In the fall I have two choices about entering into college, I can go to our local state college( which my brother and sister in law both work at) Or I can start out at community college again.
I was in a Community college(CC) before. In the middle of the semester a drunk driver hit my car(which some of you may remember in my pit thread) and 3 out of my 6 classes books were destroyed. The CC that I was at did not have a loaner program on books, and I was too broke to buy new ones, and I did not want to ask my family for more money for books, so I dropped the classes, Stupid me, I also did not keep the paper work. Now like 8 months later the CC says I did not drop the classes and that I just stopped going. So instead of three W’s for withdrawl I now Have 3 big fat F’s. The CC will not give me an administrative withdrawl, even after I explained what happened, as the lady put it" Not their problem" and really its not, but it still sucks.
If I go to the State College(SC) this year I will have to enter on academic probation through a “back door” program. I really don’t like that. I am a good student, Its my own fault for not keeping up with my withdrawl paperwork, But I don’t want to start out on probation. It just bugs me. What I would like to do is go back to another CC and do my two years there( the CC and Sc have a dual admissions program so there are no transfer problems)
Is this stupid? My sister in law just wants me to start at the SC, but I would rather start at a CC again. I also am going to take a remedial math course. I can pass college algebra( I have once already) But I really suck at math. I am majoring in Biology, and I know that the required math classes are just going to get Harder. I want to go back and get a good foundation with math.(I really really suck at Math, it was a miracle that I passed college alg the other time) My friends say I am being dumb and that I should just keep going instead of backing up and retaking classes I have already passed, But I know that my math sucks and that I should prob retake it anyway. Is this dumb? Should I just go to the next level and pray I can bluff my way through?
The next order of business is my ACT, I have also taken the ACT once. I got a 27. I know this is a good score, but the score is also about 7 years old.(or somewhere in there) My Brother and sister in law say I should just submit it, but I know I am nowhere near as smart as I was back in the day. It just kinda leaked out somewhere. I don’t want to end up in classes I can’t handle because of a score that prob would not be accurate now. I want to retake the ACT so I can know where I am now. EVERYBODY thinks this is a BAD BAD BAD idea. They all say that I should submit the score and that I will be ok. But I am not so sure.
Maybe I should just quit listening to everybody. Or maybe I should be listening to somebody else. I have no clue. I am confused and ready to start bashing my head into a wall:D So I ask the people of the SDMB, You all tend to be objective, what do you all think? Got any college experiences you can talk about?
My boss’ boss went to grad school as a “conditional” student. She ended up getting excellent grades and graduated at the top of her MBA class. She laughed all commencement day because they never even removed that provisional status from her record, the whole time she was enrolled. Don’t worry about the label you have going in, because it doesn’t matter. Few people will know anyway besides your academic advisor. No one else will give a rat’s ass.
I work in higher ed now and was a student for more years than sanity permits. There is one thing I learned: if you don’t like the answer you get, ask someone else. Why not talk to someone other than the woman who said it was “not their problem?” Try elsewhere. Does the CC have an ombudsman, for example? Could you talk to your academic dean?
Submit the ACT score. It’s still a help to your record. Don’t take it again. You may have forgotten more high-school-level knowledge than you realize, and it will make you look less apt than you really are. Don’t worry; the good score is not going to land you in classes above your capabilities. Its age and your conditional status will prevent that.
Finally, I think you have a legitimate excuse for why you dropped out–and why the failing grades might still appear. Just be careful when you tell that story (and you’ll surely have to, as any new program will probably want to hear an explanation). Take responsibility for what you can, and try hard to avoid sounding whiny (that can happen, against your best intentions, when telling a hard-luck story). Administrators and admissions folk and professors value honesty and accountability a lot. Show you have it, and you’ll have the best luck getting them on your side.
If you can go to the state college, do. Once you have proven that you can do the work, the probation will be dropped and you won’t have a problem. Though I must say that I find it quite odd that no one at the community college will cut you a break and let you drop the courses you missed. Have you spoken to the individual instructors? Or the head of the department(s) they belong to? My husband had a similar situation at a university and the department head wrote a letter to the registrar which enabled him to be rid of the two classes that had changed from Incomplete to F due to some paperwork snafu. I don’t know if faculty have the same degree of pull at a community college as they do at 4-year universities, but if they do they can pretty much call the shots about what happens with those classes.
Your friends are right. Re-taking classes you have already passed is a waste of time and money. If you need help with math, talk to your math instructor and/or get a tutor. And keep moving ahead. The college I went to had all kinds of help for math and writing.
An ACT or SAT score is not necessarily indicative of how well or poorly you are going to do in college. Find out from the registrar’s office if a 7-year-old score is still acceptable to them (for some schools it will be, for others it won’t be). If they’ll accept it, go with it. If not, you’ll be stuck taking the test again. There are prep courses you can take if you have to take it again and do not feel confident about getting a good score.
It sounds like you need a serious shot of confidence. You’ll be fine. There are lots of resources that colleges have to help people succeed academically. If you take advantage of those when necessary, you’ll do fine. No one there wants to you to fail.
