Rescinding scholarship/admission?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
1

<p>I have a 90+ in all of my classes (honors math, ap micro/macro, ap chem, ap physics, etc) except English. I received a 64 for the first quarter and an 85 for the second quarter. Right now I have a 43 but my school will round it up to a 55 if I score less than that. </p>

<p>I think Bama will see that my situation is a little weird because I am doing fine in my other classes and received about a 97 unweighted in AP Lang last year. I have the grade I do in her class because of personal reasons. </p>

<p>Today she spoke to our class about how a college recently called to ask about poor performance in her class. She said it’s not her responsibility to always be an advocate for her students. She is considering writing a ‘de-recommendation letter’ (her words). She has addressed the class in this way before, usually when talking about me. In the beginning of the year she’d talk about how ‘some’ of us were disrespectful and things like that in reference to my attitude toward her.</p>

<p>I’m not certain she was talking about me since there are plenty of other kids failing, and I’m not certain it’s even Bama that called. It could have been another school. But I am worried.</p>

<p>Is there any chance I could get my scholarship or admission rescinded? I am going to get at least a 90 next marking period, but I am taking a 55 for this quarter. I don’t even think first semester even mattered that much since my rank actually went up. I was awarded a full tuition scholarship, but I already don’t meet the GPA requirements (I have a 3.47). They gave it to me because of my SATs.</p>

2

<p>I am not an expert, but I thought that all scholarship decisions were based on your GPA at the end of your junior year. If a student can’t use theirr senior year GPA, that might have brought up their overall GPA from your junior year to qualify for a scholarship, I don’t see how they can then use it to take your scholarship away. The only issue I can think of is if you don’t pass the class, will you still graduate? Don’t you have to have 4 English credit hours? Are you expecting to pass?</p>

3

<p>That is interesting that you would be granted the Presidential without a 3.5. Or did you get a lesser scholarship and have it bumped up for engineering? </p>

<p>M2CK will probably chime in, but I’ve seen her post several times that the senior grades don’t count toward the scholarship GPA. So from that standpoint, it sounds like you are safe. </p>

<p>I am curious though, is your grade so low because you don’t want to do the work for your teacher that you have this conflict with? Or do you see it as unfair grading on her part due to the conflict?</p>

4

<p>Why would UA be aware of your Senior grades, in the first place, let alone call a teacher about them?! And, if this teacher is actually contacting UA in any way and trying to prevent you from maintaining your admittance/scholarship, whoa, just whoa. Seriously doubt this is happening.
Further, as an educator myself, it IS a teacher’s responsibility to advocate for students. Jeesh.
If I had a teacher like yours, I would have a difficult time dealing with her myself, which is probably contributing to your attitude there. You will run into people like this from time to time (hopefully not often). Just get through this semester so you graduate.</p>

5

<p>Further, and Malanai will probably arouse himself from his sunny clime to check in and comment, too: test scores are what your potential is; grades are what you are doing with that potential.</p>

6

<p>You guys are right. Everything I’ve read makes it look like scholarships are based only on freshman-junior year grades. But they’ve already made an exception for me and I fear they may reconsider their generosity given my grades in this class.</p>

<p>@lattelady</p>

<p>I did get the Presidential. They made an exception in my case because of my ‘other academic achievements.’ I didn’t really give them much to work with outside of my SAT, rank, and GPA, and my rank and GPA are terrible so I’m assuming it’s because of SAT scores. </p>

<p>It was initially unfair grading. She would tell me she would grade something one way, and then grade it a completely different way. This happened with multiple assignments. One time I asked her how she was going to grade a certain assignment, an old SAT reading section, and she said she’d be grading on completeness. She ended up grading based on correctness. That would be bad enough on its own, but I decided to pick the wrong answer on each question just to amuse myself so I ended up getting a zero. </p>

<p>On another assignment, a resume, I asked her how she was going to grade it and she told me she would grade it on format. She actually decided to grade it on not only format, but also ‘seriousness,’ so I failed that as well. On writing assignments, she grades things based on whether or not we follow the specific format she gives us (hook, 1 sentence introducing each body paragraph, thesis). She doesn’t give any feedback in regards to actual content or writing. I am fine with receiving the grades I get on the writing assignments because I do feel that I am becoming a better writer even though my grades don’t reflect it. I know my grades on the writing assignments are my own fault.</p>

