I had straight As and got into Stanford REA. Now I have 2 Cs (all the rest are As) for the first semester of Senior year. Am I at risk of having my admission rescinded? The two Cs are in very difficult courses.
What are the conditions listed on your provisional admission contract state?
You will probably get a warning letter after they receive midyear grades.
@Gumbymom provisional admission contract? I mean the admission letter says this:
“To keep your place in the class, we expect you to maintain the quality of your character and to return a strong performance in the program of study reported in your application. Contact us first before making any changes to your academic schedule.”
Does anyone have experience with Stanford rescinding admissions after one’s grade drops?
@Multiverse7 Do you know if that letter is just big words or if they will actually take action because of 2 Cs though? I’m hoping they’d be bluffing.
@siruisalive: The admission letter is your provisional admission contract. Since they do not specifically spell out what they consider a “strong performance in the program of study”, you could always contact them and ask for specifics. Some schools do actually spell out the required GPA and the # of C’s allowed Senior year so that is why I asked. Obviously you are a very strong and competitive applicant or you would have not gotten into Stanford in the first place, so if I am sure they will allow you some slack, only Stanford admissions can tell you what they expect of you Senior year.
Do you really want to find out if it’s just “big words” and bet on the fact that you’re “hoping that they’d be bluffing”?
I have no knowledge about the answer to your question and only know what I read here on CC about not getting any Ds, Fs, or commit felony or fraud. I have no idea if this applies to Stanford. You might want to email you admissions officer proactively before they see your mid-year report and explain the situation and what you are doing to correct it in the second half.
Otherwise, I’m sure there are plenty of super qualified candidates in the remaining pool of 36,000 candidates who are not slacking off senior year and would love to take your place if you call their bluff and are wrong.
Can you talk to your teachers and do something to change those grades, before contacting the admissions office? Even a B- would look better!
@Thetwins Do you mean along the lines of “I got into Stanford and decided to blow off the rest of senior year. So please change my grade to make me look good”? It won’t work.
Even if it were along the lines of “I worked my butt off, and still got a C” I think this is a bad strategy. Why should a teacher change a grade?
Nope, colleges, especially the really prestigious ones where people are clamoring to get in and they have a waitlist a mile deep, aren’t bluffing. And it doesn’t matter if the courses are difficult. You are supposed to be Stanford material which means taking classes with rigor. Hopefully, they are year long courses and you can work your butt off and get your final grade up.
So I am sort of in the same situation. I have straight As except for a Multivariable Calc course I’m taking online, and that may turn out to be a C. I did report the course on my application, but only as Dual Enrollment. Should I change this course to Pass/Fail? If so, the course grade will be changed to “CR” if I pass. And should I send in this course on a separate transcript or attach it on my school transcript when sending the course’s grade?
You’re supposed to notify Stanford before you make any changes to your schedule. I would imagine that changing a course to pass/fail would apply. They accepted you under the assumption that you are taking a difficult college level math class and now you are telling them it’s only a pass/fail course.
@hmmmhm12 I think @Multiverse7 is right. Apparently colleges will let a couple of Bs or Cs slide but won’t tolerate you changing your schedule without notifying them
No, @Tomsr, I mean:
“Can we go over my work for the semester and see if there is anything I can do to either get extra credit, such as retake a test, or resubmit a project, etc, to improve my grade?”. I do think that many teachers value involvement/participation and some other extrinsic proof that you have mastered the material, especially if you happen to be borderline. Of course you won’t get an A, but you never know, showing that you know you slipped up, have a good reason for it, and are willing to retake a test, or submit an extra credit project or redo a project might get your grade up to a B-. I have heard of kids who did ‘ok’ in a class, got a 5 on the AP, and successfully used that to improve their grade in the class. Obviously we are not at year end, but it’s at least worth talking to the teachers.
I would think that if you didn’t go talk to your teachers, it would come off as having a “oh, (s)he doesn’t care, already admitted to Stanford, already checked out” attitude.
@Thetwins In any case I already received my final grades so there’s really nothing I can do about the 2 Cs now
So if Stanford does give us a warning letter, are we supposed to explain to them why we got the grades we did? Is it enough to explain that the coursework was challenging? And what happens if we still get Cs on the same courses on 2nd semester?
No one here knows. Contact your admissions officer if you don’t want third hand information. Being hard is rarely an excuse though. Stanford will be much harder than anything you’re experiencing now.
@Multiverse7 Wouldn’t the admissions officer frown at those kinds of questions though…
Why would they frown? They have a vested interest in making sure the admittee knows whatever they need to do to be in good standing and not risk getting rescinded.