The only college advice I have is this: GO! Stay there as long as you possibly can, preferrably using someone else’s money. Cavort with as many young ladies as you can, not tying yourself down to just one. Take as many interesting classes as you can get yourself into. Go deep into the social culture. Get involved with as much you can possible stand. Sleep no more than 4-5 hours a day, as time spent sleeping now is a waste. You can sleep when you are old or dead.
Have FUN cause this might be the only time you get to.
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
Why would I tie myself down to a woman? I would rather tie myself down to a man…
Thanks for all the advice, It seems pretty clear what the main opinion is, except for I am not so sure about the math. when I say I suck, I mean I SUCK at math, I took alg2 in highschool three times. I have no aptitude for math, and I think that If I go back I can get the foundation I obviously missed somewhere.
I think that if you suck at math, you should take the remedial course. When I went back to college, I decided to take a lower level math course than my test scores said was necessary, a decision I am now extremely happy with. My remedial work made the next math course I took much easier–I still ended up with one or two headaches, but I also ended up with an A, not to mention a grasp on some things I had forgotten since high school or had never learned in the first place. I can’t imagine what a nightmare this last semester would have been had I not taken that easier course the previous semester. Of course, that extra class or two you take will cost you extra time and extra money–is the benefit worth the cost? For me it was–I don’t regret one cent spent relearning algebra. But this is one of those YMMV type things.
Also, it sounds like you got a bad deal at your former school–what a buncha jerks! Anyway, I don’t have much else to say about this subject except to wish you lots of luck. So good luck!
I suck at math too. It didn’t stop me from getting an undergraduate degree or being accepted to a master’s program at NYU, even though my math score on the GRE was sucky. Just go get the help you need and you’ll be fine. You aren’t going to need a ton of advanced math to get a biology degree anyway.
Don’t these schools have academic advisors? I would haunt the admissions office, the office for the major you seek… and anyone who might have any past experience with students in situations similar to yours. You are probably not the first person in this situation – there’s somebody at both schools who can probably advise you better than your SIL.
Don’t sweat the academic probation if the State school will admit you. You’ll be off that status in one semester assuming you’re a good student to begin with. Don’t take the ACT again. No point. Do take the math class again, if you believe you will benefit from it, but don’t go overboard and re-take every class on your transcript.
Consider a happy medium/compromise: Do one semester at the Comm. College to re-take the F classes and wipe those off your GPA. Then transfer mid-year to the State school.
Bottom line: None of this matters, as long as you manage to get a degree in there somewhere, some how. And nobody – nobody – in a job interview will ask you about any of it. Not even your GPA. They just want to know if you have that piece of paper – not all the details about how you got there. (Kind of like being valedictorian in high school – the day after graduation, suddenly nobody cares how special you were yesterday.)
What do you want to do with a bio degree? If you’re premed, or looking at PhD programs (what I’m in), you’ll need one semester of calculus and one other high-level, either calc 2 or statistics or something similar. (IMHO (having taken both), stat’s easier, and more relevant to most people’s lives.) Other postcollege programs might have similar requirements. Otherwise, you probably won’t need that much math, maybe one semester of calc 1, and maybe not even that. The college from which I got my degree didn’t require any math at all for the bio degree, although you needed to be able to handle numbers well enough to get through chemistry, which will be true anywhere. Long story short, don’t assume you’ll need much math until you’ve looked at the specific requirements.
As far as the ACTs go, I don’t think that many colleges use them for placement. In my limited experience, either there’s a placement test, or you’re allowed to put yourself in the course you feel prepared for. The ACTs (or any other test) will help you get in at a large institution (smaller/more ‘elite’ schools don’t give it as much weight), but doesn’t affect too much beyond that and maybe scholarships.
If I were you, I’d go with Dogzilla’s compromise, and spend one semester at CC, retaking the F classes to get them off your transcript, then transfer to State.
As a working biologist I can second what GilaB says. I took 3 semesters of calculus in college and have never used it since (this just came up in another thread actually). However, I do wish I had taken a Stats course. That I could use practically every day.
Probation is no big deal as long as you get good grades. After 2 semesters, you will be off probation, although it will permanently be on your transcript record.
I’m a biology major at a state college. For once I’m actually qualified to answer a question instead of talking out my ass!
First off, if you really suck at math, do take the remedial course. I don’t know your graduation requirements, but here you have to take four semesters of Chemistry as well as Statistics for a biology degree. I’ll never use calculus again now that I’m through with those classes, but it was useful in the meantime. If you have fundamental problems in math, and your courses are going to need math, then take the math class again. The whole “D is for Diploma” business just annoys me. Getting by is not the point. Learning is the point.
ACT scores are used mostly for placing freshmen (which you aren’t) and applying for scholarships, I think. Don’t waste your money and a Saturday morning taking it again.
And finally, I would think that the problem with being on academic probation isn’t the stigma, but the restrictions. My bf was on probation a semester (failed a 5-hour course :eek: ), and he had to go to weekly “probie” meetings and couldn’t take more than 14 hours, among other hassles. If they’re going to make you do things like that, CC might be a better choice for a semester. But if it’s just the fact that you’d be on probation…eh, not a big deal. It’s not like they brand it on your forehead.
Good luck! I hope everything works out in the end.
