What happens if you mess up your GPA?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last Sunday (I'm a bit late posting), S.F. Chronicle columnist Joanne Levy-Prewitt wrote about what the options are for a kid who has just plain screwed up his grades.

Here's something to be thankful for — he still has college options.

The minimum GPA for University of California freshman admission, by the way, is 3.0 for 10th and 11th grades, in A-G required courses. Read about it here.

COLLEGE BOUND: A weekly guide to higher education

Joanne Levy-Prewitt
Sunday, November 18, 2007

My student reluctantly passed the transcript across the table to me. "I don't know what happened in my sophomore year," he said. "I guess I screwed up."

I tried to reassure him as I calculated his GPA. However, despite my efforts, the numbers were clear: He would not be eligible for the University of California, the state's most selective system.

After my student went home, I pulled out my calculator and crunched the numbers again. He was close to eligibility for UC, but not close enough. He had taken all the right classes and been the captain of his lacrosse team. His test scores were fine, but his GPA just didn't add up. Despite a few scattered A's and B's in his freshman and junior years, his sophomore year sealed his fate.

The University of California doesn't use freshman grades when determining GPA, so with five C's in his sophomore year, my student had closed the door to one of the most prestigious, respected and affordable university systems in the country. He was several tenths of a point away from eligibility.

In its most recent State of College Admission Report, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) says that the four most important factors used by colleges when making admission decisions are, in order of priority, grades in college prep classes, strength of curriculum, admission test scores and overall grades in all courses.

Private colleges have a tendency to also look at factors other than grades, but public colleges seem to care a great deal about grades, and many have minimum GPAs for admission. Nevertheless, the NACAC survey demonstrates that all colleges scrutinize grades in individual classes as well as the overall GPA.

Read the rest of the column.