I applied ED II to Kenyon College and was accepted. Unfortunately, I also have a month’s worth of schoolwork I just haven’t done, and my grades are suffering to an insane degree. I have a couple concerning English grades, but I think those can be fixed. The bigger concern is my government class. From my research, it seems that if a grade drops below a C, you’re pretty much screwed. My grade right now is straddling the border between a D and an F. My teacher doesn’t let us turn anything in late, and I’m bad at the class to begin with, so I don’t think I can bring my grade above a C through hard work alone.
For additional background: I’ve always had trouble with grades, and I explained myself in the additional information section of my application. Kenyon accepted me despite less than stellar grades in the past, but I’m worried they might take my performance now more seriously.
Yes, I know full well this is a problem of my own design. Being reminded isn’t going to make anything better. I just need help in getting this problem fixed. Please, if my acceptance is rescinded my college career is over.
I guess this is my question:
You’re behind a month in your classes. Are you planning to get caught up, are you thinking you’ll get further behind, or are you just asking at what point they’ll rescind?
Let’s assume you had a bad case of Senioritis, and are over it, planning to turn things around as best you can.
Here’s what I would suggest:
On Monday, meet with as many teachers as you can before or after school. Explain that you’ve messed up, badly, since Christmas. And that you don’t expect them to do anything for you; as you said, this is your problem of your own making. But ask for suggestions-- how do they think you can best salvage your grade in their class? Explain that you plan to ge the notes from classmates. That you plan to do the missing homeworks, whether or not they’ll be accepted for a grade, simply because you realize that homework is vital to the understanding of the material. Ask them which topics/ assignments/whatever they think you should emphasize as you attempt to recover your grades.
So, again, you’re not asking for them to fix your problem. You’re asking them to guide you as you fix it yourself.
But here’s my other question, and it’s meant sincerely and not as a dig: If you’ve “always had trouble with grades”-- then are you sure that college is the right path for you? Should you be considering another path, one that seems to meld more closely with your strengths? Or should you consider a less expensive, less competitive college-- perhaps 2 years at a community college-- as you pull your work ethic together? (Again, not a dig:I went to CC and then transferred to a local university.)
I’m certainly planning to get caught up, I’m just concerned that option isn’t even available to me at this point. For that reason, I do need to know at what point they will rescind. I can’t do the obvious thing and just go back to the grades I had, so it’s important I understand what the minimum is, since I could potentially do that well. I forgot to mention this in the original post, so I’ll do it here: I could always reach out to Kenyon. The possibility exists that they either A) tell me themselves what they’re willing to accept or B) appreciate the honesty and decide not revoke the letter if they were going to before. I’ve heard of both of those things happening. The problem with that plan is that I really, really don’t want to risk alerting them to a problem they might not have recognized if I never contacted them.
As for your second question, I’ve always struggled with grades, but I’ve never struggled with schoolwork, if that makes sense. It’s just difficult for me to get work done in an environment like high school. I imagine that a college that offers more freedom would be a better fit for me.
The grades aren’t going to where they were- there is no chance they won’t find out eventually. If they are likely to rescind it would be wiser to know earlier than after final transcripts go out imo.
Well, I have to do all of my missing work, but that’s easy enough. The real problem is the government grade that I don’t know can be salvaged, and I can’t think of anything to do to fix that right now.
There are ~3,000 colleges in the US. If Kenyon rescinds their offer your college career isn’t over.
I don’t know what freedom you’re assuming colleges offer. It’s true that professors don’t nag you to do your work. If you don’t turn it in by the due date you just get a zero. The only way to prevent this problem is to do the work and hand it in on time.
If your high school teachers won’t accept late work then the only way to raise your grade is by doing really well on the rest of the assignments. Go talk to them and ask for their advice. Maybe they can help you find a tutor.
Look, guys, i’m more than prepared. I can’t prove this to you, you just need to trust me. The difficulty I have in high school is borne of the high school environment and being stuck in a house with overbearing parents. Neither of those things exist in college, so I can’t imagine having the difficulty there I have here. I appreciate that you want to help, but telling me I’m not capable isn’t the way to do so.
If you’re really interested in helping me, there are two ways to do so: 1) Give me an estimate for what grades I need to avoid a revocation and 2) Give advice on ways to salvage my grades or at least limit their impact on my acceptance (discounting the obvious, of course). I’m aware that number 1 might seem like underachieving, but it’s critical I know what my minimum is. Otherwise I’m just shooting in the dark.
Funny, though… none of this is your fault? It’s about the high school environment. It’s about being stuck in the house. It’s about overbearing parents.
