<p>“Euclid- I think before you go the tough love route, your child needs to own some of the problem. Which means a meeting with the academic dean, department head, and probably the D course professor. No sense coming up with a solution before you know what the problem is, and given the ABCD distribution of grades, I suspect you don’t know what the problem is.”</p>
<p>I think that’s terrific advice, but the meetings must come from your son. He has to want to find out what went wrong and figure out how to change it. What’s his reaction to all of this?</p>
<p>I suggest that you hold your S responsible by expecting him to take out loans or otherwise pay for the extra costs due to losing the scholarship. This makes him responsible for the increased costs due to his grade problems. Be willing to help him brainstorm about how he can obtain acceptable grades in college, but don’t take responsibility yourself for finding the solution for him or for forcing him to address this problem.</p>
<p>Please believe me: There is plenty of info on campus and on-line that he can obtain to learn how to get decent grades. I learned this the hard way when H flew 1,000 to meet (with S’s approval) with older S and his advisor after older S got horrible grades first semester of freshman year. In truth, the grades didn’t bother S, and he was perfectly capable of getting higher grades. However, despite lots of help from his advisor, S chose not to follow through with the help, but instead devoted his time to partying and ECs, and flunked out.</p>
<p>That caused H and I to take a hands off policy with younger S who, after we said we wouldn’t fund him for his first year in college due to his horrendous senior year in high school – got his act together big time and is entering junior year with a 3.45 overall gpa, 3.7 for the last semester despite working 14 hours a week, taking 20 hours, and doing ECs. He wants to remain in the college, which he loves, and he has found productive ways to achieve the gpa that’s required (3.0 to keep his scholarship).</p>
<p>So, my advice is to set a minimum gpa that he’ll need to maintain each semester to continue getting financial help from you. If he falls below that in the future, require him to obtain at least one semester of full-time enrollment with acceptable grades for you to agree to assist again with his college costs. </p>
<p>If he ends up dropping out or flunking out of college, require him to get a job and pay rent and for his personal costs if he chooses to live at home. That jolt of reality wakes up many students. I used to teach college, and saw many students who flunked out and then returned and did well after their parents made them responsible for taking care of themselves after leaving college.</p>
<p>"“We told him upfront that if he should lose his scholarship for any reason that he will have to transfer to one of our public instate universities.”</p>
<p>I just noticed this. I think you should hold him accountable. If it’s too late to transfer, then looks like he may need to take a semester or year off – and work and support himself – while preparing his transfer application.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom. You need to hold your s accountable for his actions. He can see if any of the local state schools have room for fall, or go to a community college until he can show that he can get his act together.</p>
<p>To me, I don’t think it fair to punish son for losing scholarship…he is the one that earned it. My H and I were willing to pay for four years of college, the scholarship money would have been extra that would help him with graduate school. Now extra schooling will be at his expense. I think after venting and reading other posts, we will just let S suffer his own consequences…he’s already at a state university, so the only step down would be a community college. We will just limit funds to four years of college. If he fails anything, he will foot the bill for the course. We will limit funds for ECs. H is out of town and S is not home yet, so I am just trying to get a gameplan.</p>
<p>Does the school offer online classes for summer? If it’s not too late to register, he could take a couple of classes and be at home and you can get a sense of what his idea of studying is.</p>
<p>While I agree that your S did earn the scholarship, is there much/a lot of point in him being in this college/this major now if he is not doing well (I’m assuming if the Ds are in his major, he’s not getting credit for them?)? What is his cumulative GPA? Major GPA? The cost of the school?</p>
<p>"To me, I don’t think it fair to punish son for losing scholarship…he is the one that earned it. "</p>
<p>I think it’s fair in that it seems to be the conditions that his parents imposed in agreeing to pay for him to attend that college. It’s not fair for his parents to have to pay more for his college because he lost his scholarship.</p>
