My friend was withdrawn from college...

Parents Forum
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<p>This will be a slightly long post, but please help:</p>

<p>One of my good friends just found out through e-mail that she has been withdrawn from her school, CSU Pomona, because she didn’t meet their requirements (she got a D in science her last semester in hs).
Now before anybody says “senioritis,” I feel I should explain more about the situation. My friend is really dedicated and hard-working, but it’s been kind of a tough year on her. She was absent a lot (not excessively, though) because of various reasons, including the fact that her best friend passed away unexpectedly and she ended up helping the family prepare the funeral. </p>

<p>At the time, her science teacher (mine, too, actually) was really nice and told her to not worry about the assignments she was missing. Well, lo and behold, when the end of the year came around, my friend had a “D” on a progress report because of those missing assignments. There were some other homeworks that were also listed as missing because my friend had been absent during that time, but she’d made them up. (This I can verify because I’d been absent too and we had turned in our make-up work together.) When my friend went in to speak with our teacher, however, the teacher refused to help her out, saying that he never got any of the missing assignments and that he wouldn’t accept late homework. He basically told my friend that there was nothing she could do to improve her grade.
(Just as kind of a sidenote to show how unfair this was, the same teacher helped out another one of my friend’s with her D. She needed this specific class because it was a prereq for her college, and he willing accepted her late homework (and she had NO excuse), gave her partial credit, and gave her stuff like participation points even though she did nothing in class. The reason? The teacher simply liked her more.)</p>

<p>So my friend went to one of our guidance counselors, and they wrote a letter to her school explaining that she received a D because of her absences, not because she didn’t work hard enough. She sent in a separate letter too. Well, she never got a response. She even e-mailed them later to check up on whether they had received anything from her, and nobody replied. She was able to register for classes, apply for housing, and she just got back from orientation last week. In fact, she hasn’t heard anything until she found out she was withdrawn today. </p>

<p>Obviously, she’s very upset about this whole situation. She’s planning on calling the school tomorrow, but she doesn’t know what to do. What would be the best thing for her to do now? Attend community college for a year and then apply to transfer elsewhere?</p>

<p>Any advice will help. She asked me for it, but I don’t really know what she should do, either.</p>

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<p>she found out through email??? I definitely think more contact with the school is in order.</p>

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<p>I’ve heard of Pomona cancelling admissions to students because of a “D” before. Anyway, I don’t remember the details of the other case I heard about, but I do remember that it didn’t seem fair at the time. But my point is that Pomona seems to be very strict in that respect. </p>

<p>Also, my son applied to Pomona, and we experienced similar frustrations in trying to communicate with the school – getting a response to an email or a phone call was pretty difficult. It definitely was the least friendly and least helpful admissions office we dealt with. </p>

<p>Anyway, I think it is absolutely terrible that your friend has been treated this way. This is also one of the rare situations that I think the services of a lawyer might be appropriate – Pomona’s irresponsibility in not replying to your friend’s earlier inquiries, allowing her to register for classes and attend orientation, while precious time passed (time that could have been used to arrange to attend college elsewhere) – have all caused direct monetary damage to your friend. The concept in law is called “detrimental reliance” – your friend relied on Pomona’s offer of admission and their failure to reply to her communications seeking information about status to her detriment - it cost her money, such as travel costs to attend orientation, and it prevented her from contacting other colleges where she might have been accepted to see if she could still enroll there. A letter from a lawyer might shake them up and cause them to reconsider. </p>

<p>However, I do think that the first thing to do is to call the college tomorrow and try to calmly discuss the situation with whoever is responsible for the decision, very firmly emphasizing that she had never received a response to the letters submitted by her and her g.c., nor to her other inquiries; and that she still has not received formal notice of the withdrawal. She should begin by asking if the email is mistaken, and if not she should ask what procedures are in place to contest or appeal the decision. </p>

