“. They told her she could write a letter to that panel, stating her opinion, but the decision was already made so it was pointless.”
People often appeal these type of situations…usually the student realizes what the issue is and shows what steps they will take to remediate the situation. If she wants a chance, she should do that.
A letter from the student might not be enough, it’s true. She should at the very least submit, with her letter, documentation with testing and a letter from a professional validating her claims of clinical depression, anxiety and the new diagnosis of ADHD. The letter should also include the professional’s opinion that the student is now functioning better, is on meds and in therapy, and otherwise convey confidence that the school would be making a good decision to reinstate and give the student another chance now that the issues are being addressed.
But more than that, I think a meeting with a dean is in order, also with documentation from a professional, to see if that class could have been dropped due to a disability, regardless of the dates withdrawals usually are allowed.
It sounds as if, with “laid back” parents, not enough leg work was done to prepare for this eventuality. Too bad. It IS possible to address, sometimes retroactively, but it might take the involvement of an advocate or dean or other adult who knows the ropes, if the parents aren’t involved.
If a student had cancer, and didn’t pass a class because she was dealing with symptoms and treatment, it might be clearer that the school should accommodate. Under the law, mental health isn’t any different, nor should it be.
ps The student can also point to the rise in grades once medicated. This is a very hopeful sign. That kind of thing would be good to include with any letter as well.
There is a lot of confusion about disability here and among students in college these days. I’ve even heard students complain about failing classes when they missed nearly the entire semester, claiming they should pass because they were depressed. No, depression does not get you a pass. And, even being sick due to cancer does not get you a pass. What it should do is allow you to take a medical leave of absence or allow some modification in schedule-but only if reasonable and fair. But many students are reluctant to take leaves. They want to proceed and graduate when they expected to, despite not completing the necessary requirements to do so. It does not work that way. If you don’t complete requirements you don’t get credit. End of story. Getting a passing grade when you did not do the work is not an accommodation!
It is not true that documenting clinical depression and other diagnosis is enough to ensure that a student is retained in a school if that student has flunked classes. There is no such thing as accommodations applied retrospectively. If a student is eligible and has registered with the Office for Students with Disabilities for an eligible disorder, then the school is obligated to provide reasonable accommodation from that point forward. Reasonable does not mean what the student requests but what is reasonable given the disorder. There is no obligation to apply this retrospectively.
It is unclear what has transpired with this student. If it were my offspring, I’d try to assist with the appeal process if my child wanted to return to the school. I’d also help the student devise a plan to improve the odds of success and I’d help the student share the information with the school in the appeal process.
She moves back home, get covered under her parents’ insurance, go out and gets a job, and goes to community college at night to work towards her degree.
It is not a tragedy. It IS a bummer, but it’s also a learning experience.
Well…she needs to check her college health insurance plan to see how long she is covered. If her coverage ends, agreed, look at being covered on parent plan. If she had sufficient income, she could,look for a subsidized ACA plan. If not, an individual policy will be about $250 a month for her…can her parents pay that?
Wonder if OP actually saw the letter from the school and the transcript, knows the requirements, and can put this 2+2 together.
We don’t know what it means that grades were improved after meds. Many kids say grades improved when what they mean is one test or assignment. She could still be so borderline that one bad final grade pulled her under.
Nor do we know when this gal sought help. It may have been a few weeks ago, which wouldn’t allow anyone to say there had been signs of a turnaround yet. Timeline matters.
Lostaccount, I agree with some of what you say but I know of cases where accommodations were applied retroactively. But to be clear by that I mean that a certain class was dropped and the grade expunged ( I just heard via PM from a student I advised via PM last month, who did this) but more likely, yes, a college will allow a medical withdrawal (including retroactively) with the record expunged.
I completely agree however, with you and with many disability offices, that a student should withdraw and take a leave if the need for accommodations means any substantial financial or administrative burden, or poses a change to the academic program. My own daughter, who has serious health problems, would not tolerate asking for accommodations if the need arose more than a couple of times a semester. She took two medical leaves in college, and the college really respected her for respecting their curriculum and trying to do her part. Also, if an accommodation for a serious medical event gave her two weeks to finish an assignment past due, she did it in two days. Many students are like her and abhor accommodations, but there are times when one accommodation or allowed withdrawal from a class can save a kid from a tangent in their lives.
