A Letter to Parents from the Kid with the 2.8 GPA

Parents Forum
1

Please take the time to read the entire letter!

Yes, you read the title correctly. I have a 2.8 GPA. And yes, that number is unweighted. Scoff at me if you will, I am here to tell you that I got into college. Where? Let’s just say I exceeded society’s expectations for me. Now, before I get to the point, and before I tell you where I am attending this fall, I want to tell you a story – a story about how I ended up with my 2.8 UW GPA. It all started in the 8th grade. I had started to look at colleges and was in awe of how many schools there were in the country. I fondly remember going on a website where there was a list of schools organized by state. I would read them off one by one and my dad would sit beside me telling me whether the school was “good” or not. I recall getting attached to Brandeis because of its pretty campus, Penn State because of its meteorology program, and University of Alaska- Fairbanks because it was far away from my home in Northern Virginia. Yes, I go to school in the notorious and well known Fairfax County (for those of you from the DC area, you know what I am talking about).

As I moved on to my freshman year of high school, my goals and visions started to come into view. I knew that I wanted to major in meteorology and I knew that I wanted to go to school as far away from home as possible! My grades freshman year were…OK. My grades included 2 A’s, 1 B, 3 B-‘s, and 1 C+. Aside from my “eh” grades, I was heavily involved in after school activities. I ran on cross country in the Fall and worked on tech crew for the school play in the Spring. I loved working on tech crew so much, that I decided to let go of cross country in the Fall of my sophomore year. My parents weren’t too pleased that I had dropped my sport for drama, but they saw that I was happy doing tech crew for the school shows.

During the Fall and Spring of my Sophomore year, I continued to get heavily involved in my school’s drama department. School was going okay for me. I understood the material, I got good marks on the quizzes and tests, but I was horrible at prioritizing. My grades suffered greatly because I would never turn in any work. If I did turn in work, it was almost always late. This was the year I started to get C’s in my core classes.

My Junior year of high school was almost a repeat with the grades. A couple A’s, a couple B’s, but then 4 Cs. My parents blamed the poor grades on my involvement in the drama department. I did however, manage to get a 30 on the ACT (34 English, 28 Math, 31 Reading, 26 Science). See, I’m a smart kid, I just never properly set my priorities…or maybe I did properly set my priorities. Maybe my brain was trying to tell me that theatre was my priority. Perhaps it was because my involvement in theatre was the only thing that was making me happy in life. After our production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas I had an epiphany: I didn’t want to major in meteorology, I wanted to major in tech theatre! It’s hands on, requires critical thinking skills, and it makes me happy! Halfway through Junior year, I started to figure out where I was going to apply to school. I knew that I wanted to major in tech theatre, so I was looking at several theatre programs across the country.

Fast forward to my Senior Year. It’s September, and I am putting my portfolio together. I put my portfolio together knowing that I am applying to schools with a 2.8 GPA. But I also knew that I was applying to schools with talent and experience (including work experience). Here is the list of schools I applied to: Pace, Penn State, Michigan State, Montclair University, VCU, SUNY Purchase, Rutgers, and Ithaca College. All 8 schools had the BFA program I was looking for. Fun Fact, when applying to a BFA program, you always need to perform at an audition or attend a portfolio interview. So, on top of my poor grades, I needed to really impress the professors with my work. I was applying to a major where the programs are small and where an average of 5-10 kids get accepted into the program at each school.

Well, I can tell you this. I was accepted on the spot at VCU during my interview. I received an offer of admission from Penn State University Park (Main Campus) just 4 days after my interview there, and I ultimately received an acceptance letter from Montclair State University including a $16,000 scholarship. I will be attending Penn State University Park this fall and will be getting a BFA in Theatre Design/Technology! After getting accepted into Penn State, I withdrew my applications from all of the other schools. What can I do with this degree? Broadway, Disney, Broadway Tours, Cruise ship entertainment, regional theatre, television… I think you get my point.

