Should my son give up on college?

[cobrat]

<p>

The GPA does not transfer from one institution to another; only the credits transfer. Generally, courses in which a student has a grade lower than a C are not transferable anyway and the student will receive no credit for them at the next institution.</p>

<p>The only effect that the low grades might have is to make his application less attractive to any other colleges he is applying to as a transfer student. Once he has been accepted at the new institution, however, he starts afresh with a GPA of 0.00 (a blank slate).

</p>

<p>While that’s true regarding the cumulative GPA of your new university, it does not wipe out the failing/mediocre grades from previous institutions as far as some employers and grad schools are concerned. </p>

<p>Most…especially the latter will request transcripts of all undergrad courses taken/attempted and in the case of some grad schools like law…will factor them all into the overall GPA calculation up to the first bachelor’s degree attained. Moreover, in the case of law schools, they will count the failing grade alongside the passed retake grade and average them both for cumulative GPA calculations. </p>

<p>Several friends who applied to law schools ended up getting burned on the GPA front and ended up having LSDAS* GPA far lower than they’d thought due to dual-enrollment community college courses taken in high school, repeating a failed course, and/or courses taken at other/previous colleges. </p>

<ul>
<li>Mandated third party clearing house for law school application process information…including the processing of all undergrad transcripts up to first bachelor’s attained. The cumulative GPA calculated by LSDAS is what law schools will count when deciding on a candidate’s admissions.</li>
</ul>