I just found out yesterday. My niece failed her 1st semester in college, This was a solid B student in HS.
I think it was to much 'Partying" and did not even go to class or just “WTF” was she doing for 3 1/2 months?. I just do not get it , even if you show up to class and listen to lectures you got to get at least a C . This just blows me away.
Who else failed & did you finally pull on the boot straps and get it together. I hope she can rebound in the spring & summer sessions.
I was a straight A student in high school and took all Advanced Placement classes. When I got to University, it was a huge shock. The jump from high school Calculus II to first year advanced calculus in University was huge. On my first exam, I got a 7%!!! And that’s after going to every class, doing all the assignments and studying my butt off. I was devastated. It was just not the right class for me. My high school didn’t prepare me for that advanced class. Funny enough, I passed that class with a 70-something average since everything was bell curved up.
My point is, that it’s possible that she just didn’t select the right classes for her. She should be speaking to her professors to get some insight into why she did so poorly and what she can do to fix it.
One of my friends that I went to high school and eventually college with made all As in HS and then went away for college and failed his first two semester due to partying. He came back to the local university, got his act together, got a double major with all As and then this last year graduated from Northwestern’s MBA and the London School of Economics programs. Needless to say he is making more money than I will every think about making. I know several people that have had poor starts to college. Sometimes all they need is a good kick in the pants. If her parents are paying the tuition, making her accountable for at least some of it could certainly get her going.
I was valedictorian in high school. Went to college and attended 5 total days of class the first semester. All exam days. 2Cs and 2Ds. 1.5 GPA and a bit of academic probation.
I am now a professor at a big state university so I guess you can get over it. You can almost guarantee 1/2 the freshman class will make disappointing grades and gain 15 lbs.
I did…and my second…third…fourth and fifth pretty much 
Something about actually going to class, reading the book and something called studying that was never required in HS. I had a history class I got a 50% on the first test. Half the test was on stuff I’d never heard of before. After the test I went to the teacher and said “How was I supposed to know this stuff?”. He said “Did you read the book?”. I said “No, I thought we were going over the book in class?”…my mistake.
I also had a complete ASSHOLE teacher that the first day stated “I have never given an “A” in this class in the 8 years or so I’ve been teaching it”. Things like that set me off at the time so I decided to prove him wrong. Whoops, my mistake. Who knew the teacher could mark things wrong for any reason they felt like. I got two questions marked as incorrect on the first test, despite being correct, because I erased my initial answer and changed it to the correct answer. The teacher stated “There are to be no additional marks on the paper”…apparently I had left “eraser smudges”. After that I didn’t try all that hard in that class.
~Matt
I had really shitty grades my first two years at McGill. I had great grades in high school, I was a super keener but I had a hard time adjusting to university. I had really bad time management skills. I spent hours memorizing stupid little details that were almost never tested, and I didn’t know the big things that made up most of the course. By third year I had turned it around but it took me falling asleep in a chemistry final followed by a nervous breakdown to convince me that things weren’t exactly working out.
He said “Did you read the book?”. I said “No, I thought we were going over the book in class?”…my mistake.
Me too. I dropped that class! ; ^ )
I know two people who failed out of their first year of college. They both eventually graduated.
There is hope. My story is similar to Pickle’s friend.
I was an A/B HS student. Was accepted to NC State and UNC but decided to go to the local university (UNCC). I pledged a fraternity and didn’t take school very seriously. Missed classes, didn’t study, partied, etc. First year (2 semesters) I managed GPA’s of 1.1 and 1.5. I was on academic suspension and had to write a letter of intent that I would do better and would take a course on transitioning to college. I also moved back home from the dorm and re-took a couple of classes in the summer to raise the grades. Father threatened to cut me off and that was sobering.
Each of the subsequent years my GPA was 3.0+ (I think I had a 4.0 semester in there). I had a big hole to dig out of but slowly worked my overall GPA up. I had found a major that I was good at and enjoyed. I graduated with a degree in Comp. Sci. and went on the get an MBA.
I don’t think that failing one semester is the end of the world. Hopefully, she has the distractions out of her system and can realize the importance of the opportunity she has.
Me too. I dropped that class! ; ^ )
That was one of the few classes I did well in that year. As long as I “Glanced” over the book and showed up to class I did failry well on the tests.
What thru more for a loop was the idea that I actually had to do the work in classes like Calculus and Physics. Seriously, WTF!? we didn’t have to do that in HS :-).
It ended up being a downward spiral for me. Once I realized that A) I could live by getting a job that I “Didn’t mind” and at the time seemed like “Big money”. B) In order for me to pass these classes I would have go to class, do the home work AND study? I eventually stopped going to class.
I think it took me 3 years to actually decide I was done, I think I ended up with a 1.2 GPA or something like that. I’m hoping there’s a statute of limitations on grades because I’ve been thinking of going back to school the last couple years.
~Matt
Oh yeah - took two years before I was on academic suspension, but did come back and on to PHD - actually in some of my worst subjects oddly enough.
There are so many factors at hand here. Like a lot of people, I cruised HS and had 0 effective study or lecture skills. Partied way too much being away from home. Also, me and math tests are just a bad mix. Given I did advanced degrees in biostatistics and non-linear dynamics, it was never an issue that I couldn’t do the work, just couldn’t do it under the gun. I actually ended up going to counselling for that to deal with test anxiety.
