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Where to turn to boost GPA?
#1
Hello fellow DegreeForumers!
I've been meaning to ask this question for quite some time now.
My little brother and sister are going to college and they were both in the same class and failed their final. Which dropped their GPA. Man, this is from last year...
They've taken other classes and went from having 3.2 to 2.8 GPAs
I knew going back to the college and retaking the courses was one way but I stupidly said that they could easily take some online classes for cheap instead.
So, I ran over here to look up some links for ACE sites and found exactly what I recalled. But... ACE Tests =/= GPA !
My question is, are there any online services like straighterline/saylor that offer classes that carry a GPA weight. The college my siblings are attending and paying out of pocket for makes this a bit of a problem to simply redo the class. They both work full time and pay for their own cars, insurance, phone, and school. I'm looking for something to help them out and I can't think of any other resource out there besides here!
Thank you for your time!



TL;DR: Wanting to help my siblings boost their GPAs by using a service like Saylor/Straighterline. However, those resources only offer ACE Accreditation which just means credits towards a degree. Where can they go instead and what should I be looking for?
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#2
Where are they doing college?

I believe COSC will sometimes award a letter grade for study.com/StraighterLine courses if you have them send transcripts directly vs through ACE.

That only works if they're going to COSC.
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#3
(01-26-2019, 04:49 PM)MNomadic Wrote: Where are they doing college?

I believe COSC will sometimes award a letter grade for study.com/StraighterLine courses if you have them send transcripts directly vs through ACE.

That only works if they're going to COSC.

I don't know what COSC is and when I google it I get a list of Chronometer Watches like Rolex.

They currently attend UCF. Mainly interested in finding them sites that will allow them to take courses worth a GPA vs only Credits. Because credit collection is easy to do. Raising your GPA afterwards is harder.
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#4
Assuming that it's an option, retaking the course is the most effective way to raise the GPA as it usually REPLACES the failed grade, giving a double benefit. If you just take other courses, the failed grade keeps weighing your GPA down. For example, Let's say they got a "D", and they take some other course and get a "B". The result will be as if they got two "C" grades. If they retake and get a "B", the "D" goes away and they get the full benefit of the new "B" grade.

Also, you need to be clear on why they need/want a higher GPA. If it's for grad school, it may not matter if COSC or some other school gives them a letter grade for alternative credit. The grad school may well ignore that and not count the alternative credit grades when they recalculate GPA. It depends on their own policy. If it's for employment, you have more leeway as most employers won't even bother to check on the reported GPA, and if they do, will often simply look at the GPA on the transcript from the school that awarded the degree.

The upshot is that alternative credit is probably NOT a viable way for them to raise their GPAs.
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#5
COSC = Charter Oak State College

My question is, what GPA are they looking to raise? Their GPA at the school they will graduate from (which is probably what an employer would look at) or their overall GPA (which will be used for grad school admissions)?

If the former, it depends on the school but most won't count any alternative credit towards GPA. They also generally won't count any transfer credits towards GPA, so their only options would be to a) take more classes at the school in question or B) switch schools.

If the latter, they might be able to do some cheap online courses from other schools to boost it. ASU's earned admission program lets you only pay for (and therefore transcript) classes if you like the grade, so that might be an option although only four of the classes (College Algebra, Precalculus, and two versions of Calculus) are self-paced.
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#6
(01-26-2019, 05:17 PM)davewill Wrote: Assuming that it's an option, retaking the course is the most effective way to raise the GPA as it usually REPLACES the failed grade, giving a double benefit. If you just take other courses, the failed grade keeps weighing your GPA down. For example, Let's say they got a "D", and they take some other course and get a "B". The result will be as if they got two "C" grades. If they retake and get a "B", the "D" goes away and they get the full benefit of the new "B" grade.

Also, you need to be clear on why they need/want a higher GPA. If it's for grad school, it may not matter if COSC or some other school gives them a letter grade for alternative credit. The grad school may well ignore that and not count the alternative credit grades when they recalculate GPA. It depends on their own policy. If it's for employment, you have more leeway as most employers won't even bother to check on the reported GPA, and if they do, will often simply look at the GPA on the transcript from the school that awarded the degree.

The upshot is that alternative credit is probably NOT a viable way for them to raise their GPAs.