Clinical depression, anxiety and /or ADHD are all legitimate disabilities if properly diagnosed and if treatment is in the works. A student cannot go to a dean after failing and say, “gee I was depressed.” But if the student was seeing a therapist the whole time, there is some possibility of raising that issue, though registration with the disabilities office would have been a help.
More importantly, a new diagnosis of ADHD mid-semester would mean new hope of doing better, presumably, and if the record shows that, the school might be encouraged to give another chance. Again, this needs to be supported by a professional and by efforts to treat.
The sad thing here is that it sounds like not enough communication or documentation happened before the dismissal.
There are wide variations from school to school on all this. Leaves from school or withdrawals from a class ARE granted at some schools in a situation like this. But also, at other schools, they are not. The main suggestion I have is to get a professional involved, communicate with a dean, don’t rely on one of those sad letters from the student saying how sorry she is and she is now doing x,y,and z and will do better.
If the dismissal holds, it is NOT a disaster. The student has learned something and there are many ways to continue on a path of school or work or both. But I do think it is worth a shot in this case, mainly because the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD was midsemester with evidence of improvement. But clearly no one is really helping this student in terms of advocacy- and it would have been better to deal with this during the disaster, not after, clearly.
Post adolescents are highly susceptible to magical thinking. Even without the depression or other mental health issues, this isn’t the first college student to think “Hey, I can turn this around. Stay home Saturday night, work a few extra hours on Sunday, for sure I can catch up this weekend”. That line of reasoning is the narrative for a couple of weeks- maybe it results in a few better grades on quizzes or papers, maybe not. But college kids seem highly reluctant to actually walk into a professor’s office hours to say, “I think I’m drowning- please help”.
I suspect the OP only has half the story, and within that half story it is likely that a few salient facts are missing.
In our state, a student over 18 can go on Medicaid as his or her own household, based on the student’s own income. Not sure if that is true elsewhere.
I had 7 of my freshman go on academic probation after first semester. All have been instructed to come and see me (their advisor). I expect 2 to come in on their own. I expect 2-3 to come in if I hound them, and they’ll be completely surprised by their grades when I finally get them in. I expect at least 2 to avoid me, and when it is time to register for spring classes, look me right in the eye and say, “I’m not on probation” and truly mean it.
I’ll have students come in to register and be completely unaware that they have an outstanding balance. They’ll swear nobody told them, but the business office will be able to document a series of correspondence alerting them to the fact that there’s a balance and they will not be able to register until there’s a plan in place for getting it paid.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the young woman described in the OP feels blindsided. Students, and not just freshmen, are not used to managing all the details of their lives. They will often get correspondence from the school, and not ask what it might mean. Probation? So what. I’m still here. I’m still in classes. I still got my fin aid for the semester. This is probably a mistake. And off they go. Or it registers, but they feel they can “do better” and off they go. Or they never check their email because they don’t recognize the sender. I’m not sure what goes on in their brains, but I am not at all surprised by the student’s belief that she had no warning.
I’ve had friends tell me that their kids academic woes came as a total surprise. I tell them that one of my kids was at a college where the first email from a professor is referred to as “A Fail Mail”, i.e. if you get one, it means you are likely to be circling the drain come December.
Friends have told me that it’s just not possible. No way. What professor can possibly tell after a few weeks that a kid is going to have trouble passing a course. Well- a professor who has been teaching freshman for a decade or two is going to know pretty quickly who is doing the problem-sets or the reading; who is asleep during class or isn’t showing up at all; who shows up and spends the entire class surfing the web; who never raises his/her hand with a question, who never stays afterwards to ask for clarification; who never shows up for office hours even when the professor says “if you got less than a B on this week’s quiz come and see me so we can figure out where you need to catch up”. The professor knows who shows up with a three course lunch and spends the class eating, not taking notes, and the professor knows who looks confused when he or she references the syllabus.
And yet- total surprise in December? I don’t think so. Colleges work hard to make sure that kids know where they stand. I do think it comes as a surprise to many students that financial aid is linked to their academic performance- they think they can glide by with financing in place even if their grades are circling the drain. But a kid who doesn’t know that academic performance is a problem is a kid who is ignoring the professor’s plea “come see me”, is NOT going to review sessions, is NOT asking after class, “I didn’t understand half of what you said- what can I do to catch up” and is likely NOT reading the emails (the Fail Mails) saying “We need to turn this around”.
