Old Grades

Transfer Students
1

<p>Hey everybody, I'm planning on transferring to a university from a community college to study electrical engineering. I found out about a year ago that one school I was looking to transfer to takes the average grade of a class that's been attempted more than once rather than taking the highest grade.</p>

<p>The school I'm at has a forgiveness policy which I used to clear up several F's I acquired when I first went there over 10 years ago and had no ambition whatsoever. So my gpa looks good at my current school but unfortunately those forgiven F's still show up on my transcript and a school that takes averages is going to recalculate an atrocious gpa.</p>

<p>My question is can they honestly hold these F's against me if they're from over 10 years ago and I took a few years break came back and got all As and Bs with just a couple Cs? And I've also retaken most of those courses I failed and got As just to prove how much I've changed. Obviously I'll explain this in my essay but it'd kill me if screwing up so long ago would destroy all the effort I've put in in the past few years. It just doesn't make sense to me and the system's seriously flawed if they're going to go strictly by the numbers even though I've clearly changed.</p>

<p>Anyway I'd appreciate any input or advice. Oh and I've emailed all the schols I'm interested in and they mainly said they have to recalculate the gpa but they'll take note of the change I made. That doesn't say much to me.</p>

2

<p>The school CAN use those previous grades. They probably will not. You would have to talk to each school individually to find out.</p>

3

<p>I just looked over the emails I received from the schools I’m interested in today. Minnesota said they’ll look at the highest and won’t calculate an average. The rest seem to calculate an average. Purdue said they’ll take into account recent grades and the transformation I’ve made and Maryland said they’ll recalculate with averages but they’ll also honor the gpa of my previous college, whatever that means. I guess it’s a tossup. I’ll have to really explain myself in the essay. The change is night and day and I just can’t see how they’ll those grades against me.</p>

4

<p>The fact that you came back, retook most of the classes, and showed clear improvement will work in your favor. Another thing to consider is taking or retaking the SAT/ACT and submitting the score along with your application (which may be required anyway if you have fewer than 60 credits). </p>

<p>Best of luck. It’s awesome that you went back to school and tried again.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the encouragement! Yeah I figured retaking the classes and doing well is the best thing I could do to prove I’ve changed. I’m already at about 85 credit hours so they won’t be looking at my high school records or act. That’s a good thing haha</p>