<p>She has called my parents and guidance counselor several times complaining that I have a bad attitude toward her class. She never really got through to me. Eventually, she fabricated some story about me having randomly left the classroom one day, which was completely false. She wrote me up for this and had me sent down to the main office, where I was threatened with demerits. I was really mad at this so when I had to give a presentation in her class later that day, I made a lot of jokes about her. This was mean of me and I do regret it because I also got a zero on that presentation even though I did present all of my information very well. At this point I just don’t do anything.</p>

<p>@aeromom</p>

<p>I think my guidance counselor sent my mid-year report to all my schools. Also, I have had many oddball teachers and done the work and dealt with them without saying a word but I was really under the impression that I wouldn’t need to deal with this teacher since it’s senior year. I figured I could fail and not get bothered about it, but she has called several times, made me meet with my guidance counselor several times, and meet with the english supervisor twice.</p>

<p>I am going to pass next marking period and the final. She will be on maternity leave some time in May so I don’t think I’ll have too much of a problem.</p>

7

<p>I think it has to be another student that had to report mid year grades. Also I would think she could only write a ‘de-recommendation letter’ for a student that she had written a recommendation letter for. Finally what does your school consider as passing? At my DS’s school you need a 70 in order to pass the class otherwise you fail. So are you going to get a high enough grade to pass the class? and if not do you need this class to graduate?</p>

<p>opps cross post on mid year grades.</p>

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<p>Don’t let this kind of teacher get to you. Yes (thank you for being honest), you made some errors in judgement and it got personal w/ this woman. She is (probably equally regrettably) making an issue of it. Just buck up, do the work to the high standard that you are obviously capable of (not literally how it will be graded), and you will be fine. Don’t wait for a dozen roses from her. Just turn this situation around yourself, quietly and without fan-fare. (And make sure there is nothing else going on in your life that is contributing to self-destructive behaviour in this class.)
Also, one day when you are either pregnant yourself (sorry, don’t know if you are male/female) or with a partner who is pregnant, you will understand what <em>that</em> is like! Roll Tide.</p>

9

<p>Doesn’t a GC need your permission to send mid-year Senior grades to schools? If it is your school’s policy to do so automatically, then fine. But if a GC is sending out reports unsolicited, that is another story.</p>

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<p>thermals - </p>

<p>If UA made a very generous scholarship exception for you regarding your GPA, it is probably not wise to post about it in a public forum. All that can do is to anger and upset (rightly so) the students and parents of students who were as close as you were to the Presidential scholarship but no exception was made.</p>

<p>Secondly, the world is full of people you are not going to get along with for a multitude of reasons. You have demonstrated a disrespectful attitude towards this teacher - plain and simple. If you are truly being singled out unfairly, there is a system in place to handle this type of situation. Your prior actions did not bring desired results. Why did you repeat them?</p>

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<p>@ aeromom</p>

<p>Thanks a lot for the advice. I really do appreciate it. I think my schools just sends the mid-year reports automatically. I didn’t tell my GC to do it. I only noticed because it says they were sent on naviance.</p>

<p>@Class2012Mom</p>

<p>I’m sorry, but that’s a pretty crucial part of my problem here. If I had obtained the presidential under normal conditions, then I don’t think I would have a problem here. However, since I sort of just eked it out of UA, I figure that they’d be less forgiving about things like this and more willing to perhaps make another exception and rescind the scholarship.</p>

<p>As far as the system goes, she abused the system in the first place by making up a story about how I left the classroom. Even though I didn’t get demerits, I could tell that the lady who I was speaking to (she’s not my principal but I don’t know her official title. I guess she is something of a disciplinarian) didn’t believe me. </p>

<p>When I did voice my complaints to this woman, she definitely did do her best to fix the situation by forcing my teacher to try and be more clear about most assignments. However, I didn’t say anything about being singled out. </p>