<p>Then, assuming that it looks like Pomona will not let her enroll, she needs to take reassess her own priorities – you can be a big help in terms of moral support. Given the way Pomona has treated her, does she still want to attend? If not, was she accepted at other colleges that she would have liked to attend? It would be worth her while to contact the other colleges who admitted her, explain the situation, and ask whether they would still accept her at this late date – she will also have to explain the D of course, but there are a lot of colleges that are more lax about those things. So it may be taking a step down on the selectivity and rankings ladder - but in the end your friend might end up at a school that is happy to have her. </p>

<p>Of course community college is a perfectly acceptable alternative, but I wouldn’t give up on the other colleges. Even if they are full, there may be a college that will promise to allow her to enroll mid-year, or offer deferred enrollment for the following year. I remember my son receiving letters from several of the private colleges he turned down saying they would keep his admission file open for 2 years, in case he decided that he wanted to transfer – the clear message was that they still wanted him. In any case, the worst thing that can happen is that the other colleges say no - and she’ll never know unless she asks.</p>

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<p>one great thing about california is that it has EXCELLENT community colleges. if worst comes to worst and your friend is unable to go to Pomona, s/he could complete her first 2 years(much more cheaply) at a cc and transfer to Pomona</p>

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<p>Please clarify this…Calmom…your post is referring to Pomona (and I would expect that college to be very rigorous about a D in senior year). The OP says CSU Pomona…is that a state school in California? I am NOT a resident of CA, but where I am, one D would not get you bounced from the state school U’s…an F would, but not a D.</p>

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<p>That’s a good point, thumper – I hadn’t even looked at the school name. According to their website, CSUPomona has a fairly “easy” formula for eligibility. For instance, it only requires a 3.0 regardless of SAT scores, or a 2.0 and a 1300 SAT. It doesn’t take students with a GPA below a 2.0, so if the OP’s friend’s D was one of many (which wasn’t the impression I got), then they would disallow her for that. Anything else wouldn’t make sense.</p>

<p>So many it should have been Pomona? If so, Calmom seems to have some good advice.</p>

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<p>There is a csupomona, which is California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. It would be interesting to see which one the O/P was referring to.</p>

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<p>I still think a call to whichever school (CSUPomona/Pomona) is in order. </p>

<p>FWIW, my son applied to Pomona this year and we had no problem with their admissions office, or the adcom that handled our region. We received prompt email replies and spoke by telephone a few times. In fact, it was one of the last two schools standing when he made his final decision.</p>

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<p>I am going to play a little devil’s advocate here or maybe I am trying to test for understanding:</p>

<p>OP states the following:</p>

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<p>The absent a lot is a relative term as there usually is a minimum number of days that a student has to be in class in order to receive a passing grade. Student got a D in one class. If she had all of these absences did her other grades also drop?</p>

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<p>While the teacher can have empathy for the student and her situation they have full discretion as to whether or not they want to accept late or missing work. They are also not obligated to give extra credit or do something to help her improve her grade. In some ways giving extra credit or projects to improve a grade negates the efforts of those who have turned in their work on time because in a sense it is giving a reward for not taking care of your business.</p>

<p>Homework is only one component of her grade. Her absences probably also impacted her grade for class participation because she was not there. If there were test or quizzes did she also miss them? Her being absent certainly would have reflected her grade because she may have missed information that would have been covered on the test.</p>

<p>Regarding the “other student” the teacher helped, unless you were privy to the entire situation, I think that OP is simply expressing her opinion which may or may not be indicative of what actually happened.</p>

<p>At what point is the student actually taking responsibility for his/her role in all of this as a final grade of D would is most likely more to this grade than missing homework. </p>

<p>The majority of admissions letters state that your admission is contingent upon the successful completion of high school at pretty much the same standard of performance for which you were admitted to college.</p>

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<p>Sounds like student knew what her situation was my question is when she got the D on her final report card, why didn’t she immediately contact the school to find out how this grade would impact her admission status? Student does have a bit of responsibility accountability and ownership in this process. While she had the guidance counselor wrote her a letter, wouldn’t it have been better for the GC or the student to actually call the school and speak with a live person in addition to sending the letter.</p>