<p>My son has gpa-dependent merit aid to a college that he knows we wouldn’t be able to afford without the merit aid (and without his helping out by working and taking out loans). Formerly a disorganized, lazy (his words) procrastinator, he has managed to hold onto his scholarship and has a higher gpa than it requires because he’s working his butt off and has organized himself to stay in the college that he loves.</p>
<p>So true. My girlfriend’s very, very smart son graduated college Magna after flunking/getting kicked out of a top 10 despite repeated semesters on probation and multiple flights to the college by my friend and her husband. He had a good 'ole time on their dime. A couple years working and paying rent and he returned to a different college with an entire different attitude - and paid for it himself as his parents shut the pocketbook and never reopened it.</p>
<p>First semester GPA 2.46. Second semester might make a 2.62. Freshman, but tested out of some requirements. These are honors courses in his major…needs 3.2 GPA to stay in honors program.</p>
<p>I have a nephew who kept flunking out because he slept through his finals. When his parents called him on it, he said, “It’s not like it costs anything to take the course again.” (He was referring to the savings in his college fund.)</p>
<p>Now he is paying his own way, part-time. His parents will pay out of his college fund for future courses ONLY if he maintains a 2.7 after a full year.</p>
<p>Euclid, so let go of the honors program. CS majors are 10 times harder than most majors, and IMO his grades are OK for a freshman in CS. If you don’t believe me, then ask the dean for the grade point average of the median CS graduate.</p>
<p>I agree with the treetopleaf - the GPA, although not what you expected or anyone wanted, isn’t all that horrendous for the first year of CS and if your projection is true is on an upswing. A 2.62 would be pretty close to the average at a school with a rigorous (and harshly graded) program. </p>
<p>I caution anyone to beware of scholarships that are tied to maintaining a high GPA in an engineering/CS major and a 3.2 would be considered high. The chances of losing the scholarship are quite high when they require something as high as a 3.2 in CS. I think there are many who can actually get in over their heads if they depend on money with this kind of string attached and the colleges (if it’s from them) should be very straight up front regarding how difficult it is to keep the scholarship. They know the average GPA of engineering/CS and they know how many will lose that scholarship after the first year. Count it as found money, a bonus, for the first year but forget about it now. </p>
<p>I think you should have a frank discussion about this with your S and see what he thinks the issue is and how he’s planning to resolve the issue and find out if he wants to continue in this major. If he does, and assuming you can swing it, I think he should take the ‘D’ course over, either in the summer or during the next year, and continue on from there. I think it would be an over-reaction to do anything drastic like force him to a CC or to switch colleges at this point. His GPA isn’t as good as it could be but it isn’t as horrendous as it sounded from the opening post either. As I said before, it’s an adjustment for you and him from what he was used to in HS but that’s what happens with many in CS/engineering. Forget about the scholarship - its maintenance requirements were too stringent to begin with.</p>
<p>At this point, I think the honors program should be the least of your and your son’s concerns. And it’s fortunate that he can continue at his current college even if he loses his scholarship.</p>
<p>It’s more important for him to figure out whether he wants to continue in computer science or switch to a different major and to figure out what’s keeping his GPA below 3.0 (which I consider the cutoff for “doing OK” in technical fields like CS). </p>
<p>My son was a CS undergrad. His grades were not always as high as he would have liked. One problem was the math, which was difficult for him. There’s an awful lot of math in CS, and you have to do it even if your particular interest within the CS field is one of the less math-intensive ones. Another challenge was the projects, which ALWAYS take longer than you think they will, and may even take longer than that if you’re working with a partner or team (as is sometimes required). My son stayed in CS and adjusted to it, but for other people, it’s simply the wrong major, and a change of direction may be in order.</p>
<p>It’s also possible, though, that your son’s problems are not specific to CS. Many kids don’t really learn to study in high school because they don’t have to, and then college comes as a shock. Also, many kids don’t take advantage of the help available to them at college – such as office hours. And many of them don’t plan their time well. </p>
