SOS: Harvard student and GPA sinking

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I am a new College Confidential user. My daughter just finished her second year at Harvard and her grades have steadily been going downhill and I am hoping some Harvard students or parents have some advice for her and me her parent. This last semester my daughter got a C- in economics and in her other three classes she got a B, a B+ and a B-. Her college GPA is now 2.87 and she thinks this will make medical school out of reach for her.</p>

<p>She is an introvert and says she could not understand her economics TA but she did not ask to be transferred or for help or go to office hours. She said she requested a tutor but no one was assigned to her. I do not know if I believe her.</p>

<p>She did not have to work hard for good grades in high school and I do not think she is trying as hard as she should be i.e. getting a tutor or going to office hours.</p>

<p>Should she contact her economics teacher to see if she can retake the class? Should she try to get ahold of her advisor over the summer? Should she take a semester or a year off and figure out what she wants to do now if medical school is no longer an option? What would or could she do with a degree in biology if her grades are not good enough to get into medical school or a graduate program? Any experience or advice you can share would be helpful.</p>

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<p>I can’t help with most of what you asked about (I’ll leave that to current students), but I will note that a 2.87 GPA (even from Harvard) makes most medical schools very unlikely.</p>

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<p>Is Bio a passion or just a hoop that needed to be jumped for med school? Are there other major problems or is the work just challenging? Harvard offers lots of levels of support - some from faculty, some from advisors, some from her House. If she can summon the initiative to seek it out, I’m sure she’ll find a good deal of help.</p>

<p>BTW, I never had to work in HS, had a rude awakening in college, and rallied my last two years to finish at 2.7. I wound up in grad school in a field that I loved, got a 4.0 there, and have been a university VP for 20 years. A 2.87 is a new experience for someone who got into Harvard two years ago, but it’s not the end of the world. Not even close!</p>

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<p>As heartwarming as your story is, more context is required. A 2.7 was simply worth more years ago than it is now. In the 60s, you might have been average material.</p>

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<p>i agree with omega’s assumption. I think you and your daughter should talk with a counselor for her future and whether she can do anything with the economics thing. There she can find a plan b (hopefully this will not be so and that she would get into med school). I have read that a JHU student switched from premed to law. Also, since your daughter is already taking econ, then she should focus on poli sci perhaps. She could end up as a professor (a noble and plesant career if you ask me). She is in HARVARD, encourage her and believe in her that she still has the hope to switch over to another profession. You need to personally go during the summer to your daughter and help her figure this out. A parent’s encouragement and direction makes a great impact in a child’s life! She may be tired and confused but I’m sure that rather than talking on the phone, it is better to go there personally and see what can be done.</p>

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<p>While I was at Harvard, I had a number of friends struggle academically. More often than not, the underlying cause was a mental health issue. Have you noticed any signs of depression in your daughter? I don’t see any from your post, but it’s definitely something to be on the lookout for.</p>

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<p>A 2.87 makes getting into a top medical school unlikely, but it certainly isn’t the end of the world. There are people at Harvard every year who graduate with GPAs < 3.0 and I doubt that life is bleak for them. Try encouraging your daughter to see if the Office of Career Services advisors have any advice specifically relating to what to do after Harvard.</p>

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<p>“She is an introvert and says she could not understand her economics TA but she did not ask to be transferred or for help or go to office hours. She said she requested a tutor but no one was assigned to her. I do not know if I believe her.”</p>

<p>This, more than the 2.87, would lead me to believe she’d get crushed in Med School. </p>

<p>From what you present, it doesn’t seem she became over-involved in her EC’s (the Crimson, Hasty Pudding, whatever) and has been neglecting her studies. If that were the case, all that would be necessary to raise the GPA up would be to refocus one’s energies.</p>

<p>But most of the folks in such situations aren’t looking to med school and don’t really care about their GPA’s. And most kids that really want to go to med school know they do have to care about their GPA’s. (… and choose their courses accordingly … and do what they need to to protect that GPA - tutors, office hours, change sections, go to other TF’s, go to the professor, drop a course, etc.)</p>

<p>Does you daughter really want to go to med school? Most of those who enter college as premed opt out. It is not usually due to a bad result in an economics course.</p>

<p>If this isn’t her way of saying she doesn’t want to go to med school, something is off here. Harvard has vast support services available if your seek them out. That your daughter appears to be both overwhelmed and unwilling to seek help should be of concern.</p>

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<p>OdysseyTigger I agree. I think she needs to talk to someone about what she does want to do in the future, why she has not sought help and about what her options are in either biology or economics or another field with her grades what they are. I do not know if her unwillingness to go to office hours or seek help is due to a social anxiety issue or stubbornness or unwillingness to admit she is struggling. I do not know whether she should start by requesting counseling through the career center or the bureau of study counseling or the mental health center. I do not think she has much of a relationship with her concentration advisor. She thinks or at least says she thinks its not that big a deal and I am overreacting.</p>

<p>Would she be able to get any internships or be accepted into any grad programs if her GPA does not improve?</p>

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<p>As I figure things, even without that C- the OP’s daughter had a slightly sub-3.0 average, and her other grades this semester were perfectly consistent with that. The C- will affect her overall GPA by less than .05. </p>

<p>The specific issues in that econ course are not the issue. The issue is that she is barely a B student, almost certainly in the bottom quartile of her class, and that isn’t a winning formula for medical school admissions anywhere. It’s also not the profile of someone who would have had a 3.9 had she gone to her local state flagship. It’s the profile of someone who may be perfectly smart and have a ton of stuff to offer the world – that’s almost certainly the case – but who for whatever reason does not have high academic performance right now.</p>