It is also possible she is not in the right courses, and is totally unmotivated. This can be a hard transition for some, both academically and socially.
So yes, not all hope is lost, but somebody, either parents or academic advisers should be having a good sit down with her and see what things need to be done.
I think every single person I knew in college did horrible their first semester including several below the minimum GPA. I think I was borderline. She’ll pull her act together and if not this next semester, have her parents pull her out for a semester and get a job. That should wake her up.
I didn’t fail any semesters until my last semester senior year when I was partying my ass off and stopped caring. Had to stay the summer and make up 2 classes that I’d failed. Between not going to class, not reading and not doing well on tests they pretty much couldn’t pass me. My GPA from my first degree as horrible. I went back to college in my mid-20s for a second bachelor’s and was Dean’s list the whole time and I think I graduated with a 3.4 or 3.5, I forget.
Without more info, I think you are potentially jumping to some conclusions that might not be the case.
I personally went to class, studied, did assignments, tried my hardest; and did not do very well. Not failing, but C+ level work.
I picked waaaay to hard a schedule, which was heavily laden with classes I had no exposure to in HS. Each semester I took an accounting course plus an econ, and had Calculus the entire year as well.
Were it not for my Spanish classes, plus two other classes I would have been in serious trouble.
Safe to assume partying and not doing what needs to be done played a role though. They did not in my case, I was a super dork, wouldn’t have been able to find a party if I was in a frat house, never drank or anything, etc.
Sometimes colleges let you retake classes and replace the previous grade, this might be a good option for summer (or winter if they have it) semesters. One can definitely recover, but it is a tough road to hoe and you have to really get your ass in gear and your s**t together.
Depending on her career aspirations, if she has any, I’d really recommend the start looking around for meaningful summer employment. Summer after Junior year is THE internship year, and it sounds like she’ll need some really good experience on her resume to make that happen.
To give you hope, my sophomore year I played baseball and had two jobs, and very well with grades. It can be done.
Is she living at school? Is this her first extended stay away from home and her parent’s watchful eyes?
In HS I was top 10 in my class, National Merit scholar, all AP classes, etc. plus track team and ran my own business. Freshman year I moved into a dorm that turned out to be a step or two short of Animal House. Since I no longer had much in the way of constraints, things fell apart rather badly that first year. The summer between freshman and sophomore year had a lot of reflection on how badly things went, and I pulled things together well enough to do a Bachelors + MBA in 5 years, and a Ph.D. in another 5.
So all is not necessarily lost.
Chris
I transitioned from high school to college with no noticeable drop in academic peformance, but I also continued living at home with my parents.
Something tells me if I could have afforded to move out or into the dorms, my grades would have been a lot lower.
I would say 20 to 30 % of freshmen flunk out, mostly the B student types … A lot of high school aces, receive their first Cs and worse and its quite a shock and mommy and daddy can’t even call 
(Though some try) … In my opinion, it has a little to with not being prepared and a lot more to do with social life and not rising to the challenge on their own, with less external pressures. I bet about half of those go back and do well, the other half don’t. I just read a statistic that GenX (born between 1965 and 84) will receive the most college degrees, followed by the Boomers. The next generation of Americans (born in the 80s and 90s) are spending less time in college and finishing at a lower rate than previous generations. So we are becoming less educated, as a nation.
In my opinion, it has a little to with not being prepared and a lot more to do with social life and not rising to the challenge on their own, with less external pressures.
X2. I remember a bunch just not being able to handle being set free.
I think it took me 3 years to actually decide I was done, I think I ended up with a 1.2 GPA or something like that. I’m hoping there’s a statute of limitations on grades because I’ve been thinking of going back to school the last couple years.
Many schools have an academic renewal or similar policy whereby after a seperation of five years you can re-apply and if you obtain at least a 2.5 gpa over 12 credits all prior D’s and F’s are removed from your record or not used to calculate your gpa. Check out the school’s catalog, you might be surprised how easy it is.
Yes, living on Campus Dorm, 1000 miles away. First time out on her own. Just turned 18, 2 days after semester started.
Great info all, thanks. I will have a talk with her, better then her parents right now.
Sometimes this is a function of brain maturity. The prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that’s responsible for suppressing impulses, planning ahead, and generally behaving like an adult) doesn’t finish maturing until sometime in the early 20’s. Sometimes later, in cases of drug or alcohol use, or sometimes it never quite develops properly in these cases. Can you think of a hard-partying high school classmate who just never got his or her shit together, and lurches through adulthood with an adolescent comprehension of the consequences of his or her actions? Classic example.
Brief and entertaining article on the subject:
http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/su08/parents.html
From the article: “Apparently, the part of the college student’s brain that suggests getting soused and climbing the water tower is a flourishing hive of busy neurotransmitters. Meanwhile, the part of the brain that should interject a note of caution is already rummaging around in the closet for a can of spray paint.”
I think that it was sometime in my sophomore year (first time through college) when this really happened to me. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t previously understand that it was important to put off having fun and actually crack a book and do homework. It’s just that it was extrememly difficult to make it a course of action. In the end, I was able to turn around a pretty lackluster first three semesters and actually graduate cum laude with departmental honors, after I finally learned how to defer gratification a little.
I’m guilty. I started off in engineering but dropped out in the first semester after deciding it wasn’t for me. Drove a truck for the rest of the year and then returned the next year to eventually get a Psychology degree.