LOL. One more person struggling in a class at law school is hardly changing the character of the school. Two of my partners went to Law School at Stanford with Bill Walton, while he was in the NBA. Basically, they let him create his own schedule. The law school survived (and Walton wasn't even playing college ball at the time).
I know that McNeal had a bunch of stars coming out of high school, but who says that he has a meaningful impact here? I thought Dwayne Difton was going to be a beast for UConn, and the kid couldn't get on the field. Just because he had a bunch of potential doesn't mean you let him into a grad program over a more academically qualified candidate.
Difference -- I've seen McNeal play college football. I am not relying on stars given to him in high school. Arguing about whether it should be as easy to get a kid into grad school as undergrad is fine, but we don't need to denegrate the kid's abilities in doing so. He started at Clemson for a while. He played on TV. And people have seen him play at the college level.
Yes, bizlaw is right. Every school makes exceptions. I was at Harvard and professors were instructed that kids of mega-rich donors could not be given a failing grade. A university doesn't lose respect because one bad student out of thousands gets a degree; it gains a ton of respect by having money and a successful athletics program. It's for the good of the university to let top athletes in and let them maintain academic standing and get a degree with much more lenient standards than other students. That said, a line has to be drawn somewhere and I don't think any of us can comment with complete confidence on any individual case.
What you don't get is that they told the kid- meet us halfway. Get this GPA, and we will make an exception for you. He didn't live up to his end of the bargain. It's his fault, not UConn admissions.
Again, we don't know what program he was applying to. Some programs are mostly classwork. In others, grad students contribute greatly to the functioning of a department or institute; for example through teaching, conducting research, even writing fellowships and grants. In these cases it's not just the university's admissions department that makes the decision, but the program's faculty who are basing admissions on their own criteria if who they think can contribute to the department. I'm not saying that's what happened with McNeill, necessarily... just that different grad programs have very different needs. Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2
Or how about this. I'm Bruce McNeal and I want to play football for uconn. I'm not playin football this year so I'm goon to get a 4.0 to pull my gpa up to get into the grad school and play football.
say he holds 120 credits. if he gets 24 credits of straight A work that would bring him just shy of 2.7. Of course he did graduate.
You know that you can continue to take courses as a non-degree student, right? Unless they are referring to his major GPA and not overall GPA, having his Bachelors does not prevent him from upping his GPA.
Yes. So we want him to continue taking courses at Clemson (i) while paying his own way or (ii) because Clemson is so generous it will continue to fund his tuition while he sits out so he can transfer?
No, I didn't say that I would expect him to continue to wait and pay to attend UConn. And clearly, he didn't want to do that either. The point was that if he chose to, he was not prevented from doing so. Bottom line; I wanted him to play here. UConn was willing to make concessions for him to be here. He couldn't meet the concessions. I wish the young man the best of luck (except for against UConn).
Or, the bottom line could be "we need to admit capable, if not brilliant, students who can help us win in football and hoops." You calling something the "bottom line" doesn't actually end a debate.
Are people really making the argument that if McNeal really wanted to come to UConn, he could've taken undergrad courses this year on his own dime, not play football in 2012.......all to MAYBE boost his GPA to a 2.7 to MAYBE get accepted into UConn for 2013? Or maybe he'll get accepted to Louisville, on full scholarship, and play for the preseason Big East favorite. Tough call.
Apparently, yes, they are. He will not be here. We will move on and hopefully get WR play so that on one cares by mid-September. But that won't change the fact that we have to be able to compete for football players who are going to finish their careers while in grad school. That's all I'm saying.
Are you kidding me, Biz? Did you not understand that my saying, "Bottom line," was the bottom line for how I felt about the situation? Did you think that I was ending everyone's ability to debate it because I typed the words, "Bottom line"? Also, to Jimmy's point (which you seconded), I DID NOT argue that the kid should pay his own way and wait a year to play at UConn. My point was directed to you, Biz, who had stated that he couldn't get his GPA up because he was a college graduate. That is not the case. The case is that he is out of time to make it happen, and I wished the young man good luck in the future. (all of this is on this page of the thread, so I'm not sure what the confusion is all about)
Also, if I could be so bold as to talk about your proposed "bottom line," it seems clear to me (and rightfully so, in my opinion) that UConn did not feel he was capable. It seems that UConn felt that the breakpoint for determining someone was capable of handling a 3.0GPA requirement was if they held a 2.7GPA...
