<p>I am a non-traditional (read: old) student at Montgomery College, one of the Maryland community colleges that participates with UMD in the MTAP program. I met with a counselor who suggested I enroll in MTAP to increase my chances of being accepted.</p>
<p>I am taking classes towards a General Studies AA, which should transfer over cleanly if I transfer after earning my associates. However, I would like to take intro classes for my major(s) at UMD rather than at community college, because I would expect to have a stronger foundation after taking them at UMD. This adds to the appeal of the MTAP program, because I would be able to take a couple classes at Maryland before completing my AA.</p>
<p>My big concern is whether I can meet the requirement of a 3.0 GPA. I am returning to college this semester after several years away, after a disastrous previous experience where I admittedly acted irresponsibly and did not take my education seriously. I have a very low GPA of 1.29 right now, due in part to dropping out of classes after the withdraw date. I actually did this twice, with a full schedule of classes each time!</p>
<p>So now I'm back on track as far as MC is concerned. I am retaking classes that I failed when I dropped out, and I will be considered to have a good GPA after I get As in all my classes this semester. MC will consider only the most recent attempt at a class when determining my GPA.</p>
<p>But I have been told that UMD will look at my transcripts a bit differently. Apparently they will not replace older, failing grades with better grades. Instead they will somehow average all attempts for a given course together. It seemed somewhat ambiguous when I tried to figure out exactly how the calculation was made during a phone conversation with the admissions department at UMD.</p>
<p>I'm posting here in the hopes that somebody can shed a little more light on things. How is the GPA calculated, exactly? Is the requirement of a 3.0 GPA at all flexible depending on the situation of the student? Is there anything I can do to increase my chances of being accepted even if my GPA is marginal?</p>
Your guidance counselor doesn’t understand how MTAP works. It’s a guaranteed admission if you meet the requirements. If you don’t meet the requirements, tough luck. As far as the Mitchell Building is concerned, there are no exceptions to this.</p>
Having taken courses at both schools, this assumption turns out to be wrong. At best, they are about the same in going over the material for the same nominal courses. However, two things that affect the outcome of learning at Maryland:
-The lectures for lower division courses are gigantic, there won’t really be time for a professor to deviate from the prescribed powerpoint presentation they have prepared for the cattle call. As well, it can be very distracting due to the shear numbers of people talking/texting/rolling in late, etc.
-The courses themselves are designed for 18 year old kids without a clue how to actually understand sex, cultural differences, or anything meaningful in life. You will likely find papers you write, being graded by someone much younger than yourself (TA’s are typically fresh out grad students or other undergrads ages 19-24) as less rewarding than getting graded by a professor at Montgomery College who may actually be old enough to remember a president before Barack Obama.</p>
<p>However, for courses that are not offered at MC that appeal to you and/or are required for the major you plan to pursue, go ahead and take them. </p>
<p>
And you should be concerned, your transcripts can act as a prison record in the academic world. However, I promise there is hope at the end of this message.</p>
<p>
This policy is only true for courses that were originally taken at MC and are still offered. For courses at MC in which you received an F and is no longer offered (to replace the grade), you can also try appealing to get the grade removed from your record altogether.</p>
<p>
That’s because the admissions people working in the Mitchell building are ignorant/incompetent at best and jerks at worst. Maryland accepts the MC cumulative gpa at face value, that is, they don’t go in and recalculate/average all the grades you took at MC. It’s possible they extend this courtesy to other Maryland public schools or perhaps just other MTAP schools, of that I am actually unaware. That said, they do average any and all GPA’s from all schools attended. That is to say, if you went to school 1 (not MC) and had a 0.0 with 20 credits and went to MC and retook the same courses and earned a 4.0 with 20 credits, your UMD admissions calculated GPA would be 2.0. As well, for private schools and those outside of Maryland, they do count all attempts for individual courses. So if you got an F at Hopkins for english 101 and then retook it there for an A and hopkins said you had a 4.0 with 3 credits, UMD would say you earned a C worth 6 credits.
So first the bad news,
-If your cumulative GPA across ALL schools attended is less than 3.0, you’re boned.
-Teacher Recommendations for transfer students do not get read by general admissions
-Extracurriculars are not counted for anything for transfer students.
-Appealing directly to admissions without new information (i.e. they didn’t receive a transcript) will result in failure.
-Consider a 3.0 the cutoff not just for MTAP, but also general admissions, no exceptions.</p>
<p>The good news (see I told you there was hope):
I seriously doubt you racked up as many crappy credits as I did, I came to MC from another school with 83 credits at a 1.67 GPA. I ended up completing 70 new credits at MC with a 4.0 GPA. My cumulative GPA as Maryland calculated it was 2.74 and I was initially rejected (the same day I found out I was selected as a 2013 valedictorian commencement speaker). So what can you do to get in?
Easiest:
If all your attempted credits are MC, make sure your MC cumulative GPA is 3.0 or higher.</p>
<p>Harder:
If you have to average out the bad grades from other schools, then take enough new credits at MC until your overall cumulative is 3.0 or higher. Note that this is really only feasible if you have less than 30 credits of crappy grades.</p>
<p>Hardest:
If you have a soul crushing amount of bad grades and don’t want to spend 6 years taking every course MC has to offer, you can also try connecting with the dean of the department/school you plan to declare your major in. For example, before I even applied to Maryland, I met face to face with the engineering school dean who normally handles internal appeals/kickouts to lay out my case because I was concerned with getting into the LEP. He was the one that informed me that my battle would be with general admissions, not the LEP. He was willing to fight admissions for me and is the reason I’m here now.</p>
<p>Alternative
I absolutely did not want to apply to Maryland because I knew it would be embarrassing, I much would have preferred to apply to GATech (which has a much more reasonable admissions process), however due to family obligations, I had to stay here. I already had a planned to transfer to GWU as my primary school (and was told I’d get their renewable 20k presidential scholarship), knowing for sure that applying to UMD would be futile. However, the price just can’t be beat for an instate student, so I gave it my best shot. If you are at all able to look at other schools, I highly recommend it. Maryland is a huge headache to deal with if you have a story that doesn’t fit into their prescribed box.</p>
<p>The bad grades are from MC. I did go to one previous community college, but my results from there will show either As or Ws.</p>
<p>So, it sounds like what you’re saying is that I might have been misinformed about UMD’s evaluation? If they just take it at face value I’m golden. I should have a 4.0 at MC after this semester.</p>
<p>Very interesting way of looking at the difference between low level classes at MC versus UMD. If the classes really are just what I make of them, I have no reason not to take them at MC.</p>