Chances are, if she is not organized enough so that she ended up being blindsided, she needs to improve her organization to finish a bachelor’s degree. She needs to:
a. Find another college and major where transferring is a possibility.
b. Take courses part time at the community college to complete the prerequisites needed by that college and major, and get high enough grades to bring her GPA up to the standards of that college and major for transfer admission, while saving up enough money from working to pay for college after transfer.
c. Transfer to that college and major and finish the bachelor’s degree in that major.
I don’t disagree, but I do think having to work in the real world and then deal with college at night matures somebody quickly. Along the lines of, wow, this really sucks, I now appreciate college and know what it takes to make it work. Kind of re-frames one’s life when organization isn’t an option, but a requirement. Plus if I were her mom, I’d rather have her fail at a series of jobs until she figures out how to be successful, than fail at a series of colleges.
It’s college–not welfare.
The story actually rings true to me. My older daughter has had issues with anxiety and depression, and a couple of semesters have been derailed. In her case, financial aid was initially impacted, but I suppose had a critical course been involved, she could have been asked to leave.
There generally is an appeal process that involves an explanation of events and documentation from a medical provider. The college needs to be convinced that the issue has been resolved and the student is likely to make satisfactory progress going into the future. The tough thing with depression/anxiety is that the affected person can really get overwhelmed by these administrative tasks…even finding care is just almost too much, when a person is struggling to even care about being dressed.
If there is anyone who can help her identify the appropriate process at her school and help her through it, that might be just the push she needs to get back on track, assuming she is hooked up with appropriate psychiatric care going forward. I would highly suggest seeing if there is a disability office on campus too. With a newly diagnosed person, it can sometimes take a while to get things just right. It doesn’t necessarily mean they should be out of school (sometimes school provides structure that is very helpful), but they may need some accommodations/advocacy in the meantime.
For what it’s worth, my daughter is doing great now. Thankfully, in her case, she was a good student anyway, on the Dean’s List every semester, so it was relatively easy to convince the school to be patient. Harder with the kids who self medicate with alcohol or whatever, and get dismissed as partiers.
Thank you so much for all your thoughts and advice!! I have been in direct contact with the student, and I relayed your suggestions. Basically, I told her to get her psychiatrist involved immediately because that’s really her only hope. She needs documentation and a letter from the psych stating that she is correctly medicated at this time and able to succeed. I also found the school policies online for her and sent her the link so she could familiarize herself with the process of dismissal and reinstatement.
I know there was a lot of confusion about the circumstances of what happened. This student is a very bright girl who was suffering from anxiety and depression. She decided to remain at school because that’s where her friends and support system are, and she didn’t want to leave that. She was under psychiatric care the entire time. However, the meds she was given for depression made her more anxious and she struggled academically even more. In December, she was newly diagnosed with ADHD and given medication for that as well. As soon as she took the medication, she could feel an immediate change in her focus and ability to concentrate. Since she has been on the ADHD medication and a new medication for her depression, she has been feeling much better and is able to concentrate on her work. Unfortunately, the change didn’t come until the end of the semester, which was too late.
Once again, I’d like to point out that there was NO warning by the school. Yes, she knew she wasn’t doing well. That’s why she spoke to each of her professors and the dean about the situation during the semester. They all knew of her illness and that she was being treated.
I’m not sure why her parents are not more involved since I don’t know them. But my family has been helping her try to resolve the situation and make other plans if things don’t work out. The poor girl really had no clue what to do or who to speak to so she is very appreciative of our support, and I thank all of you for helping us to help her.
Just an fyi, in case she doesn’t know. Though she seems to be on the right meds now, she still needs to be in touch with the doc, she can need a fine tuning. It’s common. And maybe especially because this sounds like a high stress time. Best wishes.
No warning by the school? There is nothing in the student handbook about the GPA required to stay enrolled?
Thanks, lookingforward.
There are guidelines for GPA within the major and for classes outside the major, yes. As I said, she knew she wasn’t doing well, but there was no notification of academic probation before the dismissal.