<p>My son has completed his first semester with a dismal record, a GPA of 1 including 2 F's. </p>
<p>Does anyone know of any options for a fresh start? If he were to apply to a new school as a freshman, would he be able to make this semester disappear? Would he have to disclose this experience in his applications? </p>
<p>I'm concerned that he's hung an anchor around his neck for the rest of his life.</p>
<p>Disappear? No.
Disclose? Yes.</p>
<p>Dupes is right. He’ll be asked to disclose where else he’s been to school and have transcripts sent.</p>
<p>However, the grades need not follow him forever (just a few years). I teach at a community college and we have a lot of students who do poorly their freshman year. After 10 years, they can apply for grade forgiveness, meaning that the grades can be wiped off the transcript and not affect their GPA calculation.</p>
<p>The main thing to focus on is why he ended up with such low grades and whether those issues are resolved otherwise he’s liable to just repeat the performance elsewhere.</p>
<p>Agree with UCSD. I’ve seen quite a few kids where everyone was just so anxious to keep the kid on track the kid continued on with more of the same. Every kid does not have to be in college at 18. Take the time to see what the problems are and fully address them before he even thinks about another college.</p>
<p>Does your school have freshman forgiveness? Some schools will replace those grades if he takes the classes over. He is obviously on academic probation- have you and your son met with the Dean and asked for advice? This will not follow him for the rest of his life, many freshmen screw up their first year. What is important is to figure out WHY he got those grades and make sure the problem does not reoccur next year. He may just need a year to mature and I bet his school would gladly give it to him. One kid I know went on an outward bound type of program for a few months and then volunteered in Latin America and worked before continuing his college career. He says the extra year really helped him appreciate going back to college. One thing I would do is have your son thoroughly evaluated by an educational psychologist if there is any chance he has an undiagnosed learning disability. Hate to mention drugs and alcohol, but they are often factors in poor academic performance. One thing is for sure: everyone loves a turnaround so when the time comes for your son to apply to grad school or a job, he will have a compelling story to tell about how much he has learned. One thing he shouldn’t do is compound his temporary academic failure with a lack of honesty. His integrity may be all he has left right now. Poor grades are not a permanent character flaw and people will forgive mistakes, but a dishonest action will never be looked upon in a good light. Good luck. I can imagine how stressful this probably is for your family, but just support your child the best you can and try to contain your anger and subdue your fears of the future. This will pass and you guys will probably end up laughing about it one day. (I speak from experience on this one, but I may have a bigger sense of humor than you do.) The only important thing is the health of your child. If your child is healthy, he will eventually find his path. No one WANTS to fail or disappoint their parents. Help him find a way to succeed, with a counselor’s help if necessary.</p>
<p>even if he re-takes the classes, if he applies to law school the previous grades will be required and will be factored into his GPA. </p>
<p>but I agree with everyone else: law school, transferring, etc. are the least of worries now–the concern is why was he unable to do the work and, if he is to continue in college, how will this be prevented in the future?</p>
<p>Right now I would not be worried about the longer term implication of those grades. The problem is what issues your student has that caused those grades.</p>
<p>However, I can tell you that my college gpa was not good at all. There would not be many if any law schools in the country that would have accepted me directly out of college. However, 6 years afterwards, I was accepted to some of the top law schools in the country, after taking additional courses that were business related to my work and doing work in a field that was very relevant to law. High LSATs also were instrumental, but still they would not have done a thing without that work experience.</p>
<p>"Agree with UCSD. I’ve seen quite a few kids where everyone was just so anxious to keep the kid on track the kid continued on with more of the same. Every kid does not have to be in college at 18. "</p>
<p>I agree and suggest that your student take a year off and work so as to gain more maturity. If your student decides to return to college, let it be for a year on his own dime, and let him be the one responsible for finding a college to go to. If he gets good grades during that year, only then start paying for his college again.</p>
<p>Speaking from experience of going through similar things with my own sons, and from being a college professor. Not everyone is ready for college at 18. Typically when students get such bad grades, it’s due to lack of motivation, including simply not studying or going to class. Instead of trying to fix things for their kids, it’s better IMO that parents let their student address the results of their mistakes, including by having to work for a while and support themselves.</p>
<p>Thank you all very much for the responses. Sorry for my delay in rejoining the conversation but for some reason I was automatically bounced off the system and couldn’t log back in until I finally managed to reset my password just now. </p>
<p>I know it’s necessary to deal with the causes of the problem, but I am also concerned about the possibilities for academic rehabilitation. </p>
<p>It seems there is no policy under which the F’s would not factor into his GPA if he stays at this school. </p>
<p>He actually was working for a semester before he started school in the spring semester. The school was full for the fall semester and wouldn’t let him start until January. But once he got there he devoted his efforts to partying and didn’t sleep at night. It’s not a mystery why this happened. The question is whether or not he’s ready and able to control these urges.</p>
<p>And if he is, then the question is, what can be done about his academic standing? I guess the answer to that one is just work hard for better grades. </p>
<p>When he was home at Eastertime, he dazzled me with a new mature attitude and he talked about his hopes and plans, but he came to this attitude too late to salvage his first semester. </p>
<p>He said then that he had decided he wanted to be a lawyer, so, cptofthehouse, your comment about your experience applying to law school is really helpful.</p>
<p>Usually one can take the classes he failed over and the new grade will replace the old one for GPA purposes. This policy varies with the college and might have limitations on the number of classes this can be done for. Has the avenue of retaking the classes and the impact on GPA been explored? On a side note - if you’re paying for college you might want to have him agree to pay for the next semester since he failed this one due to inadequate effort. If he’s paying for it he might be a little less likely to throw his own money away and might make you more willing to continue paying (if you are).</p>
