During an interview for graduate school, John caught a glimpse of his interviewer’s notes. It had two questions scribbled at the bottom:
“Why were you subject to dismissal?” and “Why so many dropped classes?”
He wanted to avoid the questions. So, he stalled and kept talking about his experiences and motivations until they ran out of time.
John, whose name here is a pseudonym because he requested to remain anonymous, is a UCLA alumnus who graduated with degrees in economics and statistics in 2017. He was put on academic probation twice during his time at UCLA and graduated in five years as opposed to the traditional four because he had to retake multiple classes he either dropped or failed.
Students are placed on academic probation if their GPA falls between 1.5 and 1.99. And if they don’t manage to get off probation by raising their GPA, earning at least a 2.0 cumulative and quarterly GPA within two quarters, they become subject to dismissal, and are unable to access features on MyUCLA until they meet with an academic advisor. Students who have a GPA of below 1.5 are automatically subject to dismissal.
Factors leading to academic probation and academic dismissal vary from student to student. Most typically, they seem to stem from personal problems or dissatisfaction with their major.
When John first came to UCLA he wanted to be a part of a community and make friends in an effort to replicate the tight-knit community he grew up in. And so, he joined a fraternity his freshman year. Though John spent a lot of time studying, he said his inability to prioritize academics was one of the reasons why he performed so poorly on exams.
The night before an important exam in a math class he was failing, John’s responsibilities with his fraternity kept him from studying. Though he was reluctant to participate in the event he was invited to, which involved singing for a senior member of the fraternity who had gotten drunk, he attended the event anyway because he was afraid to lose his status within the fraternity.
Though John, who considers himself a first-generation college student because his parents did not attend college in the U.S., has learned to prioritize better since then, he said the consequences of academic probation have continued to haunt him, especially during his search for graduate schools.
Looking back on the experience, he said academic probation fed him to the sharks – he was left with no research and fellowship opportunities within UCLA, as well as bleak prospects for graduate school.
“(I) didn’t really overcome it, I just moved on,” John said. “I stained my transcript (and) there’s no escaping from it.”
After John got his first email informing him he had been put on academic probation, he was pushed into a period of self-reflection. Independently, he tried to figure out what had caused his poor performance and realized he needed to reprioritize. Seeking a more disciplined environment, he dropped out of the fraternity and joined a new one enforcing group study hours. He also switched out of the mathematics/economics major into economics.
“Seeing other people really motivates me because I am able to see other people putting in the effort and fighting for the same thing,” John said. “It doesn’t make me feel like I’m doing this alone.”
Not once did John tell his parents about being on academic probation. He said he felt guilty and was in denial about his situation. Prior to his academic probation, he thought it was common to struggle as a mathematics student because the major has a reputation for being difficult at UCLA, he said.
But being an economics major introduced its own set of problems. John performed better academically but found it difficult to secure opportunities outside the classroom, like through internships, fellowships and research programs. His low GPA automatically disqualified him from opportunities such as the William Sharpe Fellows Program.
“When I applied to a couple research assistant positions, I got rejected every single time when they asked for my GPA,” John said. “They told me to come back when I have a 3.5 or higher.”
After graduation, John wanted to go to graduate school but knew his transcript would automatically limit his choices. He attended an out-of-pocket graduate program to which he was admitted, even though he was not interested in it.
Several years after graduating, John has found work as a data scientist and is starting his own company. Even so, he does not want people to know about his academic history because his co-founders think it puts the company in a bad light, he said.
“Unfortunately, it’s a really petty world,” John said. “Even years after (my time as an) undergraduate, I’m still being judged for academic grades.”
After Teresa Gaspar was academically dismissed from UCLA, she started working multiple jobs at an ice cream parlor and as an administrative assistant. Although she was unhappy at both her jobs, she didn’t think about completing her degree because she thought she didn’t have the option to return to school.
Before she was dismissed, Gaspar, a fourth-year transfer and first-generation student studying sociology, attended lectures and office hours regularly. But she said she would always keep quiet at office hours because she felt intimidated by her instructors.
Her problems didn’t stop there. When Gaspar needed to do her school assignments, she focused on memorizing the material because she wasn’t interested in going past the bare minimum.
“I would only read an article ... and wouldn’t synthesize it,” Gaspar said.
