Study Abroad Went Wrong - What to do

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I debated about whether to post or now because it would disclosea lot of D1's information, but I could use some constructive advice on this.</p>

<p>D1 is a junior at a top 20 school (it's not for bragging purpose, but for reference), and double majoring in math and econ. Math is a particularly difficult major at her school. She has never received anything less than a B at her school, but mostly As. </p>

<p>This past semester she studied at U. Sydney, took Econ, Corporate Finace II, and 2 humanties courses. Their grading system is 75+ (high honors), 60+ (high pass), 50+ (pass), below 50 is a fail. She just received her grades - 93 in Econ (which is a high distinction), 80s in 2 humanities, and 43 in Corporate Finance (Fail). </p>

<p>D1 has taken corporate finance I at her school and received an A. In Corporate Finance II, she got a 68 on midterm and ultimately 66 on a paper (after an informal request for review of the paper). She had a high 66 going into the final. She would have to had completely bombed the final to get a 43 as her final grade. A bit of background on the paper she wrote - it was a 1000 word essay on the credit crunch that happened recently (why and effect). She was interning at a major IB at the time, she talked to their economist and read up on all their commentary written by the research department. She put a lot of work into it. I thought the paper was well written.</p>

<p>There is a lot of background about the professor and the course which I won't go into. But this course is the Uni's weeder class for their most difficult major (Finance). D1 only found out after she spoke with her study abroad dean. They usually advice students not take any weeder classes when abroad, but they didn't know about this specific class, and therefore did not advice D1 to not take this class. D1 said the final had a lot of long calculations which they had to do by hand, and it's very easy to make simple mistakes, and not get any partial credit. She knew how to do most of those problems because she studied very hard for the exam. Without actually looking at the exam, which she can't (without going back to Sydney), it's hard for her believe she did that badly. The dean at her school actually said D1 may have been discriminated against because they needed x% students to fail, she wasn't an Australian and she's a woman.</p>

<p>D1 is looking to get a job in finance, which would require high GPA. She is applying to summer internship right now. Even though her study abroad grades won't be factored into her GPA, the failed class will appear on her transcript. Before her study abroad grades show up she must sign a form first, and it would only need to be done before she graduated. </p>

<p>Here are some of her options:</p>

<p>1) Request for a formal review of her finance exam and paper, which would be tedious because of distance, and the outcome may still be the same.</p>

<p>2) Delay signing the form, take another similar course at her college this semester (make sure to ace it). Sign the form before end of Junior year, after she has received a new grade from her college. </p>

<p>3) Sign the form as soon the transcript shows up at her school and let the grade appear (it could be Feb or Mar), write an explanation as to what happened to be included with her transcript.</p>

<p>The dean is recommending #2, but I am afraid firms she is applying for a job may have an issue with it. If she is to write an explanation, what should she say? What advice would you give your child? If you were in the position to hire, would this be a deal breaker for you?</p>

<p>This has been very stressful to D1. She has contacted the professor and the director at Sydney, the professor is not cooperative and will not show her the exam (against policy). Sorry for the long post.</p>

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<p>oldfort – my sympathies are with you, but some of this I don’t understand. Please clarify:</p>

<p>What is a ‘weeder’ class?
You said ‘this past semester’ – is this past semester over and she is back at her U.S. school for fall semester?
Is the Aus. system similar to UK (I have some familiarity with that)?</p>

<p>It sounds like it would be very hard for her to go and work this out on-site (in a viva voce), is that right?</p>

<p>Her options may be limited to damage control state-side, but let’s look more at this.</p>

<p>Anyway, <3 to your daughter, she sounds like a very diligent student.</p>

3

<p>If a student fails this class then he/she won’t be able to major in Finance. U. Sydney is a public school, they only want X number students for finance. It is summer in Sydney now, so she just finished her Spring semester there, and she is now home.</p>

4

<p>If possible, I’d go with taking a similar class this next semester.</p>

<p>{{{ hugs to your DD }}}</p>

5

<p>I agree…option number 2. A review of work from an already biased professor will probably not help. I wonder why the dean mentioned the bias? I would suspect that they have encountered this before.</p>

6

<p>Definitely take door #2. My son had a very similar experience when he was a freshman, (He wasn’t a study-abroad student, but he didn’t know about classes taught by TA and therefore missed every quiz. They were counted as a 0.) Ultimately, he retook the course, and aced it. The first didn’t show up on his transcript.</p>

<p>She doesn’t need to have taken the course to get the job, so just wait and retake. If she can do it this next semester, even better. the info is still fresh. Good luck to your D!</p>

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<p>I think she would be in a better position re the internship if she were to do both #2 and #3 above. Will she have to send the transcript from University of Sydney with the internship application? Will those grades appear on her own college’s transcript or will just the credits appear? </p>

<p>One bad grade in an otherwise stellar transcript doesn’t seem like a deal breaker to me. I might wonder what went wrong, but I wouldn’t rule someone out because of it, especially if the student took the course again and got an A. As for an explanation–I’d suggest that she’s honest. She did her best–she didn’t get what she needed to get, never found out why, but chose to put it behind her and repeat the course in the US.</p>

<p>My D is finishing up a study abroad program in Russia–her wallet and passport were stolen the other day. That was bad, but this seems even more stressful. Good luck to your D.</p>

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<p>I (not my daughter yet) have a bit of ethical dilemma about not disclosing the Fail to potential employer this spring.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>She only needs to send in her school’s transcript, but if she were to sign the form then those Sydney grades would then appear. But her GPA would still remain the same.</p>

