Hi, I attended a top 25 university for only one quarter and only got a 2.28 GPA mostly because my father suddenly couldn’t pay tuition on time which resulted in my classes being dropped and having to enroll in new ones after the quarter had already begun. I have written an addendum describing exactly what happened. However, in highschool I had a 3.79 unweighted in all honors and APs, a 32 on the ACT, and loads of activities and volunteering. I decided to take the past year off to work in various fields including interning on a campaign. Part of me believes the grades also are from lack of maturity since in highschool I easily got As but my time off has allowed me to grow as an individual. My question is where should I apply for colleges and how much do you think they’ll factor my 2.5 months of college(3 classes) into my review? I really don’t want to go to a bad university but I also want to be realistic. I can always go back to my old university but it is far away from home. Also, any more advice for what to say in my addendum? Thank you!
If you want suggestions, then add price and the usual sort of preferences people have about college. What if we suggest something just as far away as the old college? Usually people in your situation would go to the old college if they can afford it since it should be easy to be re enrolled–did you take a leave? Or some people will prefer to go into a community college for transfer to state college or directly to the state college for cost constraints. You will have to check each college to see if they will consider you a transfer. Some colleges do not ‘meet need’ for transfers so the money issue again. There really are hundreds of colleges that are not ‘bad’ colleges out there. In either case, your hs transcripts and SAT will be weighted heavily because there is nothing much else to go on. I would keep the ‘addendum’ really brief, but family problems for low grade and family money issues hopefully explain away the problem, but that gpa isn’t impressing anyone but at least you were passing.
All colleges will certainly consider your college time. It is your most recent schooling. How would you attend your former U if your father had trouble paying for it? What are your in-state schools?
I think it depends on the college. You’re better off, I think, deciding with your family how much you can pay per year and targeting schools in your price range in the area of the country you’d like to be in. If money is an issue, attending a school far from home will add travel costs that could be used to pay tuition to a school closer to home. Once you have a price range and a general area, you can start weeding out schools based on their admission criteria. If they require a 3.0 to transfer and are fairly rigid about that policy, your explanation may not move them to reconsider. Is there a local school you an commute to for a year? If you do well there, I think colleges would take that into consideration when reviewing the records from your original college.
Can your father pay for your former U now? If so, it should be rather easy to be re-instated, most universities have a process for that. IF your parents have the money, it’s probably simpler administratively speaking. From an academic point of view, you need to have a plan to make sure you don’t fall into the same errors as before.