Will a university automatically reject an application if a student was academically dismissed?

Applying to College
1

I am currently stuck in a weird situation and need some advice. I will try to keep this as short and concise as possible, but if you need to ask me to clarify something, feel free to ask!

I am a senior at a university I transferred to in my junior year (Fall 2014) and I am majoring in Biology. Before I transferred, I was attending a community college and graduated with an A.S degree. To be truthful, this degree that was only supposed to take me 1.5 years to complete had taken a little bit over three years but I am still pleased that I managed to complete it.

The university I transferred to wasn’t my first or second choice, but I decided to attend it anyway since I didn’t want to waste any more time out of school. Worst. Decision. EVER. Without going into too much detail: I hate the university, the area I live in, and I have felt homesick since day one. I moved from a relatively rural area to a major city in order to attend my university and just had a difficult time adjusting to everything involved with a large metro area. As a young person, I know that sounds ridiculous but I really enjoyed rural living (it’s quiet, peaceful, and cheap!) and I miss my parents. <-- I know that also sounds ridiculous…23 years old and the only friends/people I trust are my parents.

So, on to the elephant in the room…I have been academically dismissed from my university. For the second time. I knew exactly what I needed to fix the first time around in order to be a successful student and convinced my advisors to give me a second chance once I raised my GPA to a 2.0. However, the Fall 2015 semester was a complete nightmare for me; especially since I was having difficulty passing a course I needed in order to complete my degree (organic chemistry). Final grade were dismal (C’s, D’s, and an F due to organic chemistry) which then pushed my GPA under 2.0. Due to this drop in my GPA, I was automatically dismissed from my university and my appeal for reinstatement was rejected. I am now currently stuck in a rental lease for another four months that I can’t afford to pay for and searching for a job.

I’m kind of at a loss on what to do because I believe my situation is slightly different than what most “failed” college students experience. Most people advise dismissed students to go back to community college, obtain a degree, and then apply again to a university in order to finish a Bachelors degree. I was a senior, already have an associates degree, and completed approximately 100 credit hours before I was dismissed. I’m SO CLOSE to completing my degree and wish to apply to a university closer to home, but my only options are two private universities and a historically black university (do they even accept white students?). All three require that I must be eligible to return back to the previous institution that I attended, but obviously I am not eligible since they rejected my reinstatement appeal. Would it even be worth applying to these schools or are they going to outright reject me due to being dismissed? There isn’t anything more in the world that is more important to me than finishing my degree but I feel like I hit a roadblock and it is all my fault.

Please, if you have an advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

2

Hopefully you will soon find work so that you can pay for your apartment for the next few months. Meanwhile, you may want to look into online schools, so that you could live at home while completing your degree. Some of them may accept you as a transfer student in spite of your academic dismissal and you may be able to transfer the majority of your credits. American Public University, for example, appears to have open admissions, though you’d have to check with the school regarding transfer requirements. It doesn’t have a biology major but does have majors in Environmental Science and Natural Sciences. Good luck.

3

Your first step is to meet with your advisor, and find out what the rules there are about reinstatement. Some places will require that a student like you spend a semester or a year without taking any classes anywhere at all before trying again. Or, a student may be permitted to enroll for only one class at a time until the grades have recovered enough to achieve a certain GPA.

Your second step is to contact each of the universities closer to your home (and yes the HBCUs do admit white students if those students meet their admissions standards), tell the transfer admissions officers about your situation, and ask whether it would be possible for you to complete your degree there. Again, they might impose certain conditions.

If none of that would work, and you just want to finish your degree closer to home, you can investigate online programs. Two that are fully accredited and that have long, solid track records are
http://www.umuc.edu/
http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/
Your own home-state public universities might also have good online options for you.

4

Finish online. Easy peasy

5

Thank you kidzncatz and happymomof1 for your responses!

Being reinstated back into my current university is not an option at this point. My appeal was rejected and now the only policy in my favor is the two year forgiveness policy, which would mean that I would have to wait two more years (and not attend a post-secondary institution during that time period) before I would be automatically reinstated. This is not an option because I only have two years left to use the remaining financial aid I have.

In regards to my local universities, I will travel back home in the next few days and spend some time visiting each campus and talking to the admissions office about my situation. No point in paying to apply if they will reject my application anyway.

My main concerns with an online school are higher tuition costs since most of them tend to be out-of-state and that my credits will not transfer over to that institution. I understand that not all of my ~100 credits will transfer since most institutions have a maximum transfer limit, but I will look further into online schools. I was interested in Oregon State University, but the transferring credits process concerns me since I will not know what credits transfer over until I apply and place a deposit down saying that I intend to attend the university. They have a transfer credit equivalency site, but it doesn’t have a lot of courses from the two schools I attended (I live in NC).

6

There are a number of universities that offer instate tuition rates to out of state online students. Transfer of credits may be more difficult.