<p>If CSUPomona has a pretty straight-forward formula for eligibility: * For instance, it only requires a 3.0 regardless of SAT scores, or a 2.0 and a 1300 SAT. It doesn’t take students with a GPA below a 2.0* and she no longer met those requirements, why would she assume they that the school would still have her admitted is she no longer held up her end of the deal.</p>

<p>Granted, maybe the school did not handle the situation well by sending her an e-mail regarding her admissions status. However, it is also a public university that has to deal with literally thousands of students and they probably did inform her as soon as they got her final transcript.<br>
IF student files a lawsuit, who does she sue because there is more than enough “blame” to go around.</p>

<p>Does she sue the teacher who gave her the D because she feels she was treated unfairly? </p>

<p>Does she call the GC who knew or should have known how the grade would impact student’s admission but only wrote a letter instead of calling and helping to get some resolution to the situation?</p>

<p>Does she sue the school because while they state their policy, student was no longer in compliance to the policy and knew that she was no longer in compliance but instead of being more proactive, took a ” we’ll sit back and see what happens approach” hoing she could fly under the radar.</p>

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<p>As a teacher, I also want to point out that “don’t worry about these assignments” doesn’t usually mean that you don’t EVER have to turn them in, but get them in in a reasonable time. Apparently, the student made no effort, or even approached the teacher for help with them, due to the time missed. Homework doesn’t usually count for a large percentage of the grade, but if it some of it was a paper oir Major Grade, then there could be a large drop in the grade. I agree that the grade was affected not just for homework, but the effect the lack of studying at that time had on the rest of the grades, tests, etc. I understand the effect trauma in one’s life can have on a child, and empathize, and work with my students, but that doesn’t mean they never have to do the work. As for suing, by the time anything was remedied, the student would be a sophomore or junior somewhere else. Time to contact those other schools and reassess. Or community college for one semester and get your transfer app in.</p>

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<p>I’m sure that we are talking about Cal Poly Pomona here, not Pomona College. I do know of instances where a D during senior year led to a withdrawal of acceptance at a UC. It could have a similar impact at a more selective Cal State (like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), but I wasn’t aware that Cal Poly Pomona was in that category. </p>

<p>I agree that a calm face-to-face with a real life person at admissions who actually has the power to change a decision is called for. </p>

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<p>This is actually a very good idea, especially the mid-year suggestion.</p>

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<p>She didn’t make them up?? There was definitely a failure to communicate here. I’m guessing that the teacher felt he gave your friend a break, felt your friend took advantage of the break by not bothering to turn the assignments in at all and then decided to be a “stickler for the rules” when she came begging for mercy.</p>

<p>Bummer. . .no good deed goes unpunished. If the talk with admissions doesn’t yield results, then it is time to move on. Any time and energy spent on a lawsuit would be better spent moving forward with your life.</p>

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<p>Okay to answer some of your comments: </p>

<p>The school is Cal Poly Pomona (I think I originally put down CSU, which isn’t really the correct name of the school.)</p>

<p>And, yes, my friend was absent a lot, but they were all excused. She wasn’t gone a lot to the point where she’d be failed automatically, just enough for her to miss a few assignments (none that were major). She takes full responsibility for her grades-- there were some things (like quizzes, being on-time) that she could’ve done better on. Like I said before, she made up the missing assignments but somehow our teacher didn’t have them. The justification comes more from me, because I was in the same class as her and the other friend I mentioned, and I saw how differently the two of them were treated. I’m really close friends with both of them, so I know I didn’t get my facts mixed up. I didn’t hear about the teacher improving the grades from other students, but directly from the one the teacher had helped. </p>

<p>The reason why my friend talked to our gc is because she knew that her admission could be affected by this grade. Our gc told her that Cal Poly Pomona wasn’t that strict and usually lets people in even if they have a D. She just needed to explain the circumstances, which is why my friend sent in letters. </p>

<p>I believe she’s looking at some community colleges now to figure out what she wants to do. She’s pretty bitter about Cal Poly Pomona, so I think she wants to try applying as a transfer to some other schools. Do colleges look at your high school records if you apply as a transfer? And would the other schools she was accepted to still take her (what would she have to do?)</p>

