We had a senior cadet voluntarilly withdraw from classes due to fears that he would damage his G.P.A.
He did not realize the firestorm that he would bring on himself by doing this. Withdrawing from classes changed his graduation date. This is a violation of his contract since it was done without cadet command approval.
Once he informed us of what he did, we asked the question "Why would you NEED to drop from your classes less than 2 semesters from commissioning ?"
We soon discovered what the "why" was. If the student had sucked it up he would be commissioning this year. His classmates are 3 days from commissioning. The student in question was disenrolled last month and is currently awaiting his orders to report to basic training. He will be paying back his scholarship by serving on active duty.
Once you sign the contract, you cannot make unilateral decisions about your academic future. Those decisions must be made with input from the university and ROTC.
Marist,
I have just a couple questions regarding your post.
When you said "Senior Cadet" did you mean that the cadet was in his senior year at school. Had this cadet already gone through accessions for branch. It would seem odd to withdraw from classes so close to commissioning.
I only ask because of my son's experience. My son just completed his MS3 year. Over the last 3 years he has withdrawn form 2 classes, one because he switched majors the 2nd semester of his freshman year and did not need the class for his new major. The 2nd class he withdrew from was during the first semester of his junior year. He withdrew from the class because he felt overloaded that semester and I am sure it also had to do with not wanting to lower his GPA his junior year.
Both times he met with his advisor and they went over his 4 year plan to make sure he could still graduate in the 4 years even with dropping the classes. He is still on track and in fact will have a light load the last semester of his senior year.
I bring this up because of what you mentioned about having approval from CC. My son never contacted CC, I am not sure he even mentioned it to his cadre. The cadre have them update the 104R form each year and go over it with them to make sure they are on track. Nothing has ever been brought up about the classes he withdrew from and he is still on track to graduate in the 4 year timeframe.
If I read between the lines of your post, by dropping classes the cadet made it impossible to graduate on time, is that the case. Was his disenrollement due to being unable to graduate on time or was it because he did not get approval from CC to drop the classes.
My son's battalion had a MS4 this year that was injured, believe it or not it was during the Army/Navy ROTC Football Game. He missed a bit of class time and was unable to catch up and the proffessors didn't work with him to help much. He ended up failing 2 classes, he did not commission with the rest of his class, he is taking the classes during an accelerated summer session and is able to commission at the end of June. Did this happen because he worked with the cadre to work things out.
I ask all this just for a clarification for other cadets that may find themselves in a situation where they are failing a class and are considering dropping that class. Is dropping the class the issue or is graduating on time the issue. There have been several cadets my son knows of that have dropped a class and took it again to improve their GPA's, all are still on track to graduate, they just had to have a heavier load one semester to catch up.
Sorry for the jumbled post and thank you for your input.
