First Semester Academic Performance: It’s All Relative

Fall semester 2006 grades are all posted now, and many parents, particularly the parents of new freshmen, are certainly curious about how their son or daughter handled the academic challenges of the first semester of college. Some students may have already shared their grades in great detail, and other students may be reluctant to discuss their performance except in the most general terms. It is important to respect student privacy in this matter. (Remember, don’t call us! The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act protects the confidentiality of student records, and prevents us from sharing a student’s grades with anyone, including parents, without the student’s explicit consent.) But if a good pattern of communication with your son or daughter has already been established, they will certainly be willing, if not anxious, to let you know how they did.

One of questions that parents, and even students, often ask is: So what does it mean? Is that a good GPA? How does this first semester performance compare? My response to that question is usually; “compared to what?” because first semester academic performance is truly relative: relative to high school performance, relative to other freshmen, relative to expectations and relative to future plans.

First, some basics of grade point average math. There are three things that are critical to understanding college grade point averages. First, unlike high school where all class grades usually counted the same, in college, different courses are offered for different numbers of credits. Therefore, the grade in a four credit class impacts the GPA four times as much as the grade in a one credit class. Second, each semester, a student receives two grade point averages—a term GPA (based only on that semester’s courses and grades) and a cumulative GPA (based on the grades of all courses taken at the university). Generally, the cumulative GPA is more important, since most academic actions, program admissions decisions and honors are based on it. (For a new freshman, the term and cumulative GPA are the same.) Finally, a student’s cumulative GPA gets more and more "solidified" as they accumulate more credits, because each successive grade contributes proportionately less to the total GPA. For example, for a student taking 15 credits in their first semester, their performance in one 3 credit class contributes fully 20% to the cumulative grade point average. Now move ahead 3 more semesters. Assuming 15 credits in each of those semesters, the student now has accumulated 60 credits. So performance in any single 3 credit class in their fourth semester contributes a mere 5% to the cumulative GPA. Therefore, it gets harder and harder to nudge the cumulative GPA upward (but on the plus side, a poor performance later on won't damage it as much, either).

So, to return to the original question, consider a first term GPA of 2.75 and ask—is that good? It depends on what you compare it to. On average, first semester college GPA’s are lower than high school GPA’s by anywhere from .5 to 1.0. Therefore, a college GPA that is the same as or just slightly lower than your son or daughter’s high school GPA is generally good, because the academic demands of college are so much higher than they were in high school. Relative to all new freshmen, a 2.75 is slightly above the average of 2.63. Relative to your or your student’s expectations, however, a 2.75 (less than a “B” average) might feel a bit disappointing. And relative to his or her ambitious future plans (graduate school, med school, etc) it might feel like the end of the world.

In my opinion, any conversation you might have with your son or daughter about their academic performance should focus on next semester. The second semester is critical to establishing a solid first year GPA. Rather than dwell on past performance, it might be more productive to discuss plans for the future, lessons learned in the fall semester, and what kind of study ethic, living arrangement, co-curricular commitments, work schedule, etc is going to be needed in the spring term to realize those plans. I have always found it easiest to discuss this with students fairly dispassionately and objectively, just using the numbers. Of course, that is a lot harder to do when the discussion is with your own child! There is this great little tool on the Academic Advising website that can be quite helpful, however-- a GPA calculator. The link to it is below.

www.uwgb.edu/advising/gpa_calculator

To see how it works, at very the bottom of this web form, type in your son or daughter’s current GPA and the total number of credits earned in the first semester. In the spaces above, type in anticipated grades and credits for four or five classes (FYI- most classes are 3 credits). Then hit the “calculate cumulative” button (the bottom “calculate” button), and a pop up window gives the new cumulative GPA. It can be a humbling experience to see what kinds of grades will be needed to bring up an average or below average GPA, but it certainly makes the choices pretty clear.....

It seems to me that the best outcome of any discussion about fall academic performance is to have the student have the insights and arrive at the right conclusions on their own. But you can coax them in the right direction by providing them with clear, objective information (i.e. the GPA calculator, graduate school admissions requirements, etc).

If there is any solace in this, I have a petition on my desk to deal with today from a freshman who, no kidding, earned a GPA of 0.00 in their first semester, and who wants to appeal her suspension. As I said, it’s all relative….


Mike Stearney
Assistant Dean, Dean of Students Office
920-465-2236
stearnem@uwgb.edu