9

<p>Options 1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive, and I would advise both. But 1 should be addressed, if possible, on a dean-to-dean basis, not a student-to-professor basis. I’m assuming that there is some kind of ongoing relationship between USydney and T20U here in the States, that T20U does not want its students harmed by USydney because they are no Australians (as opposed to not doing the work), and that USydney likes getting some OOH (out of hemisphere) tuition $(American). It should be up to USydney’s administration to ensure the integrity of its grading practices if a reasonable question is raised about them.</p>

<p>Another possibility would be to petition T20U to exclude the one grade from her transcript. Presumably T20U could make a determination whether the grading in that course had sufficient integrity to be included, and that would not require the Aussie prof actually to change a grade (something that I’m sure will be a substantial hurdle if necessary).</p>

10

<p>As someone who has interviewed my share of interns/co-ops although engineering I wouldn’t let one grade stop me from interviewing someone. I basically look at overall GPA. If there is a class that I think someone should have done better on I may ask questions about it. Want to make sure that they aren’t “bitter” and have learned something from it. I also vote for door number 2 but would be honest if asked. I really value honesty in an interview and the ability of a student to take responsiblity.</p>

11

<p>Not meaning of course that this was your D’s fault but there are ways to spin it so that she doesn’t come across blaming others.</p>

12

<p>I’m with JHS. Do both #1 and #2. </p>

<p>Your D may think she knows what she wants to do now, but plans change. Should she wish to go on to get a MBA or law degree (and perhaps a grad degree), the grades from USydney may have to be included. So, try to get it changed. Mistakes are made. </p>

<p>Also, I agree with the advice of getting her own college involved.</p>

13

<p>I agree with JHS, can she petition to get it removed from her transcripts? She may loose the credits but that may be insignificant in light of what it could do to the GPA if it remains on the transcript.</p>

14

<p>She goes to a very large university, but the faculty also knows its students very well. Her dean seems to like her and doesn’t think she is a slacker. I just asked D1 to email the dean to let her know about those good grades (they came out one at a time, the dean knows about the F but not the others), and then ask if there is a process to petition to exclude one grade. D1 has enough APs that she could pretend abroad never happend and still be able to graduate on time, but the dean has already said that she couldn’t do that.</p>

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<p>OP -</p>

<p>Several years ago, I had a surprisingly worse than expected grade turn up for a class I’d just completed. I pulled together all of my interim grades, did my own math, and then emailed the instructor, “Excuse me Dr. X, but when I reviewed my interim grades, and the final exam grade, I did not expect this letter grade. Could you be so kind as to let me know how you calculated the letter grade? Do you use a 70/80/90 C/B/A scale, or do you use a different one?” It turned out that the departmental computer had been mis-programmed and everyone had the wrong grades. Professor X wrote right back to me, delighted to have caught the error before everyone’s lives were ruined.</p>

<p>Your daughter should ask for help in determining what her final exam grade was, and what other factors went into the final course grade. It is entirely possible that the cranky professor’s grade-calculation system is perfectly fine. It also could be that someone entered a zero somewhere that should have been a different number entirely - in which case she could be saving more lives than just her own.</p>

16

<h1>1 & #2. Will her University not allow these classes to be recorded as P/F? That would seem logical since the grades don’t affect her gpa anyway.</h1>

<p>I advise all U.S. students to strongly consider P/F for study abroad classes. Foreign universities can grade very differently and a C is often considered very acceptable.</p>

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<p>Oh good point anneroku, I forgot decades ago that was how my foreign study was handled by my college - pass/fail. I’m going to file that one away for my son for next year (to check on pass/fail).</p>

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<p>Unfortunately my advice won’t really help OP’s daughter, since she wants to eliminate the F grade from the transcript. I do think she should pursue this on a dean-to-dean level. It is hard to imagine that such a strong student would fail this class and a mistake may have been made in calculating the grade. Most schools try to encourage study abroad and I would think her department would take pains to help students avoid a downside such as this.</p>

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<p>I think the Dean is probably right about the choice. Take Corporate finance II again at her home school and I’m sure she’ll do great and avoid the F so that you can score good internships, then by the time you graduate and the F goes on your transcript, it really won’t matter. </p>

<p>I would just like to point out that this is not the end of the world. Roughly the same thing happened to me: I did study abroad, and while I was abroad I continued my language study. I had always gotten A/A- in my classes in this language at my home university. The study abroad class was TERRIBLE for a number of reasons and I got my first ever F in that course. I took the hit and took the grade on to my transcript because it wasn’t as if I had been graded unfairly, I’m sure I really did fail the final. HOWEVER by the time the grade came out (August) and got onto my transcript (late October/November) I had already been accepted to a highly competitive internship and turned in my application for a Fulbright fellowship. I re-took the language class at my home school and again received As and A-'s.</p>

<p>I ended up as a Fulbright finalist, despite the F on the transcript (which also did not affect my GPA) and I eventually got an excellent job in the government upon graduation,with that on my transcript, largely because my GPA in general was high and I had a good internship history so lots of experience in my field. So while it may seem like the end of the world, failing a study abroad class really isn’t.</p>

20

<p>I interview for a living and while an F is always something which draws the eye (and the inevitable question) it isn’t a deal breaker as long as your daughter goes on to get a B or an A in the same course at her home college, with an otherwise strong GPA.</p>

<p>I would suggest to your D to frame an answer that doesn’t go down the “they failed me because I’m female and not Australian” path. I have dozens of colleagues in recruiting at lots of different firms (large I banks, hedge funds, insurance companies, as well as industrial companies) and although we differ on many things, we universally despise the “woe is me I’m a victim” story. She does not, in fact, know if the professor was biased against her. Nor does she know that she was targeted to fail a weed-out course because she’s not Australian. She can say in all honesty that she failed a tough course, she took it again when she returned to the US and got an A or a B and mastered the material, and has learned not to allow temporary setbacks to derail her.</p>

<p>Period. No more discussion. Just my two cents from over here in the hiring trenches.</p>