<p>I don’t want anybody to get the wrong impression of my friend. She’s a good kid, works hard (all of her other teachers love her), and she has impressed the heck out of me by the way she handles adversity. This is the only D she has ever received in high school.</p>

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<p>To answer the last comment about what my teacher said, I think he literally meant ‘don’t do them.’ During the week when we were dealing with her friend’s death, he told us to just put our names on the paper and turn it in, and he’d give us credit for it. I got credit on mine, and I don’t believe she did. This I’m not entirely sure about because I don’t know exactly which assignments were missing. I know at least one was from that time period and the others were from absences later on in the year. </p>

<p>But I should say that I’m looking for advice on what she should do now, not what happened with our science teacher. I think my friend wants to move on from that, and suing would take a lot of time and money that she doesn’t have.</p>

<p>P.S. Thank you for some of the advice given-- I’ll definitely talk to her these like the mid-year/one-year deferrment.</p>

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<p>If this science class was one of her two science lab subject courses, then that’s why she was withdrawn. CSU is very specific: you must complete two years of lab science with a C or better, one each from biological and physical sciences. If that’s the case, it’s too bad she didn’t know about this in time to make it up in summer at community college. </p>

<p>Also, FWIW, regarding communicating with Cal Poly Pomona, one of my kids was accepted there but decided to go elsewhere and it took months and several emails, a letter and a phone call to get him off their rolls. I think it is simply a matter of an overworked staff at a large, underfunded state university.</p>

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<p>Have her call them up or better yet visit if she lives nearby.</p>

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<p>This class wasn’t need to fulfill any of the science requirements as she’d already finished those.</p>

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<p>Did her absences cause a downward trend in the rest of her classes or only this one science class?</p>

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<p>Just want to clarify & apologize – I did read the OP hurriedly and thought it was Pomona college – and I do know of Pomona rescinding admission during senior year - so I’m sorry that my comments are really inappropriate. I’m glad to know that it is not Pomona college that not only rescinds admission (to be expected with a D), but also fails to respond to letters).</p>

<p>I think the good news for the OP’s friend is that the CSU’s are likely to have a more formalized appeals process; on the other hand, I think the friend’s grades would really have to be poor overall for the single D to cause a rescinding of a CSU admission. So the other options I suggested wouldn’t work - community college probably is the best choice for this kid.</p>

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<p>I don’t claim to know anything for sure here, but it is a possibility that this college is over-filled. I read that a number of other colleges experienced an unexpectedly large yield this year. They accepted more people than they could handle believing that a number of them would choose to go elsewhere, but more accepted admission than they planned. Faced with the possibility of having more freshmen than dorm rooms or the like; perhaps, the school was looking to trim the incoming class, and that is why the college which wasn’t thought to be so selective as to reject your friend for a D would do so. Of course I don’t know this school about which you’re talking, but it might explain your predicament.</p>

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<p>My S had a similar situation his junior year where a teacher told him that he could make up work from an extended excused absence, then did not take it and gave him a “D” in an AP course where he scored very high on the AP exam. He immediately appealed to the counselor and principal, finally the teacher relented, but by that time the deadline had past for grade changes and the district would not accept a grade change. He appealed that, we are still waiting to hear the outcome of the appeal. Needles to say he graduated without the change in grade and was accepted into his first choice school. What he did was document the situation, had the counselor write about it and provided his AP exam results. That seemed to work. But wait, there’s more. This year he broke his ankle and required surgery, missing three weeks of school. This time he got the teachers to put all understandings in writing. Even so, one claimed she never said he could make up certain work, but he showed where it was written down. Knowing that it was going to be rough with this teacher, he did every bit of extra credit work and more. She even went so far as to reevaluate already graded work in an attempt to lower his grade, but she couldn’t get it lower than a B, her stated goal was a C. The moral: sometimes it is not the student’s fault entirely, but even so you have to protect yourself from poor memories and bad dispositions, that is the student’s responsibility. What was it Bill Clinton said (though I’m sure he was quoting another)? “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”</p>