 3.5 and that this semester he was kind of caught unaware of how difficult it really would be. He ended up with a 3.16something after dropping the one class. He was a little disappointed about that. I think the thing that made dh, specifically, question his effort a bit was that ds really scoffed at the idea of studying at that recommended level of 3 hours for every one in the classroom. But now he knows that not crazy after all. This next semester he has all freshman-level courses (he had upper-level courses last semester) so I think that will help!</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone, for your feedback. For now we’ll just keep seeing how it goes.</p>
<p>I can’t make myself believe in requiring a minimum GPA though I fully understand the temptation. We’ve had regular conversations about how our freshman is doing. When he said “Badly in Econ” we pushed for how bad. Turned out it was a 79. I told him that while of course we hoped he’d bring up the grade with the final that was “acceptably badly” not “unacceptably badly”. He’s frustrated because his grade has been brought down by careless mistakes on the tests, not because he doesn’t understand most of the material. I think he may also have some sort of C in Arabic. We knew coming in that would be difficult. Languages aren’t his forte. He plans to take a summer immersion program in Jordan next summer and I just hope he can muddle through this year in Arabic so that he can get as much as possible from the summer. He’s doing “acceptably well” in his two other courses, and it’s clear he’s working hard, maybe even too hard. So I’m glad he’s stretching himself and that he’s really excited about at least one of his courses. Freshman year is an adjustment. One of my brothers got an A, a B, a C and a D. He’s got his own business now. I remember I didn’t get a single A first term, but I ended up graduating *magna cum laude.
*
We just recently found out that our oldest son (who could probably get straight A’s in his sleep if he put his mind to it), got a C in a course because he forgot to go to the midterm. He did the calculations and saw he didn’t have to beg for a makeup since he’d still pass the test. :rolleyes: He’d stopped going to class because this math course covered exactly the same material as a physics course he was taking concurrently but the physics course was better. I’d love to yell at him, but he’s already got a great job offer for next year. I remember blowing off courses that were useless too. Not everything is worth doing well.</p>
<p>I think the real problem is when kids are getting poor grades and it’s because they are partying or not acting proactively about getting help.</p>
<p>thumper, in my example I used 2 A’s and ONE D. Not that a kid would only be taking 3 classes… just wanted to point out that a GPA doesn’t necessarily give an accurate or detailed picture of success or failure.</p>
<p>Many majors (my #1son’s does) require a 3.0 to stay in the major. I think you take it case by case. If the student went to a financial stretch school and can only remain if a certain GPA is attained - well that’s the cost to attend and hopefully both the student and parent are onboard with that measure. If there isn’t a financial stretch then you can use a more liberal measure, finish in four years, maintain Cs or better, a semester or two to get the GPA up etc. etc. I also agree there is a huge different with kids that aren’t doing well because of their own lack of focus than kids who get dragged down by a particularly difficult class. My oldest son called two years ago and told me he was dropping a math class because he was doing poorly and didn’t have time time to put in with the rest of his schedule and couldn’t see how he’s get caught up. It did not drop him below full time and I told him that was fine with me. He signed up and took it the next semseter and knew the energy it required and got an A. For him, learning out to bail when appropriate was a learning experience in and of itself. So sometimes there is a very legitimate reason why the kids are struggling with one class. Much different if they are struggling with all there classes or many of their classes.</p>
<p>I guess I would be having a serious discussion with my kids if they got D’s in any college courses. Heck…we would have had serious discussions with them in HIGH SCHOOL and we weren’t paying a fortune then.</p>
<p>I grew up in a household of three children,neither of my parents were fortunate enough to attend college( financial reasons in the 1950’s, numerous children, no money for college). My Mother was her High School Valedictorian, as I was and my sister, my brother was in the top 3%,highest IQ of us all, too smart for his own good sometimes. We all did VERY well in High School, my sister was the first from our small town to go to MIT, now has her own company in CA. My point is, as we were growing up, and coming home with report cards, all my parents EVER asked was “did you do your best”? As long as that answer was “Yes”, there was no further discussion. I have used this “strategy” with my two Daughters. The oldest graduated with one A-, numerous A+'s and was Valedictorian of her highly competitive Prep school. She is now a sophomore at Princeton. Her first year she received a couple of B+'s, she thought we would be upset- we KNOW how hard she works, and just want her to ENJOY college. At this stage her sophomore year, she had all A’s midterm, and is having SO MUCH FUN-something she did not allow herself in high school. </p>
<p>Daughter #2, much more relaxed, but yet a VERY good stiudent, A’s A-, we do not compare her to her sister, again, the question is always, and will always only be “did you do your best”? That is all that we can/should ask of our children- they are under SO much pressure today.</p>
<p>The college of today “is not your parent’s college”- as long as your children are DOING THEIR BEST- I would hope that you would support them, financially and otherwise.</p>
<p>Sometimes the grade doesn’t tell the whole picture. I got a D in an accounting course in college my freshman year even though I knew exactly what I was doing (I’m great at math. I got an A in Calculus without even using a calculator but yet got a D in accounting???). It was a class most people took as a sophomore and I decided to do it early as a freshman. Big mistake. The prof was just completely unreasonable to us freshies (or so it seemed). Of the maybe 25 kids who started the semester in my class about 10 were freshman and only like 3 wound up not dropping or having to retake it (needed at least a C to move on to the next level accounting course). I retook it with another prof the next semester. The school switched to a new book for the next semester and I decided not to buy the new book. (accounting doesn’t exactly change overnight. I was already ticked off about getting a D when I knew the material, yet alone having to buy new book to teach me what I knew already. The new text was mostly the same but some of the questions and examples in it were different). I got like a 98 percent in the class the second go around without having the correct book… Got a 97 or so in the second accounting class with yet a different prof (which was the best grade in the class I might add) and like a 94 in my third accounting class with yet a different prof. I look back at that D and just shake my head. I got an A from every other accounting prof except the first guy.</p>