Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pretty sure no school considers a less than 3.3 GPA academic probation LOL

At the university where I teach, that would put you on probation for membership in the honors college. If it didn't go back up the next semester, you could be ineligible to continue in honors.

well if that is the case for the PP, they should have clarified. "Academic probation" at my kids school is lower than a 1.8 i believe.

My DS is a college freshman. He has kept me up to date throughout the semester on how it's going and just told me his final grades. If he avoided the topic or I felt he was lying I'd probably push for seeing the actual final grade report but for now he seems to be doing what he needs to do.

I did the same with my parents back in the day.

Anonymous wrote:pretty sure no school considers a less than 3.3 GPA academic probation LOL

At the university where I teach, that would put you on probation for membership in the honors college. If it didn't go back up the next semester, you could be ineligible to continue in honors.

Anonymous wrote:A warning re: merit money tied to GPA. Call me a cynic but ~ the university knows grade distributions, you don't. How likely is it that your student will be able to hold-on to that merit GPA dependent scholarship? In a particular major. Who knows? You don't. They might. You certainly don't.

Watch this when you decide which offer/school to accept.

Some have very generous criteria. Others seem designed to kick kids off the merit aid roster.

A way to check this is to look in the College Guides (like Princeton Review) if far fewer advanced students have merit aid than freshmen.

Beware of schools that base this on EACH term's gpa, vs the overall gpa!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When 18 you are an adult, so this isn’t so strange.

Legally, maybe. Practically? Not really. Nothing magical happens in the brain on your 18th birthday.

The line for legal adulthood has to be drawn somewhere. What freedoms do 18 year olds have that you believe should be rescinded and handed back to the parents?

It's more about accountability than freedom. If I'm paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for something, I want to make sure that money isn't wasted.

I guess I'm surprised more people don't see it that way, all for the sake of "freedom". It's the same as if I loan somebody money, I want to be confident it'll be paid back. Think of grades as collateral in this case.

Anonymous wrote:A warning re: merit money tied to GPA. Call me a cynic but ~ the university knows grade distributions, you don't. How likely is it that your student will be able to hold-on to that merit GPA dependent scholarship? In a particular major. Who knows? You don't. They might. You certainly don't.

+1. Except, of course, that the mother believes she does know better than the university. That’s why she has to be involved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When 18 you are an adult, so this isn’t so strange.

Legally, maybe. Practically? Not really. Nothing magical happens in the brain on your 18th birthday.

The line for legal adulthood has to be drawn somewhere. What freedoms do 18 year olds have that you believe should be rescinded and handed back to the parents?

Anonymous wrote:A warning re: merit money tied to GPA. Call me a cynic but ~ the university knows grade distributions, you don't. How likely is it that your student will be able to hold-on to that merit GPA dependent scholarship? In a particular major. Who knows? You don't. They might. You certainly don't.

+1. Look at the terms for merit scholarships on the school’s website. Often there will be a probation period as a first step prior to losing any scholarship, and also an appeal period if things should go wrong.

A warning re: merit money tied to GPA. Call me a cynic but ~ the university knows grade distributions, you don't. How likely is it that your student will be able to hold-on to that merit GPA dependent scholarship? In a particular major. Who knows? You don't. They might. You certainly don't.

Op, I understand your point. I went to a large state public, it was easier to "correct" a bad class decision. Drop it. Schedule a different teacher. Lots of flexibility re: when classes were offered. Counselors minimally involved, or not involved at all. No need to justify, convince anyone (including parents) re: your need to change a class. You just did it. That worked for me. Very adult. And ... boots on the ground ... the student really knows what needs to happen to be successful there, not you.

What about this? You have an agreement that you see grades for the first year.

Anonymous wrote:What we told our kids was if they showed us they had a B average or higher we'd keep paying. If they were in danger of having less than a B, we expected them to seek out tutoring through the school or ask for money to hire one. If they had less than a B for more than one semester, they had to switch to an in-state school. They always told us their grades.

New poster.

OP, I hope you will dismiss this post, above. Setting a hard GPA requirement like this, and setting it to apply to a very specific time frame (one semester) is incredibly arbitrary and inflexible.

Sure, maybe this "less than a B for one semester and you'll be turfed out of your chosen college and forced to switch" parent will say it worked fine for them, but it leaves zero flexibility for things that can happen in the real world.

There can be one class that is a "weed-out" course where the professor intentionally grades "hard" to eliminate students from the major. There can be a semester where other, tougher classes took precedence and one class slipped down. There can be grades which should be red flags for being in the wrong major (not being lazy or partying), or red flags for a health crisis (mental or physical). There can be grades where a student just screwed up and learned a lesson from that, but the lesson can't be applied if the student is summarily removed from that college and punished -- yes, the student will see it as punishment -- by being forced to another college with zero discussion or appeal.

I'm not talking about a student who's partying and making excuses, but about a student who might have legit reasons, academic or personal, for two semesters of a GPA below B. And that parent doesn't say if the automatic "transfer to in-state school" deal kicks in only if those two semesters are consecutive, or if mom and dad will pull the plug on that college if the GPA slips but it happens once in freshman year and again in juior year or whatever....

Parents who have good communication with their college student children don't have to be that arbitrary. Maybe if a kid has a long HS track record of partying or never communicating about academic problems, I can see this level of rule-making. But otherwise, it just treats the student as able to control every single aspect of every course for four years, and it treats the student as unable to bounce back from less than a B.

I don't have to his coach does.

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a college senior.

I may have thought of this before she started school, but honestly it has been a non issue.

I would not even know how to look (if she did grant me permission, which I can't remember). She tells me her grades, and has done well. I guess I am lucky.

It is FAR more important that your kid grants you access to their MEDICAL information. If they have a mental health crisis or are found unconscious somewhere, you want to be able to talk to the doctors caring for him/her.

NP. The bold above, people, the bold. This really does matter. Be SURE you get a medical power of attorney and that your child signs off on everything you need to have full access to medical info and full authority to make decisions if your child is unable to do so. Parents focus on grades and "how much I'm paying for college" and utterly forget the much more crucial aspect of your kid's new adult status: You have no authority to make medical decisions for another adult, or even be able to speak to a doctor, unless you have the right documentation. Even if that adult is your financial dependent and is on your insurance.

Anonymous wrote:When 18 you are an adult, so this isn’t so strange.

Legally, maybe. Practically? Not really. Nothing magical happens in the brain on your 18th birthday.

Anonymous wrote:My thought is if you are paying, you are entitled to grades. My parents expected me to give a copy of my grades to them. I'd expect my child to do the same. I dont' think its controlling.

This. You should track your investments, and college is one of the biggest investments there is.