I posted this same message in the USAFA thread. Don’t know if someone in another branch may have any experience with this…
My son is a C3C and was just disenrolled due to academics. It sounds awful but his GPA was only 1.8. He was a smart kid coming out of HS with a 3.75 and a 28 ACT score (he got into USAFA via baseball). Partially due to being overwhelmed by his new environment, overloaded with baseball, and ill-prepared for the rigors of Academy life, his GPA suffered greatly. He failed Calculus his first semester and had to appear before the ARC and was able to remain at school; his second semester he was awarded by the Dean for being the most improved cadet in his class; his third semester, he again tried to do baseball and again his grades dropped and he failed Physics; finally, this last semester, he failed physics (again) and he was disenrolled. Now this bright kid who had such a promising future out of high school can’t even transfer to local colleges in Georgia due to his low GPA. No one seems to take into consideration the rigor of academics at usafa and it’s like comparing apples and oranges if you just look at the GPA number or the grade. The frustrating part is that if he had just gone to a “regular” college after high school, he would probably be sitting on a 3.5 GPA or better. Any thoughts or experience with this situation that could help? Our whole family is in shock and unsure where to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The general advice from the academies and from the SA forums is to have the student take a rigorous course load at the local community college and transfer to a four-year university once s/he has shown a successful year in those courses which will prove what the student is capable of. The fact that most appointees at all of the academies do manage to stay in the programs and graduate regardless of athletic commitments is the comparison that colleges make, not the fact that the service academies are “harder” than many civilian colleges due to all the non-academic requirements. CC to university is a fine way to go, no shame in that at all. Good luck to your son.
Georgia Perimeter can lead to GTech. 