So you see, your child’s GPA is NOT everything. Colleges look for well-rounded people. Maybe those well-rounded people didn’t do well in high school because high school was too structured for them, or they just had bad luck with their teachers. So, the next time your kid comes home with a C on a test, a C in a class, or a 2.8 GPA, know that there is a school waiting for them out there. Feel free to message me! I love to talk to others, answer questions, and my goal is to help others as well!
Sincerely,

XYZ

“All the odds are in my favor
Something’s bound to begin.
It’s got to happen, happen sometime
Maybe this time I’ll win”
-Cabaret

2

All I want to say is that a 2.8 GPA isn’t extremely bad. Sure it isn’t competitive at all, but a B- is far from terrible.

3

@gearsstudio It really comes down to where you are applying to and what your major is. I wrote this letter on CC because there are several parents and students worried about their (child’s) GPA. I wanted to let others know that a sub 3.0 GPA is not the end of the world. But, yes, I do agree with you that a 2.8 GPA is not extremely bad.

4

@Techtheatrewiz Totally agree. No one (including yourself) will care about your high school GPA during and after college. Plenty of kids with bad GPAs go to respectable colleges and have a good career.

5

Congratulations! You come across as extremely directed and at peace with yourself.

6

It’s great that you were able to get into a school you wanted, and I also don’t think a 2.8 is a bad gpa especially if it was from getting a few C’s and a few A’s and mostly B’s. Being a solid student across the board is a good thing.

However, you admit that many of your grades could have been better if you’d just handed in assignments, tried a little harder, spent as much time on your classwork as your EC’s. That won’t work in college. No one is going to be hounding you to turn in assignments or even care that you did or didn’t do the work. B’s can easily become C’s or worse.

You don’t need to audition for every BFA program. My daughter chose one that didn’t have auditions. Your program may have core classes you still have to take, and in those classes you won’t be with other BFAs who have 2.8 gpa, you’ll be with many students who had 4.0. You’re still in a jungle, and it’s survival of the fittest.

7

@twoinanddone It’s good to hear that your D didn’t have to audition for her BFA program. I assume it reduced a great amount of stress? :slight_smile:

I wanted to take the time to go into detail about my grades. Here are my grades Sophomore and Junior Year.

SOPHOMORE YEAR:
Algebra 2 (313500) C-

Chemistry 1 HN (441036) C+

English 10 (114000) C

Health & PE 10 (740500) A

Spanish 3 (553000) C+

Theatre Arts 1 (141000) A

World Hist/Geog 2 (222100) B

JUNIOR YEAR:
AP Environment Sci (427004) C

English 11 (115000) C

Geogrph Inf Sys (Dual Enrolled) (8423DE) A

Precalculus w/Trig (316000) C-

Tech Theatre 1 (143511) A

US VA History HN (236036) B-

I do understand what you are saying about how my past ways will not cut it in college. I couldn’t agree with you more!

I would like to say that this year, I have improved so much! I wish I could have reported these grades on my initial applications. Here are my first semester grades from Senior Year

Econ & Pers Fin (612099)        B-  
Fashion Careers 1 (2 credit class) (828027) A-  

US VA Govt HN (244036)      A 
English 12 (116000)         B+ 
Geosystems HN (422036)      A- 
Tech Theatre 2 (143512)     A

Also, I have talked to several professors and students in the PSU theatre department. You are right. Like you said, they also mentioned how it will be difficult to juggle everything. Hopefully, my upward trend continues into college! Thanks for the feedback!

8

Did you ever consider that you might have ADD?

9

brantly, why does every one assume that someone without straight A’s must have some sort of disability?

10

Not because he doesn’t have straight As. Because of the behaviors he described.

