Suspended for Poor Grades? The Next Step

Some colleges in the US have a minimum GPA (2.0/4.0 at most schools) that you need to maintain in order to remain an enrolled student at that school. If your GPA goes below 2.0, the school will put you on probation and give you a semester to pull your grades up. If after a semester, your GPA is still below 2.0, you will likely be suspended from that college.

One condition of the F1 visa is that you cannot be away from classes for more than 5 months at a time. Therefore, if you are suspended from college even for a semester, you will lose you F1 visa status. Your visa will be invalidated even if your visa has not expired. You may apply for reinstatement of your F1 status but that is fodder for another post.

So what can you do if you are suspended from college due to poor grades? The easiest thing to do would be to get admission into a community college. Community colleges are two year institutions that offer Associate Degrees. The advantages of community colleges are that they are inexpensive, easy to get into, and their credits are transferable to most four year colleges. Get into a community college for a semester or two, take some easy classes, study hard, get your grades up and then apply for admission back into your original college. This way you will have maintained your F1 visa status while also saving some money by studying at a community college. If you need to take this path, make sure you do a few things before hand. If you know your GPA is going to fall below the minimum and there is a good chance of you getting suspended, start looking at community colleges in your local area and apply for admission to the one you like. Don’t wait for your college to send you the suspension letter, because by that time the new semester may already have begun and it might be too late to get admission to any community colleges, thus leaving you out of status and with no other option but to start packing your bags. As soon as grades are released, find out from the school if you have been suspended. If so, transfer your I20 to the community college as soon as possible.

Do you know of anything else that international students can do if they are suspended from their college? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.