It’s Sunday afternoon— you’re on this site. Why aren’t you working on improving your grades instead?
You did. I’m just telling other users that if their intentions are to help, I strongly appreciate that, but their methods aren’t very effective. You can call that rude or whatever, but I personally believe that it would be a lot more rude to allow them to waste their time.
It’s incredibly insulting that you think I’m just pushing blame. I’m giving you the facts. Would you prefer I just lied and pretended I’m responsible for everything that’s happened? That’s not the case, and it doesn’t help anyone to act as though it is.
Also – I’m doing homework? Do you really think that the amount of time I spend making a single post on this website is so great that I can’t improve my grades in addition to that?
Acceptance letters typically say that the offer is contingent on continued academic success at comparable levels. That is often understood by parents and others with experience to mean that, the straight A kid can relax a little and get a B+ for the first time in their life, or a student who typically gets As and Bs would be expected to do the same in the spring semester, but if some of those A- became B+ or a B+ became a B, it would be okay. The danger sign is Cs and below, especially if there is a significant drop in more than 1 class. I’m guessing that yes, if Kenyon sees a D on a final transcript, there would be a serious risk of the offer being rescinded. No one can predict whether it would be be pulled for sure.
If it were my kid, he’d be meeting with the government teacher, full of humility and recognition of the bad decisions which led to the D/F grade and with a detailed schedule for how he plans to complete every assignment, will go to study sessions and take advantage of any tutoring. And would beg, politely and with respect, for any opportunity to do additional work which could bring up grade. And then that student would be working harder than he imagined he could do in order to get an A on every assignment, every test, every paper.
You have received some good advice already. If you earn a D or F in a class this semester, there is a chance Kenyon will rescind your offer. I strongly encourage you to speak with your government teacher this week and see what YOU can do to get the grade trending up.
Whether this problem gets fixed or not is entirely in your control. When speaking with your teacher, it would be counter productive for you to mention the environmental reasons you have stated above for your poor performance. You need to take 100% ownership of the problem, and have thought through possible solutions/remedies to your situation prior to the meeting.
If you do end up with a D or F at the end of semester, the same advice goes for your communication with Kenyon, which YOU will have to initiate before they receive your final transcript.
College professors will not give you more freedom than HS with regard to academic expectations. Academics are generally more demanding and there tend to be far fewer grade inputs, often just a mid-term or final. No opportunity to make-up homework, or do extra credit, etc.
You posted at 2:44. Then again at 3:22. Then again at 3:47.
If I were drowning, I wouldn’t spend my Sunday afternoon surfing the internet. I wouldn’t ask strangers for help.
If I were straddling a D and an F in Government, and I really cared about my grade, I would be in my room, with the music off, the computer off, and working my tush off to nudge it in an upward direction. I would not be asking strangers how low my grade has to be to avoid losing my college acceptance.
OP, no one can give you the exact grades you need to hit to not be revoked. Even the counselor at Kenyon is not going to tell you that. You say you need a goal or a benchmark, but no one can give you one…so you work as hard as you can to get them as high as you can.
Hi! I don’t have any answers to your questions, but I just wanted to tell you that I’m sure everything will work out! From what I’ve read, colleges are typically nice about the end of senior year grades. I could be wrong (I don’t know much about these things), but just thought I’d tell you that. Also, don’t let all those commenters get you down! There’s no need for them to be so harsh. You know what you gotta do. Good luck!
I was accepted to Kenyon 22 last year and deferred admission to this year. I was also worried about rescinding because I had received a C in one of my classes second semester senior year. This was a class I had received a B- for the previous semester - it was a year long physics+calculus course. While no one can give a definite answer except for Kenyon, I feel the two most important factors are the difficulty level of the course, and the previous grade received in the course or similar courses. This was the only C I have received, and it was also for the most challenging class on my transcript, with my grade for the class fall semester also being on the lower end (although it wasn’t my only B). My fall stats when applying to Kenyon were 1460 sat and 3.55 gpa
My advice would be to make this grade seem like an outlier and make sure you get A/B’s for your other classes, and to just emphasize your point that, yes the grade really does need to be at least a C.
*and some not quite related advice, I also struggled a lot with time management and motivation in high school, and it seemed to get worse as I got older. I wanted a fresh start in college but I didn’t see how the summer months between hs graduation and college would somehow trigger the change I wanted to see in myself, so I decided June-July 2018 that I would take a year off. I am currently living by myself and studying a foreign language abroad, not through a gap year program. I haven’t started college yet so I can’t tell you for sure, but I feel a lot more confident about starting school, even though I believe I could have started last year and still gotten by. Maybe consider taking a semester or year off to work and mature before college