A little backstory on myself. I am currently ending my four year contract with the Army. During that time I was a medic, and I got a sense of what I truly wanted to do with my life. Now that I am enrolled in WVU, I am experiencing a cluster of problems that stint from my previous credit hours I accumulated before my enlistment. I currently have 75 credit hours (after my military transcripts were added), but am technically an undergraduate as I changed my major from Education to Exercise physiology. Education was my initial track from 2012, which I no longer wish to pursue. The major issue is that I can not be in an undergraduate with that many credits, because the GI bill will not cover an undergraduate with over 50 credit hours. I am not technically in the program until i complete trigonometry. Regardless of the fact that I am enrolled in classes that will fulfill my future ex phys major, my GI bill will not fund me.
The questions I have are as follows:
-
Is there a possibility that I could transfer schools in hopes of erasing credits I have previously earned? This would benefit me by boosting my GPA and also allow me to pursue a program of choice with the GI bill I rightfully earned. I see this as the best option, so that I can make myself more marketable for grad school opportunities.
-
How would I search for a school that would essentially erase the majority of my credits, and who would i consult to find out what classes would be erased?
The GI Bill only pays for a certain number of credits. Even students with no military background are limited in the number of semesters they can receive federal aid. You can’t erase your credits.
When you transfer schools no credits are “erased.” Schools evaluate your previous course work to see if it meats the standards and requirements to replace similar course work at the new institution. When a credit isn’t applied to your new school they don’t “erase” the record, your old credit still shows on your new transcript, it is just given no or reduced weight.
Usually, only courses with a C grade or higher will transfer for credit. Only those courses will be listed on the new transcript. If a course doesn’t transfer, it won’t appear. Whether those grades appear or if there just is a list of the courses your transferred credits were used as, will depend entirely on the receiving institution’s policies. Whether or not your transferred course grades (even if they do appear) will apply toward your new institution’s overall GPA is also up to that place. So yes, to a certain extent, your old bad grades can be hidden.
However, every time you apply for admission to a degree program at an accredited college/university in the US, or for a job that requires all of your transcripts, you will need to send all of your college and university transcripts. No matter how old. No matter how ugly. No matter where you took those classes. Every new place you apply to will evaluate your academic record as it sees fit. Fortunately, new good grades almost almost always will outweigh old, bad ones, and the most important grades of all will be the newest ones that are in courses most closely related to the field of study you are trying to enroll in. or the job you are applying for.
Hang in there. Lots of us have some really ugly old transcripts!