College is an exciting time filled with new experiences and opportunities for growth. However, it can also be a challenging time, and academically speaking, the stakes can be quite high for many students. If you find yourself struggling to keep up with your studies--whether due to unforeseen circumstances or simply not grasping the material--it does not take long for the negative impact to be felt. A single semester of poor grades can drop your GPA significantly, resulting in a lasting negative impact on your academic journey and career goals. For this reason, the time to seek academic help is at the first sign of trouble, not necessarily when you find yourself completely buried.

How a Semester of Bad Grades Can Impact Your Future

Dropping grades can result in a cascading effect that impacts you in multiple ways. Let's look at a few examples.

Scholarships and Financial Aid

Scholarships can significantly reduce the financial burden of paying for college, but most require you to maintain a minimum GPA, which may vary depending on each scholarship's rules. If you fall below the required GPA for your scholarship, you may be ineligible for that funding, causing you to struggle to pay tuition, housing, and other living expenses. In addition, to be eligible for federal financial aid, you must meet the standard for Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP), which requires a minimum C average while taking a minimum number of classes. A particularly bad semester could drop you below the C average needed to qualify for student loans and other grants.

Internships

Internships provide college students with invaluable professional experience and significantly enhance their resumes. Many businesses seek out high-performing students for internships. Some organizations require that interns maintain at least a 3.5 GPA. A poor performance over a single college semester could ruin your chances of landing a desirable internship essential to your career.

Job Opportunities

Some companies that hire graduating students will look at your GPA as one indicator of your qualifications. They see your GPA as a snapshot of your academic performance, work ethic, and level of commitment. If a bad semester drops your GPA, it may make you less competitive compared to other candidates.

Academic Dismissal

Just as you must meet the SAP standard to qualify for federal financial aid, most colleges and universities also have academic progress standards for you to continue attending. While remediation programs are usually available for students who fall behind, an extreme lapse in grades could result in academic dismissal (essentially expulsion for bad grades). Academic dismissal can severely harm your career prospects as it creates a significant gap in your educational history. You might also have difficulty getting into another college to complete your education.

How to Get Help

Because so much is riding on your GPA, and because a single semester of poor performance can derail your goals, the time to get help is at the first sign of trouble, before things get out of control. One of the best ways to right the ship is to get help from a personal tutor, someone who is trained to recognize the areas of concern and can develop a personalized plan to help you get back on track. If you are facing academic setbacks in college that are threatening your career goals, contact Vincent-Pope Tutoring to discuss your options.