<p>“He actually was working for a semester before he started school in the spring semester. The school was full for the fall semester and wouldn’t let him start until January. But once he got there he devoted his efforts to partying and didn’t sleep at night. It’s not a mystery why this happened. The question is whether or not he’s ready and able to control these urges.”</p>
<p>My advice based on BTDT with older S is to have your S take at least a semester off and for him to work a job while supporting himself (which means that if he lives at home, he’d pay rent and his living expenses). Make him responsible for all arrangements to return to school. If he’s not ready, he won’t make those arrangements, which is fine, no more wasted money.</p>
<p>When he goes back to school, make him responsible for paying for the school for at least one semester. Let him know that if he gets decent grades (define “decent” in advance), you will pay for subsequent semesters as long as his grades are acceptable.</p>
<p>With skin in the game, he may organize himself to get the grades that he needs.</p>
<p>As usual, Northstarmom gave great advice.</p>
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<p>There’s hope for your son . . . I flunked out of college after my freshman year (I was 17, way too immature and unmotivated, and there were lots of great distractions at school!) I worked a few years at crummy jobs and then went back to school. I did well this time because I wanted to be there. Long story short, I then went to law school and later got a Ph.D. - I did have to submit my transcript from my freshman year each time I applied but I always offered a written explanation of my poor grades (it’s not hard to write - I was young and stupid but I got over it!!) and it was never a problem. </p>
<p>It’s not an unusual story. Lots of kids aren’t ready for college at the ripe old age of 17 or 18. (I have a whole screed on that topic but won’t bore you with it here!)</p>
<p>My best advice is to talk with him. If he really sees the error of his ways and wants to try again in the fall, I’d let him - with lots of caveats regarding your expectations for performance and behavior. Otherwise, a few years working crummy jobs will probably solve the problem!</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>How do you make a kid responsible for paying for the semester? We pay with loans, and there’s a low limit on how much he’s allowed to borrow. I think the parent has to be responsible for the lion’s share of the financial aid.</p>
<p>The school would allow him to retake the courses, but the original grades would still factor in the GPA, so it wouldn’t help.</p>
<p>“How do you make a kid responsible for paying for the semester? We pay with loans, and there’s a low limit on how much he’s allowed to borrow. I think the parent has to be responsible for the lion’s share of the financial aid”</p>
<p>I made my kid responsible for paying for all of the costs of attending the LAC that he chose after almost not graduating senior year in high school.</p>
<p>S used money from working a year with Americorps, big loans that H and I cosigned for, money he earned working during the school year, and merit aid that he got in part due to the maturity he developed through Americorps.</p>
<p>If he hadn’t been able to afford the LAC that he wanted to attend, he could have lived at home (paying no rent since he would have been a full time student) while attending the local community college.</p>
<p>I don’t see any reason for parents to pick up the slack when offspring have dropped the ball. If the student’s irresponsibility means they have to transfer to a much cheaper college --including a community college – or drop out of college for a while and earn money in order to go back, then they will learn a lot about being responsible.</p>
<p>Not only did I live through this scenario with my 2 sons, I myself partied too much as a college freshman, and ended up on academic probation. I had to repeat two courses, and did that on my own dime – by working up to 30 hours a week my senior year. Believe me, I learned some important lessons as a result of having to take responsibility for my misguided behavior. BTW, my working so much didn’t hurt my grades: I learned how to be very organized, and did wonderfully my senior year.</p>
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<p>My D attended a HS & later CC that had this same policy. She did very poorly her junior year of HS after a so-so sophomore year (so she was asked to leave HS a year early since she missed 1/2 of junior year from chronic health issues & graduated early with a GED). She did great 1st semester of CC & then crashed 2nd semester due to health issues (got 2 Ws & barely got a 2.0 average. She had already submitted a transfer application & wrote a compelling essay about the challenges due to her health issues for 2nd semester, did well 1st semester of sophomore year & started as a 2nd semester sophomore at her dream U, where she is back on track.</p>
<p>She was not partying or distracted, so of course her story is somewhat different, but the main point was that the Us were forgiving when she showed that she had figured out how to overcome what was pulling her grades & performance down. On pure GPA, factoring in her HS & 2nd semester CC grades, she should not have been admitted to the U she is attending. I think her story honestly told compelled the U to take a chance on her and also taught her maturity beyond her years.</p>
<p>This is similar to the student that gets a bad grade on the first exam but brings up their exam grades over the semester. Many professors will weight the later exams more heavily or even drop an early exam.</p>
<p>HImom,
Your D’s running into major health issues that impacted her grades is, as you mentioned, very different than are students who crash and burn due to partying. It makes so much sense to me that she would get a transfer admission that I wouldn’t even say the college “took a chance” on her. She sounds like she had a strong track record of being responsible and of achieving.</p>
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<p>NSmom, D’s HS would definitely disagree with you, since they decided not to continue “taking a chance” by allowing her to remain in their HS! They also offered her virtually NO help figuring out what to do once they decided not to allow her to return for senior year and offered NO encouragement in her quest to transfer to her dream U. They were extremely shocked that we encouraged her to get her GED & start CC rather than forcing her to enroll in a public HS where she had no friends for her senior year. They were even further stunned that she was accepted as a transfer student to dream U–where many of their students with better stats than her were rejected as freshmen admits. I guess this says volumes about her HS.</p>
<p>I do recognize that this is not the same as a student who parties and shows immaturity, but it does show that Us aren’t necessarily inflexible about student grades and records. She & we were concerned about whether Us would not give her serious consideration because of her uneven HS & CC performance.</p>
<p>"NSmom, D’s HS would definitely disagree with you, since they decided not to continue “taking a chance” by allowing her to remain in their HS! "</p>
<p>Their reaction was horrible, just horrible. I’m glad that your D rose above what they did to her.</p>