I have a friend who is in his mid 20’s. He went to a public state college right after graduating and flunked out horribly after a year or two. Afterwards he joined the military and was in that for I believe two years; he never deployed but was doing stuff related to technology at the base. It was the reserves so it wasn’t anything huge. Anyways, he’s interested in pursuing his undergraduate degree but got rejected from the public uni he originally flunked out of. I talked him into applying to another technical school here to take a class and get a good grade to get back into the public uni, but know he’s thinking about applying more generally, too.
If he was interested in applying to other schools would Ivy league’s look at him or is his situation too bad? I just went through applying to b-schools and know that story is really important, and think he has a great story. He’s a first generation Mexican immigrant, and the first person in his family to go to college. He did flunk out, but went into the military and serving set him straight, and he’s been working full time at a bank doing a great job the past year or two. How would Ivy leagues and other schools look at this story?
Also if he applied to better schools would it be better to apply after taking this one course, or go to the public uni for a year or two and then attempt a transfer?
I don’t think one class is going to do it. A full semester load is more like it. He has to show that he can do the work. Sure they know a lot of time maturity through gaining a few years and military service usually matures people but he has to turn it around at a CC first if his college wouldn’t readmit him or give any conditions for read mission. Ivy takes very few transfers in general, Stanford does take a few Vets every year, as in 3or 4 for instance but they don’t usually have such spotty past record and they usually have some very distinguished service record. I don’t think that is realistic.
After finishing his one technical school class, and if a bachelors is his desire, he should consider transferring to a community college and get 2-3 semesters’ worth of solid grades. Your discussion about Ivy league schools is completely unrealistic and should not be mentioned again. Your role should be to encourage his applying and offering support.
Thanks for the response guys. So it sounds like his best chance of getting into a good school (if not Ivy League) would be to take this one class to allow him into the local public university (better than a community college), do maybe a year or two there and then try to transfer to a better school for the remainder of his degree?
he should attend the community college nearest your home and prove that he can handle the classes there. Perhaps starting with 12-13 credits, and the second semester taking the full 15-16. If he can get excellent grades in those, he should look into transferring to your state’s flagship.
What I would suggest is for him to contact the public Uni/college that he is interested in (either the one he flunked out of or a different one) and ask if there is a path back for him…e.g., attending and doing well in community collge after his military experience.
“Thanks for the response guys. So it sounds like his best chance of getting into a good school (if not Ivy League) would be to take this one class to allow him into the local public university (better than a community college), do maybe a year or two there and then try to transfer to a better school for the remainder of his degree?”
No. He has been denied at even his old “average” school. He needs to PROVE that he can attend ANY school much less a “good” school. He should go back to community college as his second step (the first being to complete his current single class) and not right back to the local public uni. If (and it’s a big if) he hits his stride, he’ll naturally transfer to a Bachelor’s program. Then if transferring to a “better” school is in his future, he’ll do it.
Your plans for him don’t seem to match reality at this point. You had to TALK him into taking a (academically non-challenging) tech class at the tech school. He’s not been inside an academic classroom for many years, his previous time was very bad. Get him to community college. All this talk about “better” schools and “Ivy League” appears to be from you and not a reflection of his ability or interest at this time.