suspended from college..need some advice

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>Hey all, I'm posting this on behalf of my cousin:</p>

<p>Background: Just finished first semester at Goucher college. Fairly smart kid coming out of HS (GPA> 3,0 and an SAT score of around 2000). However, he is rather absent-minded and often forgot to turn in his assignments on time in HS itself, and had to be constantly reminded by his parents to study and finish homework.</p>

<p>At the end of his first semester at Goucher he has a GPA of 1.17, and received an e-mail from the univeristy saying that he is going to be suspended for poor grades and failing a FRO 100 ( I believe its a frshman orientation class). I think its one of those classes that you have to Pass if you want to move on to the next semester. ( I don;t know how he managed to fail that class!).</p>

<p>He has the chance to appeal the suspension, and he plans on doing that later this week. If it is successful, he can go back for the spring semester. </p>

<p>I suggested to his parents that he could perhaps go to CC for a couple of years and then transfer out to a better univeristy once he gets the hang of college classes and brings his GPA up.</p>

<p>Does anyone know what the requirements for admission to CC are? Is 1.17 too low a GPA to transfer in with ? Does anyone know of someone who went throgh a similar experience? We don't know where to go form here.</p>

<p>P.S. I'm very confident that he's not an alchoholic/ drug addict or anything like that. We jsut don;t know where it all went wrong!</p>

<p>Any inputs would be very useful</p>

2

<p>Usually any person with a GED or high school diploma can attend a CC and get credit for the classes.</p>

<p>My older S had a 0.37 or so (yes, you read it right) gpa for his first semester of college, and because he was a stellar academic recruit and was on virtually full merit aid, the college let him stay on for another semester after lining him up with time management and study skills counseling. He got even worse grades second semester and never returned to college, though he does support himself working an office job.</p>

<p>Our S had been very conservative in high school, didn’t even go to parties, just worked a job he loved and stayed at home the rest of the time. Consequently, we assumed that in college, he wasn’t partying. A couple of years after he flunked out of college, I accidentally found his on-line blog and learned he had been partying – drinking heavily and using pot – since he started college. It was only after we confronted him with that evidence and his well-meaning aunt who had been letting him live with her rent free moved away that S straightened up his act, got a full time office job, and began supporting himself.</p>

<p>So, my advice is that it doesn’t sound like your cousin is ready for college. This includes his not being ready for community college. I have friends whose smart sons ended up at community college due to low high school grades. One flunked out because he didn’t go to class, etc. That son now is happily working for a restaurant. The other did well in college and now is an honor student at the state flagship. </p>

<p>I think your cousin’s parents should tell him what we told our son: If he moves back home, he’ll have to either be going to college – on his own dime (loans, job) or working full-time and paying rent and following the house rules. This smack in face with reality may encourage the son to either go to college and take it seriously (since he’ll be paying for it) or go into the work force and take that seriously.</p>

<p>Not all people – including smart people – are college material. Older S had scores in the 98th percentile, but always hated school. He is doing well in his office job, has had some promotions, and now has some supervisory duties. It’s not the path that I would have chosen for him, but it’s the path he wants and that he is thriving at while pursuing.</p>

<p>Finally, never be confident that someone isn’t addicted or a substance abuser. I used to work in the substance abuse treatment field and I know how people can hide their addictions. I remember that one of our counselors who was a recovering alcoholic didn’t realize that his teen-age son who was living with him was an alcoholic/addict.</p>

3

<p>I also suggest posting on Parents Forum as a lot of parents here have dealt with similar situations.</p>

4

<p>Different community college systems have different requirements. And I’m sure that if he can handle going to community college, he can handle finding out what he needs to do in order to register for classes.</p>

<p>I’m a little surprised that your family can’t figure out how this happened, given that his parents had to “constantly” remind him to study during high school.</p>