I like your approach to the issue. The reason they aren't retaking it within the same college is due to the cost to retake it. If the class or class equivalent is available online for less and can be taken on their own time, then that would benefit them immensely. They are still considered on-track with their degree programs and are still moving towards getting their respective degree. But the goal is to raise their GPA by taking either more electives(eh) or a similar class(preferable).
If they only wanted the credits for the class, then I would have told them to CLEP it on one of their days off from work.
Thank you for your input!
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#7
To raise your GPA, you have 2 options: 1) to retake the exact same course at the exact same school, provided the school has a policy to allow them to do this; and 2) to take enough courses with good grades that the GPA is incrementally raised over time.

You can't take the course at another school, and think this will have any effect (it won't); your GPA at the original school will stay exactly the same; you just may have an ADDITIONAL GPA at a different school. That will also raise your grade incrementally, but I don't think this is an effective way to do fix this problem.
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#8
(01-26-2019, 05:27 PM)mysonx3 Wrote: COSC = Charter Oak State College

My question is, what GPA are they looking to raise? Their GPA at the school they will graduate from (which is probably what an employer would look at) or their overall GPA (which will be used for grad school admissions)?

If the former, it depends on the school but most won't count any alternative credit towards GPA. They also generally won't count any transfer credits towards GPA, so their only options would be to a) take more classes at the school in question or B) switch schools.

If the latter, they might be able to do some cheap online courses from other schools to boost it. ASU's earned admission program lets you only pay for (and therefore transcript) classes if you like the grade, so that might be an option although only four of the classes (College Algebra, Precalculus, and two versions of Calculus) are self-paced.

Used for transferring to another school. One is looking to go to MIT and the other talks about Embry Riddle and Cambridge.


ASU -- Hoping its Arizona State Uni.
Checked them out, sorry for slow replies as I am on mobile.
For example's sake, let's assume they wanted to retake Calculus from ASU to boost their B to an A. They can do that? I always thought it wasn't allowed because you already had a B which is passing. Therefore, retaking that class isn't possible.

(01-26-2019, 05:32 PM)dfrecore Wrote: To raise your GPA, you have 2 options: 1) to retake the exact same course at the exact same school, provided the school has a policy to allow them to do this; and 2) to take enough courses with good grades that the GPA is incrementally raised over time.

You can't take the course at another school, and think this will have any effect (it won't); your GPA at the original school will stay exactly the same; you just may have an ADDITIONAL GPA at a different school.  That will also raise your grade incrementally, but I don't think this is an effective way to do fix this problem.

Excellent insight! Therefore, I am assuming they will need to redo the course whether they like it or not and I am an idiot for saying there's another way.
I guess in some way I was correct but not in the way I hoped. If they transferred out of their current school to a different one, got to retake the same class/equivalent class, passed it, and transferred back to their original school they could raise their GPA. Correct?

Wait... I think I went back to my original thinking...
But if they stay at the other school they'd have a better GPA?
Man, this has me confused now. Sorry...
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#9
(01-26-2019, 05:34 PM)TalentlessOlympian Wrote:
(01-26-2019, 05:27 PM)mysonx3 Wrote: COSC = Charter Oak State College

My question is, what GPA are they looking to raise? Their GPA at the school they will graduate from (which is probably what an employer would look at) or their overall GPA (which will be used for grad school admissions)?

If the former, it depends on the school but most won't count any alternative credit towards GPA. They also generally won't count any transfer credits towards GPA, so their only options would be to a) take more classes at the school in question or B) switch schools.

If the latter, they might be able to do some cheap online courses from other schools to boost it. ASU's earned admission program lets you only pay for (and therefore transcript) classes if you like the grade, so that might be an option although only four of the classes (College Algebra, Precalculus, and two versions of Calculus) are self-paced.

Used for transferring to another school. One is looking to go to MIT and the other talks about Embry Riddle and Cambridge.


ASU -- Hoping its Arizona State Uni.
Checked them out, sorry for slow replies as I am on mobile.
For example's sake, let's assume they wanted to retake Calculus from ASU to boost their B to an A. They can do that? I always thought it wasn't allowed because you already had a B which is passing. Therefore, retaking that class isn't possible.

The school they transfer to will have it's own policies on how they evaluate potential transfer students. They will definitely ask for transcripts from all schools they attended (which, in this scenario, would include ASU), but whether they would consider both or just the first Calculus class you take depends on the school. I'm not familiar with the policies at Cambridge, MIT or Embry-Riddle.

Yes, to clarify, I am talking about Arizona State University when I say ASU - sorry that we're getting you all twisted up with the acronyms!
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#10
This is exploding. It would help greatly if you could answer the questions, "Why do they need a higher GPA?" and "What school do they intend to graduate from?" The answers are different depending on these answers. If they are staying at their current schools, then unless THAT school will give them grades for alternative credit (most unlikely) your whole idea is probably a non-starter.
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