<p>Things are likely to improve grade-wise once she is focusing on a major. At least in my experience, students do better when they really like what they are studying, and are developing increasing skill with the subject matter, and feel ties to the faculty and other students. But that still isn’t going to get her into medical school, even if she pulls a 4.0 from here on (which seems pretty unlikely).</p>

<p>I suspect she needs to focus on WHY she isn’t consistently performing above the B level. Course selection? Type of evaluation method? Time management? Study skills? Distractions? Then she needs a career strategy that does not depend on going straight from college to medical school.</p>

<p>If it helps any, my sister would have been thrilled to have a 2.87 at the end of her sophomore year, and she was barely above 3.0 when she graduated. She has been enormously successful in her career, is widely respected, and could buy and sell me many times over. And she never went to graduate school at all, although she did get a CFA certification taking night classes 20+ years ago. Grades are not much of a predictor for long-term success.</p>

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<p>First, my best piece of advice for improving grades is to get a Bureau of Study Counsel tutor for classes that she finds difficult. BSC tutors are cheap (since they are subsidized by the university, they cost only $4 an hour for the student), they are qualified (each must have received a B+ or higher in the course in question, and most love the material), and they are committed to helping students do well in courses, especially those in which they’re having the most trouble.</p>

<p>(Rereading your post I see she said that she requested a tutor but none was assigned to her. This is possible, since tutors are not available for all courses, but it shouldn’t discourage her from seeking BSC help in the future.)</p>

<p>While I disagree with many of the other posters that a 2.87 GPA after two years is a cause for serious concern, I agree that your daughter should think more about her interests. Does she really want to go to med school? The vast majority of students who start college pre-med change their minds. If she does want to go to med school, does she really enjoy studying biology?</p>

<p>I would recommend you and she take a look at the courses that she has enjoyed in college. If she has done well in biology, then that’s a good track, but if she preferred, say, math classes, chemistry classes, or even humanities classes, then there’s still more than enough time to change concentrations.</p>

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<p>probably a sympton of an existential crisis</p>

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<p>^“I don’t care about life, because it is meaningless, therefore, I worked my ass to go to Harvard.” Is that the symptom?</p>

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<p>an existential crisis is not about laziness, its about questioning the fundamental truths on which a person holds that drives him or her to be, to do - in this case, perhaps the notion that scaling the ivory tower would bring some kind of solace did not pan out the way it was planned.</p>

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<p>^ Here you go again…</p>

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<p>pennmanship so what’s your solution for this “existential crisis”? Become an absurd hero?</p>

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<p>What do you mean by an “absurd hero”? First, an “existential crisis” was only a suggestion, not a definitive diagnosis. Second, I can not say how one could (or even should) overcome an existential crisis, only that person knows his/her locality and can construct values.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t react with as much concern to these grades. Without the C-, the grades are fine. If she cares about it, your daughter can retake the economics course. Apparently a lot of Harvard students do this, to keep a GPA pristine, or at least as pristine as possible. But honestly, I don’t think this should be seen as such a disaster.</p>

<p>Why does your daughter want to go to medical school in the first place? I think these career decisions are formed when kids are still fairly immature, and they often change in college. Is this a leftover goal, so to speak, that she is holding onto until something else takes its place?</p>

<p>I suggest, in conversations with her, that you emphasize that going to a college like Harvard does not have to be quite so career-focused. I realize that many on campus are, in fact, career-focused, particularly medicine, law and business, and also that many of these students are very stressed about grades toward those ends.( I believe that 60% of Harvard students seek mental health help at some point.)</p>

<p>However, I know from my daughter that there is also a large group at Harvard who are simply studying what interests them. These students tend to be less stressed, happier, and enjoy their studies. Maybe your daughter could join them!</p>

<p>Drew Faust has apparently been trying to address the careerism on campus, partly by upgrading arts and performing arts on campus. At least, that is what I have heard.</p>

<p>A BA from Harvard is a fine credential. The job market is more complicated and more resistant to categorization than most students seem to realize. When kids are very young, they want to be firemen or doctors. When they grow up, they realize things are complex.
Having these 4 years to explore and wander a little, intellectually and socially, is a wonderful thing, and I wish more could do it without worrying so much about their GPA.</p>

<p>Her degree does not have to be vocational, and, in a premier institution like Harvard, I think it is much better if it isn’t!</p>

<p>I hope that you can present a positive, even inspirational viewpoint on all this to her, and urge her to follow her interests, enjoy them, and worry about the future when she is closer to graduation. Even then, it is okay to work at a variety of jobs during one’s twenties, while figuring out a good path.</p>

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<p>I think some Harvard kids just want to hit the ground running from undergrad and thus concentrate in econ or scienes or math v. humanities/soft social sciences. Some are probably doing it because of worry over their future and others are doing it because they are happier and less stressed because doing it means they don’t have to be stressed out for their future.</p>

<p>Compmom, I really have a bit of “finger nails on the chalkboard” reaction to calling an econ concentrator (presumably) fulfilling premed “vocational.” Quite frankly, the term reeks of class consciousness and if Harvard is set on anything it’s doing away with that.</p>

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<p>Which is absurd. You can concentrate in anything and go to med school, just like you can concentrate in anything and go to law school. Choosing philosophy over biology doesn’t limit your ability to “have a future,” even if you do immaturely define med school and law school as “futures.” </p>

<p>I wish all of the 20-something year old medical residents who concentrated in bio and the 20-something year old human resources executives for oil companies who concentrated in Arabic would sit down and have a conversation, and then record it and mail it to every Harvard undergrad.</p>