My son has been having some learning difficulties freshman year and something happened that devastated our entire family and long story short he got bad gpa. freshman 3.1 and at best 3.3 sophomore year, is it to late to turn it around? He isn’t taking ap classes so how much will colleges look down on him?
What kind of college do you think he will want to go to? For many, many colleges and universities in the country a 3.0 is just fine.
He is looking at UW Madison, UIUC, and Purdue. I know it would be a far reach IF he does really good.
i got into some pretty good schools with a 3.3 (it was honors and AP courses though, so it’s a bit different). Is he willing to put in more effort? Has he taken the SAT/PSAT? How were his scores?
He isn’t taking any honors classes but he is willing to work a lot and I haven’t seen his test scores yet but I guess they would be average.
Those colleges are probably reaches unless he has a killer junior year and does exceptionally well on the SAT/ACT tests. Are you in-state for any of them? His GPA is low for some flagships, but fine for others. If he’s looking for Engineering or Tech programs, he will almost certainly have to explore other options, since those are the most competitive departments. He can undoubtedly get in somewhere, nevertheless. He does not have a “bad” GPA, but it simply is not one that will get him accepted at highly selective colleges. He is who he is, and you should not expect him to transform into somebody else. Can you pay full tuition? That will obviously improve his prospects considerably.
Those schools are looking pretty reach-ish, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find a wonderful school that will fit him well. What’s his major?
Well he got a high school scholarship and yes, we live in Wisconsin and we can pay full tuition in or out of state.
The cost of attendance at UW Madison is about $25K/year. The cost of attendance at Purdue is about $42K/year. The cost of attendance at UIUC is about $50K/year for nonresidents. If your son can afford these schools, he has a wide variety of other schools that would gladly accept him.
There is a good college for almost everyone.
I think the best strategy is for him to do his best while keeping his spirits positive, and see where he stands come spring of junior year. Then you can select a range of colleges to apply to.
Iowa and Iowa St have automatic admissions, you can see where stands with those now. It may be reassuring to have a safety. Kansas is even easier to get into. These flagships offer a host of opportunities.
He is interested in mechanical engineering, but he will be a engineer for sure.
A bad gpa is one that will keep you from getting into college. Below 3.0 severely limits your options.
I think if he gets better grades in subsequent years, some colleges will discount freshman year. If there is reason to explain than that’s better.
It is better to look at your GPA/SAT scores and then pick a college that fits, rather than picking one ahead of time that might not fit you.
Some tools to consider would be the Supermatch tool here on CC.
Also look at threads like:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/class-20xx-community/1483143-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2015-3-0-to-3-3-gpa.html#latest
To see where the 3.0-3.3 kids ended up going.
A bad GPA is one that keeps you out of a college you want to go to. If he’s working as hard as he can and is a B student, that’s fine. He just needs to look at the many colleges that accept them.
FWIW some colleges don’t look at freshman year GPAs. And if your son is at a private school where few students get A’s you may find that he’s actually doing better than you think. Smaller private colleges in particular will look at that GPA in context.
Going into engineering in college he will need to be prepared to work hard.
My good friend’s son got in several engineering programs as a direct admit with a weighted gpa of 3.5 (closer to 3.0 for unweighted) and SAT of 1750. Not big name schools but good solid public school. His gpa was low because of the humanities and same for the SAT that he could not crack the critical reading to save his life. However, he always had As in math and he was able to take AP calculus and AP Physics in senior year and ace them both. He is now a sophomore in college (I think electrical) and he has an A- average in his engineering courses and B’s (and B-s) in his general eds (same story as in high school). Long story short yes he can get in to an engineering program and do well in it assuming he does well in math and physics. I am not sure though about the names you posted. You have to wait and see how he does the last two years anyway. It is too early to make conclusions.
am9799 brings up a good point.The friend’s son had so-so grades and so-so scores, but he got As in AP math and science and had strong SAT math scores. If a prospective engineer excels in his STEM classes, but but doesn’t do well in other classes, he looks like a good candidate to be an engineer. However, a student with average high school grades and average math/science scores does not look like a student who will succeed in college in engineering.
Andrew, are you the parent or the student? You have started 4 threads saying you are the student and 2 as the parent. I think it is against TOS to share an account. If you are a student, just say so; parents are quite happy to help students. If you are the parent, you need to get your own account.
Yeah I’m a kid but people would rather help a adult so I’m using my attitude in adult context. Look at the other threads, 2 of them are basically copy and pasted, when I use it first person and they only have 2 replies, go over here and you have 17. I would rather be spoken to as a adult because you get honest answers from people that give you the truth, instead of “follow your dreams” and “you can do it” bs. Sorry if I hurt any feelings but all your help is well appreciated and again, my apologies.