11

Who ever said GPA was everything? While many colleges do look for well-rounded people, grades are always an important factor in admissions, and some schools do focus solely on grades and scores. In short, it’s impossible to generalize. Moreover, I think it’s worth pointing out that many BFA programs will put more emphasis on the applicant’s audition and record of accomplishments in the chosen art field than on his or her GPA. We’ll never know whether OP’s grades would have been adequate to admit OP to a non-arts degree program in the schools that accepted him, so while I’m happy for the satisfying outcome, I’m not sure what lesson OP hopes to be conveying here. Students need the best grades they can muster to have the broadest opportunities in choosing and affording a college.

12

Congratulations! Your tenacity is an important characteristic that helped you get you what you want. Good luck in the fall.

13

As a high school teacher, and the mom of a barely-B student, I say kudos. You’ve decided what you want, and you’ve gone after it. You haven’t fallen into the “grades are my life” trap that we see too often. Sure, your grades are important, your education is important.

But work ethic is also important. So, like the kid upstairs who is still asleep and has a few science labs to hand in, you’ve got to get into the habit of turning in your work. It’s not about the grade, it’s about the habit of doing the work you’ve been assigned to do. You want to become the type of person, the type of student, the type of worker who can be depended on to get the job done.

14

Very well done. As my daughter used to say “You’re not your GPA”.

You executed a smart college application strategy, acknowledging your GPA and then looking to offset it with the test score and auditions. No whining how to explain away the C grades. One big thing - while your grades were the weakest part, you sound focused and disciplined in your areas of interest.

Now just hand in the homework. Especially if you did the work.

15

Doesn’t it mean you are not well-rounded, but good at acting? For a non-BFA program, GPA is going to be a lot more important.

16

@Techtheatrewiz Congratulations. I’m not meaning this post to sound mean but I’m responding more like a parent and not as a friend. I hope you visited PSU and know what you are getting into environment wise. State College is kinda in the middle of nowhere and the opportunity to go and see live theatre will be limited without having to drive hours. I would think a program in or near a major urban area would be more fun but I’m sure PSU does a great job.

17

Except for the multiple theater groups on campus and this place: http://thestatetheatre.org/about/ .

18

ok the opportunity to see professional theatre will be limited.

19

@MommaJ I have a few responses:

“Who ever said GPA was everything?”

RESPONSE: I go to a notorious pressure-cooker school, where kids complain about how their 4.0 GPA isn’t good enough for UVA or even JMU. I understand that this isn’t the case at every school and in every household, but it does seem to be the mob mentality of today’s society, and especially here on CC.

“We’ll never know whether OP’s grades would have been adequate to admit OP to a non-arts degree program in the schools that accepted him, so while I’m happy for the satisfying outcome, I’m not sure what lesson OP hopes to be conveying here.”

RESPONSE: This is a very interesting comment you brought up! At Penn State, the academic requirements for the School of Theatre follows the same requirements of the satellite campuses. The director of undergrad admissions said that the minimum GPA is a 2.7 UW for the School of Theatre. If I wasn’t going into theatre, I probably would not have gotten into PSU UP. That being said, there are plenty of schools out there that will accept students with a 2.8 GPA. The lesson I am trying to convey here, is that low GPAs do not equal working at McDonald’s for the rest of your life. I wanted to share a success story to help alleviate parents’ anxiety about their child’s grades, especially those parents who complain about how their child’s 3.7 isn’t good enough. But, perhaps I am not seeing the whole story. I only know about what it takes to get into an arts major. I never experienced the application process for applying to an arts major, so in some ways, the letter I wrote is one-sided.

Thanks for your response and thanks for reading!

20

So, the point is that the students have to aim at GPA 2.8? Many will not get where they wanted to be with this GPA and I am not talking about some Ivy / Elite colleges. I am talking about requirements of some programs / majors at every place they they exist, like the low ranked in-state public UG. Certain programs will just ignore the application with the GPA 2.8 simply because they may have some 60 or more applicants to one spot in the program. So, you you telling everybody, go ahead and slack and you will be just fine. How about if the kid is dreaming about being in those very competitive programs? Where is that magic wand that you use for the kid with the GPA 2.8 to attend in the selective program of his dream? I am missing something here.