Bad grades in transcripts, can’t appeal with school. What do I do?

[JonDeeVee]

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So I transferred to the University of Miami last fall after doing a year at another institution. I was completing a summer semester before I transferred but the the semester ended about two weeks AFTER U Miami’s semester was scheduled to begin. I spoke with my professors to see if I would be able to take all necessary exams early, and all were happy to accommodate me except my bio professor who told me to wait and see what he could do. Well, he eventually told me there was nothing he could do and ended up giving me an F for non attendance.

Now this is where the school is garbage.
I emailed the school to ask about appealing the grade, no response. I called and left voicemails, no response. I submitted a trouble ticket and finally got a response after 2 or 3 weeks, but it was incorrect and put me back at square one. I FINALLY got into contact with the right person after hunting them down but they told me it was after the deadline for appealing, so nothing would happen. NONE of this is my fault and now I have a bad grade on my transcript. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

 

[JustaDO]

Is there anything I can do to fix this?

If the school told you no, then I doubt SDN has any other advice other then "All A's from now" and "Keep on working hard!"

 

[theKingLT]

So I transferred to the University of Miami last fall after doing a year at another institution. I was completing a summer semester before I transferred but the the semester ended about two weeks AFTER U Miami’s semester was scheduled to begin. I spoke with my professors to see if I would be able to take all necessary exams early, and all were happy to accommodate me except my bio professor who told me to wait and see what he could do. Well, he eventually told me there was nothing he could do and ended up giving me an F for non attendance.

Now this is where the school is garbage.
I emailed the school to ask about appealing the grade, no response. I called and left voicemails, no response. I submitted a trouble ticket and finally got a response after 2 or 3 weeks, but it was incorrect and put me back at square one. I FINALLY got into contact with the right person after hunting them down but they told me it was after the deadline for appealing, so nothing would happen. NONE of this is my fault and now I have a bad grade on my transcript. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

If the school told you no, then I doubt SDN has any other advice other then "All A's from now" and "Keep on working hard!"

Exactly. Sounds like all you can do now is show that F is not your norm and when it comes time to apply most secondaries will have a place for you to explain any drops in grades. You can then go ahead and politely explain what happened without making it sound like the world was out to get you. Is there a particular reason why you scheduled classes that wouldn't end until 2 weeks into the semester at your new school? Surely you knew you were transferring to Miami before the withdraw period at your previous school?

 

[JonDeeVee]

Exactly. Sounds like all you can do now is show that F is not your norm and when it comes time to apply most secondaries will have a place for you to explain any drops in grades. You can then go ahead and politely explain what happened without making it sound like the world was out to get you. Is there a particular reason why you scheduled classes that wouldn't end until 2 weeks into the semester at your new school? Surely you knew you were transferring to Miami before the withdraw period at your previous school?

When I applied to UM, I didn’t get my acceptance letter until mid to late June, and I didn’t know that the orientation that they had scheduled was a week prior to classes beginning and that it lasted for an entire week, neither did I know that it was mandatory. I wouldn’t have stayed otherwise.

 

[Campana]

Couple of thoughts:

1. It is unfortunate, but sounds like one to chalk up to "lesson learned" about overlapping obligations and relying on "wait and see" - sorry this lesson came with an F 🙁 Time and more units will make it better.

2. As a last ditch effort to get rid of the F (which seems to be set already) have you tried an in-person conversation? In my professional experience, in-person conversations with an abundance of vulnerability and kindness can sometimes work miracles (which in my mind is what you need to get that F changed to a W). It's easy to be curt and inflexible via email, but when there is a human being in front of you, sometimes something inside melts a little.

 

[965978]

This seemed to have been very poor judgement and planning on your part.......

-Why would you take a summer semester that overlapped?
-Why would you stay in the bio course not knowing whether or not it would work out?
-How did you get an F from simply missing the first two weeks? Why couldn't you have pulled at least a C? I doubt any college professor gives an automatic F simply for missing two weeks of classes. I had classes where I only showed up for exams and got A's.
-How did you not know you would get an F for nonattendance?

 

[JonDeeVee]

This seemed to have been very poor judgement and planning on your part.......

