A Useful Tip for Prospective Sophomore Transfers

GSUPanther
Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:25:05 +0000

I have some advice for folks looking to transfer to UGA who may have failed a class at their current institution.

About me: 19 year old white male, middle class, both parents hold college degrees

After the first semester of my freshman year at GSU, I had failed Calc II

That GPA isn’t terrible, but it’s pretty close to the minimum, so I was still worried.

My dad, who is an Admissions Officer for GSU, gave me this advice.

GSU, as well as UGA, GT, and pretty much every big school as far as I know, has a Repeat to Replace Program that allows you to replace a failing grade with a better grade if you retake the course. The grade replacement only affects your institutional gpa, not your transfer gpa.

BUT, my dad showed me a picture of my official transcript, and my Institutional GPA is the most centrally placed item on the paper.

He figured this…

Since my GSU GPA with the replaced grade was 3.85, and it is printed in big bold numbers and is really easy to see, maybe it can sway an admissions officer to accept me. An officer seeing a 3.85 on a transcript along with the 3.4 might be like “Well, he cared enough to retake the failed course, and went through the steps to keep his institutional GPA high, he must be an okay student who wants to do well.”

I ended up being accepted.

I really don’t know if replacing my failed grade at Georgia State helped me get into UGA, but it certainly did not hurt.

Bottom line, if you fail a course and retake it, REPLACE THE GRADE at your current institution. The admissions officer at Georgia WILL see it.

Good luck and see you at UGA!