Beyond this, Gaspar said she struggled with feeling like she didn’t belong on campus. She would volunteer for events like the Bruin Day held for transfer students, but said she would go home feeling disconnected because she would make friends with people she would never see or talk to again.
“I went out to parties and had study groups, but I felt isolated,” Gaspar said. “If I didn’t meet the expectations I set for myself, I felt like I didn’t belong here.”
While having lunch one day during her third year, she received an email from the university saying she had been placed on academic probation after a string of bad grades. She thought she would be able to bring her grades up and just went about her day.
She didn’t begin feeling the pressure until the university dismissed her.
“Being on probation didn’t really give me a sense of motivation and fear,” Gaspar said. “I just told myself, ‘I can do it. I can reach this grade.’ But when I was dismissed I thought, ‘This is going to be hard to get back.’”
Gaspar, like John, did not tell her parents about being on academic probation; as a first-generation student, she said she was worried she would disappoint them. In their conversations, she would avoid answering their questions about how she was doing in school by saying she was fine.
“I did not want to hear from them and used to be standoffish about personal stuff,” Gaspar said. “I got really upset but didn’t cry until days after realizing I messed up.”
Several months after her dismissal, Gaspar received mail from UCLA about the Bruin Readmission Program. After meeting with several UCLA counselors to learn more about the program, she decided to apply.
“I felt this is my chance to redeem myself,” Gaspar said.
BRP, formerly the Summer Readmission and Retention Program, is a quarter-long program designed to help students who are struggling with college redefine success and learn to approach failure with an optimistic mindset. The program gives students who have been academically dismissed a chance to finish their degrees, even for those who have been out of school for several years.
Corey Hollis, the assistant vice provost for undergraduate academic support, said the program admits students who are able to identify why they performed poorly and have begun taking steps to resolve those issues. The selection process was established because students who are not ready to come back typically end up dropping out again, she added.
“We take whoever we feel is ready to be back,” Hollis said. “‘I cannot not be here,’ is not a good reason to be here.”
When students are in the program, they need to pass three classes with a B or higher, including two classes that satisfy requirements for their intended major. In addition, they need to attend a two-hour weekly seminar, University Studies 30: “How to Succeed at UCLA: Retention,” which focuses on individual and collective strategies for succeeding in academics. Once students fulfill these requirements, they can submit an appeal and be readmitted to the university.
Marian Gabra, one of the instructors for University Studies 30, said the program is modeled after validation theory, which encourages individuals to embrace their journey in college by capitalizing on the challenges and experiences they have been through, as outlined by Laura Rendon in a 1994 article in Innovative Higher Education.
“We want them to have a sense of pride in the experiences and challenges they have been through and are working through,” Gabra said.
Gabra’s class focuses on encouraging students to build relationships with faculty and to reflect on their goals through self-reflection assignments. At the start of the quarter, she pushes her students to fight any feelings of shame and redefine success, because she insists they belong at UCLA.
“Success is more than serving grades and outcomes,” Gabra said. “You are going to have setbacks and failures, and being open to that feedback and wanting to grow and learn is success.”
Gabra said by bringing together students who have been academically dismissed, BRP helps build a sense of community that reduces the negative feelings associated with stigma that lead students to feel like they don’t deserve to be at UCLA.
Currently, there is no program similar to BRP for students on academic probation – it is only available to students who have been dismissed and seek readmission. The program is also only available to students in the College of Letters and Sciences.
Hollis said most students on academic probation are able to get their grades back up independently, like John, and avoid academic dismissal. But students like Gaspar said if they were exposed to programs like BRP earlier during their time at UCLA, they may have avoided dismissal.
Through her experience, Gaspar said she has become more mature, having learned how to navigate the university by being more invested in her daily life and having developed a greater sense of purpose. Now, when she attends office hours, she tries to get to know her instructor by asking about their experiences and research.
“I realize it shouldn’t just be about the grades, because it won’t help you succeed,” Gaspar said. “Now I think about what I want to do with what I am learning. I have a sense of where I want to go.”
Regardless of how students may feel after experiencing academic probation or dismissal, the journey always starts with confronting one’s feelings.
Overwhelmed with shock and fear the day he found out he’d been academically dismissed, Nick Navejas sprinted out from his classroom and into his college counselor’s office in Murphy Hall. He had just opened MyUCLA and gotten the notice.
“I’d never felt (as great a) sense of helplessness and disappointment in myself (as) I did that day,” Navejas said.