-Why would you take a summer semester that overlapped?
-Why would you stay in the bio course not knowing whether or not it would work out?
-How did you get an F from simply missing the first two weeks? Why couldn't you have pulled at least a C? I doubt any college professor gives an automatic F simply for missing two weeks of classes. I had classes where I only showed up for exams and got A's.
-How did you not know you would get an F for nonattendance?

-I’ve already explained. In a previous reply. I wasn’t accepted to UM at the time, so there was nothing to overlap. I stayed in the course because my professor assured me that he was going to go have a solution to my problem ~ all of my other professors did.
-I don’t care what you doubt, it happened. I missed the final and an exam along with 4 class periods due to me leaving, so he failed me. Not everyone has the same attendance policies, so lucky you.

 

[965978]

.

 

[LizzyM]

First of all relax.

Second of all, I suggest that you get a bit more mature. Seems like you didn't carefully plan this situation and you took a big unknown step without planning things out or at least having backup mechanisms to navigate when things didn't go your way. Nor are you taking any responsibility for this (since you explicitly state that none of this is your own fault).

And your story doesn't add up. You said that you missed out on the first two weeks because it overlapped with summer session. What what does that have anything to do with missing the final exam?

This is going to be a CARS passage a few years from now so pay attention.
He took summer classes including a course in biology. He missed the final exam and the last two weeks of the summer term because he'd already pulled up stakes and moved to Miami as a transfer student. He got an F in the bio course he took in the summer.

OP: relax. The F is not going to make or break your admission to medical school some years from now. It will take way about 16 points out of a possible 480 or more that you had the potential to earn as a college student (assuming you complete 120 credits and the bio course was 4 credits). That is a drop in the bucket in the end although it looks bigger now as you have taken fewer classes than you will have taken by the time you earn your degree.

Relax and learn that you need to plan ahead and get your ducks in a row and not assume that every professor will do things the same way.

 

[differentiating]

And your story doesn't add up. You said that you missed out on the first two weeks because it overlapped with summer session. What what does that have anything to do with missing the final exam?

I’m guessing that the F was in a summer course, not at Miami? Though I agree that this was very poor planning and blaming everyone else for their bad judgement would not be a good way to “explain” the grade.

Luckily for OP, one F isn’t going to keep them out of med school. Take this as a learning experience, and do your best during the rest of your undergraduate work.

 

[965978]

This is going to be a CARS passage a few years from now so pay attention.
He took summer classes including a course in biology. He missed the final exam and the last two weeks of the summer term because he'd already pulled up stakes and moved to Miami as a transfer student. He got an F in the bio course he took in the summer.

OP: relax. The F is not going to make or break your admission to medical school some years from now. It will take way about 16 points out of a possible 480 or more that you had the potential to earn as a college student (assuming you complete 120 credits and the bio course was 4 credits). That is a drop in the bucket in the end although it looks bigger now as you have taken fewer classes than you will have taken by the time you earn your degree.

Relax and learn that you need to plan ahead and get your ducks in a row and not assume that every professor will do things the same way.

Oh ok gotcha. That makes more sense. Guess I just assumed OP started UMiami two weeks late when I shouldn’t have done that. It’s insane how they wouldn’t make an exception to miss orientation given that the student has to take final exams at their college. Especially since 80% of my undergrad orientation was unnecessary crap.

 

[Goro]

So I transferred to the University of Miami last fall after doing a year at another institution. I was completing a summer semester before I transferred but the the semester ended about two weeks AFTER U Miami’s semester was scheduled to begin. I spoke with my professors to see if I would be able to take all necessary exams early, and all were happy to accommodate me except my bio professor who told me to wait and see what he could do. Well, he eventually told me there was nothing he could do and ended up giving me an F for non attendance.

Now this is where the school is garbage.
I emailed the school to ask about appealing the grade, no response. I called and left voicemails, no response. I submitted a trouble ticket and finally got a response after 2 or 3 weeks, but it was incorrect and put me back at square one. I FINALLY got into contact with the right person after hunting them down but they told me it was after the deadline for appealing, so nothing would happen. NONE of this is my fault and now I have a bad grade on my transcript. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Some schools allow for retroactive withdrawals...have you tried that angle?