<p>I don’t think “tough love” – as in “do better or we’ll cut off your money” is the answer – at least, not this early. Problem-solving may be more appropriate, and you and your husband may be able to help out there by drawing on your own experiences as students as well as the experiences shared on this board.</p>
<p>OP hasn’t mentioned in which class her S earned the D. At the state university I attended, second semester calculus was the weeder class for many would-be CS majors, even those fortunate few who had BC Calc back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The students I know who have had trouble with a CS program tended to struggle with the math part of it. (Lin Alg can be a similarly tough course.) Students who programmed by the seat of their pants in HS can be in for a rude awakening when it’s time to start doing things algorithmically.</p>
<p>S has TA’d AP/first-year CS courses and says the biggest struggle folks have is learning to integrate math into solving the programming problem.</p>
<p>I agree 100% with ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, 3.2 in Honors CS is tremendously demanding. </p>
<p>Q: Have you been officially informed that he has been dropped by the Honors program and/or that he has lost his merit aid?</p>
<p>Typically there is a grace period with merit aid; a student falling below the standard is put on probation etc., before everything is pulled. Is that the case for your S? Has he been through the probationary process? That’s the process in normal times, but with this tough economy, maybe they’re less lenient.</p>
<p>Finally, there still doesn’t seem to be an answer to the “Why” question. Is he partying? Does he have poor study habits? Does he know where to get help? Is it the wrong major? Is he in the right major, but Honors expectations are just too much to handle? </p>
<p>I agree that your S needs to have some skin in the game, but until you/he understand and address whatever is causing his struggles, I just see the situation continuing.</p>
<p>This is sometimes the cause of some serious GPA killing–taking a higher level class at the college level than you’re ready to handle. I went to a roundtable at Rice where a professor was asked about using AP credits to accelerate through science or math. He said that he’d rather have a student take the lower level class “and really learn it.” The problem with taking a higher level class is that the rest of the class is already acclimated to the college milieu and the pace of classes and are ready to hit the ground running as soon as the semester starts. Freshmen are often left in the starting blocks and it takes them a while to catch up.</p>
<p>Agree with Ellemenope 100% and saw this with my own kid at MIT who was placed in a couple of sections/classes based on how he tested and quickly realized he was in WAAAY over his head. It would have absolutely been the right placement if he’d been prepared to work his tail off on any single class-- and would have been a great experience. But to have more than one of these… plus adjusting to living away from home, plus not the greatest study skills in the world, plus lots of immaturity… boy, would have been a disaster.</p>
<p>He quickly dropped down a level and believe or not, still found it hugely challenging-- but survivable.</p>
<p>I think quality time for your son with the academic dean or the person who handles the Honors program is in order. They can figure out the right course of action together.</p>
<p>And agree that in a challenging CS program, a 3.2 for a Freshman is wildly ambitious. The programs are designed to get the dilletantes out of there as efficiently as possible (lots of kids who love designing web pages in HS think they want CS) which means that the hard core analytical component is introduced early on and with all guns blazing.</p>
<p>Not to say that your kid may not need support and help- but this doesn’t sound neccessarily like he’s spent the last year playing beer pong.</p>
<p>Hmmm… Merit aid at State U in my home state requires a 3.7 for renewal, including for engineers/CS/what have you. My dad actually knew an engineering major who kept it for all four years (then went onto law school for patent law). I won’t have kept it,</p>
<p>My D is a freshman engineering student. She got her first C ever, in Calc III, and was very proud of that C. She worked her butt off. She is in what I would consider a demanding u where she was in the middle 50% of the applicants. </p>
<p>She has a friend who was the val of his class. He was hoping for a C-, the lowest grade you can have and pass. He is a computer engineering student. I’m also positive that he has never seen a C either. </p>
<p>It’s really hard in engineering to not have a lower grade or two. They make these classes hard for a reason I suspect. Don’t have your S beat himself up over his GPA. He will probably have to retake the class he got a D in. </p>
<p>When my S was touring engineering schools, we had a professor confess that he had to take a class over. It didn’t seem to hurt his career and seems to happen to a lot of engineering and CS students.</p>