Navejas, a third-year environmental science student, was dismissed in spring 2018 following a poor academic performance, which he said resulted from a lack of motivation that led him away from engaging in academic resources. He was readmitted to the university with the help of BRP, and since then, the Academic Advancement Program has given him the additional support he needs to succeed, he said.
During his first year, Navejas, a first-generation college student, said he had no long-term goals and did not engage in either university resources or extracurricular activities. He said he does not know why he felt this way – like it was senioritis, but for college.
“I was so heavy on trying not to fail, which is such a terrible way to perform as a student,” Navejas said. “I (felt) flawed my first two years, as I was trying to navigate as a first-generation (student) with no prior knowledge.”
After he joined a fraternity in his second year, he was surprised to find his fraternity brothers securing internships at notable finance companies as first- and second-year students. Through this realization, Navejas developed the motivation to perform better in school, gain professional internship experiences and utilize campus resources like AAP. He appealed his dismissal after having finished with a GPA of 1.9 in winter 2018, and expected that things would proceed without a hitch – that the appeal would go through.
Shortly after Nick developed this motivation, he was academically dismissed from the university in spite of the appeal.
But still, he was determined to finish his degree.
Navejas graduated from a high school in Bakersfield, California, where he said only about 20 out of his 400 classmates went on to a four-year university. Of those who did attend university, many dropped out and returned home to Bakersfield to work in the oil fields.
“I knew when I dropped out I didn’t want to fall into that pattern,” Navejas said.
Three weeks after Navejas found out he had been dismissed, he came up with a plan to get readmitted with the help of his counselor at College Academic Counseling by taking classes at Santa Monica College later that spring.
Several weeks after, Navejas received frantic calls from his parents. They had just found out about his dismissal through a letter from the financial aid office, which he had lost access to when he was dismissed.
Prior to the calls, Navejas’ parents had not known about his struggles because he never shared them. Looking back, Navejas said he realizes he should have opened up to his parents sooner. He said he was in denial and afraid of telling them about the problem; he wanted to avoid facing the fact that his struggles were real and his situation dire.
But, he said, the experience of academic dismissal brought them closer. Now, they talk on a daily basis.
“My dad always emphasized getting a degree so I could work with my brain instead of body,” Navejas said. “I feel like I had to hide (my struggle).”
Navejas’ road back to UCLA was not straightforward. He needed to take a full academic load to gain readmission at UCLA. But because of a policy at Santa Monica College that limits the number of units academically dismissed students can take, he was unable to. Students who are academically dismissed can only take a certain number of units and need to petition to increase the units.
Then over the summer, he worked outdoors, swinging a sledgehammer and drilling concrete where the temperature would reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit to pay for his living expenses and the fees he owed UCLA after losing access to his financial aid. During the school year, he worked 40 hours a week at Trader Joe’s to support himself.
When he was continuing his classes at Santa Monica College, he learned about BRP. Navejas said after being accepted to the program, his road to readmission became easier because he regained financial aid, could retake classes at UCLA and became more mindful about the experience, realizing that his GPA did not define him.
Navejas made use of other on-campus resources like the Student Retention Center and AAP in order to get back on his feet. His peer counselor at SRC provided him with emotional support after he found out he had been dismissed, and later helped him with the application process for BRP.
He also took advantage of AAP’s peer learning facility after he was readmitted to UCLA in order to help him improve his grades. He said he applied the good study habits he developed through the facility to all his classes.
“(My peer counselor) would check in on me and make sure I was okay,” Navejas said. “My grades increased dramatically (because of PLF).”
In his internship search, Navejas acknowledges that his GPA has created an obstacle because it is the first aspect companies look at. But he is not discouraged and instead sees it as a chance to talk about his ability to overcome challenges.
“I look at my (GPA) as an advantage. Here’s a challenge I faced and overcame,” Navejas said. “I now realize I am a person who can overcome different challenges and bounce back.”
Navejas found out he was readmitted to UCLA during spring break, through an email. He said he had been anxiously waiting for the results. This time, he ran around his house to share the news with his parents.
“I was like a little kid on Christmas Day,” Navejas said. “It was like a breath of fresh air after a long time.”
Correction: The original version of this article incorrectly stated that students who did not meet certain GPA requirements were automatically dismissed. In fact, the students are subject to dismissal.