I don’t want to talk too much about what happened, but the title pretty much covers it. I was working on a biochemistry degree at UT Austin, then the wheels came off and I failed every class for 3 semesters and dropped out in 2011. Mistakes were made, and I still kick myself for it. I currently have a 1.96 with 100 credits. I ended up enlisting, which I probably should have just done off the bat, and will be getting out in about a year and want to go back, to a different school and with a different major.
I would be considered a transfer student with below a 2.0, so no dice. I would first need to attend a community college. Specifically, Pima CC in Tucson, which has transfer agreements with the University of Arizona, so there is still a path for me back into a university. Edited to add: There’s no particular reason for the U of A beyond it being where my family is, and it’d be nice to be around them.
My main concern is eventually I would like to apply to graduate school. For the sake of argument, let’s say I get a 4.0 in every class. I would still need about 70 more credits, which would leave me well below a 3.0 cumulative. Would any serious graduate schools consider that cumulative GPA, even with an upward trend in GPA? I’ve typically tested well, so I’d likely have that going for me. I doubt I’d get an A in every single class, but I am confident that I’d do very well this time.
I’m excited to go back to school, but when I look at the hole I’ve dug myself into it can start to seem futile. Has anybody been a situation like mine, or can give me some guidance on a better way to go about things? UT Austin does not have grade forgiveness/renewal, and I really have no desire to ever set foot there again. Not their fault, just too many bad memories.
Grad school in what and for what purpose? I think you are a bit ahead of yourself. If there is any way to continue at UT that is your best bet, so put on you big boy pants and get over yourself. If you do try a cc route you are in excess credit territory so you need an advisor to plan carefully. I don’t know how U’s treats transfers with so many excess credits. Most 4years are going to need you to do 60units there. Find out ahead about UA so you don’t start on wrong path.
Don’t worry about excess credit. Anything applicable will transfer up to a school’s predefined limit, optimized for whatever major your declare. Even after the limit you can still get prerequisite or category “credit” even though those courses don’t add on to your total credit count for graduation (a common program requires a minimum 120 total hours with at least 30 credits of junior/senior courses taken at the degree granting school).
For example:
-I had a 1.67 gpa from my first school with 83 credits (that’s not counting 14 W’s).
-I started from scratch at my CC and earned a 4.0 for 70 new credits.
-Upon transferring to my 4 year, only 4 credits from my first school was applicable toward my degree requirements. The rest were too low of grades or didn’t count for anything (neither gened or prereqs). From my CC only 55 credits were applicable, and they have a 60 credit transfer limit (at 55+4=59). However, I took Ochem 1 at the CC which was not applicable toward my degree program at the 4 year. While I didn’t get the 5 credits for it at the 4 year, I was eligible to register for OChem 2 straight away if I had wanted. Same goes for a 4 credit EE class I took at the CC that gives me the prereq for an upper level EE circuits lab.
As for grad school, don’t get ahead of yourself. However I will say that depending how you perform, especially in the last 30-60 credit hours of your undergraduate program, will mitigate your past failures for a good number of schools.
My husband blew it his freshman year of college and was on academic probation. His grades then started an upward trend and now has a graduate degree from an ivy. So yes you can rebound but standardized test scores were very important for that admission decision.
On the graduate admissions committees I have served on, the application lists the GPA at the most recent school. No one here sits down to calculate the overall GPA across multiple undergrad schools, although we do look at all the transcripts.