<p>Last week we had to hand in opening paragraphs for an essay. Almost everybody got 10/10s, but I got a 6/10 even though mine was probably easily the best paragraph there. But I’m not going to bring my friends’ paragraphs up to her, many of whom can barely construct a coherent sentence, and tell her that she’s not grading them fairly because that would just be throwing my friends under the bus and I don’t care about the class enough to do that.</p>

12

<p>I think you have gotten plenty of advice regarding UA, it isn’t likely that your scholarship would be rescinded. However I want to say that you seem to be failing this class to spite the teacher when in reality you are only hurting yourself. If you really want to spite her prove her wrong by doing what you are obviously capable of.</p>

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<p>I have always wondered what kind of legal deep doo doo a teacher could get into if they contacted a college about a student without their permission. </p>

<p>Sounds like a big 'ol stinking FERPA violation if you ask me.</p>

14

<p>@Longsx3</p>

<p>Thank you very much.</p>

<p>I am okay with this thread dying now haha I posted way too much personal information because I’m still pretty mad and it’s too late to edit.</p>

15

<p>thermals - I don’t think UA is able to rescind your scholarship. Honestly, though, I think that’s too bad. A couple of months back, YOU posted</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>It seems you can’t take your own advice. </p>

<p>I’ll tell you why I am being hard on you. I personally know a student who also will be a freshman at UA this fall. He is polite, respectful and articulate. He is coming in with a 3.48 at the end of his junior year because one of his parents faced a health crisis his junior year. As far as we know, he is getting $0 in scholarships.</p>

<p>You are in this situation because of your own actions. It’s possible this teacher does have a vendetta against you and possible she has acted inappropriately - but if she did, it’s because you gave her cause to do so.</p>

16

<p>Not sure how that applies here. That person thought she was entitled to schools like Yale yet had always struggled in math. She was saying that the only reason she was failing was because her math teacher had something against her, which was just her rationalizing her lack of ability in the class. How someone can even grade a math test with a significant bias is beyond me.</p>

<p>I have never struggled with either math or english before. Like I said, I had a 97 last year. It isn’t at all a question of ability. My teacher doesn’t arrange for other students to meet with the english supervisor, she doesn’t call their parents, she doesn’t make up stories about them. She lets them fail in peace. That’s all I wanted to do. The only time I spoke out was when I gave that stupid presentation since I was so mad about her almost getting me demerits.</p>

<p>And don’t give me that excuse about health crises. Just during high school, my mother has had 3 strokes and my father one. Both of my grandfathers died. My sister became an addict. My father lost two jobs. I have a lot of other stuff I could post here nobody would even believe because it’s too ‘out there.’ I have plenty of excuses I could use for my grades, but I don’t use them. This really is a personal problem with my teacher whether or not you want to believe it. </p>

<p>It’s fine if you want to project your disappointment onto me. I’m sure that that kid is nice and everything, but it’s not like I’m throwing my scholarship in his face. Everybody has excuses. The difference between me and him is that I had something else to offer. My home problems are almost assuredly worse than his. </p>

<p>I am not bragging about the scholarship. It’s a detail I needed to mention because I am worried about it. I am extremely grateful for it, which is why I am so worried about losing it, which is why I made this thread in the first place. Not even once in this thread did I make it seem like my teacher’s actions have been completely random and without cause. Stop trying to make me feel bad about having a better scholarship than your friend.</p>

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<p>I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m trying to teach you that actions have consequences. You are in this situation of worry because of your own actions. Had you learned you can’t mess with this teacher, you wouldn’t be here posting. It was all in your own control.</p>

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<p>You are right.</p>

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<p>Class2012mom - Hope the student that you know gets a scholarship.</p>

20

<p>S is a freshman. UA put a hold on his account 2nd semester (fortunately 2 days AFTER he registered for classes). The hold read “FHTS”, which meant Final High School Transcript hold.
UA had not received his final high school transcripts-through senior year in high school.</p>

<p>Not sure why UA requested the records. Not a problem for S as his grades, including senior year were stellar. However this leads me to believe that UA looks at those final H/S grades, so seniors don’t slack off.</p>