Ep. 108 - What is Academic Notice?

What happens when your GPA dips below 2.0 at CSUSB? In this episode, Matt Markin and Ed Mendoza break down Academic Notice—not as punishment, but as a support system designed to help students bounce back. They explore common causes like time management and personal challenges, and share how students can use advising, goal-setting, and even community college courses to get back on track. Plus, learn the key differences between Academic Notice and SAP—and why asking for help early is the smartest move you can make. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hello and welcome back to the CSUSB advising podcast. This is Matt Markin from the ASUA academic advising office, and on today's episode, we're talking about something called Academic Notice. There are times that you as a CSUSB student, maybe might find yourself on academic notice or possibly even dismissed from CSUSB. So what exactly does this mean? How do you go about getting back on track? How does our office help you? Is academic notice the same as the financial aid offices Satisfactory Academic Progress, also known as SAP. Well, let's chat with the director of academic advising, Ed Mendoza, to tell us more. Ed, welcome back to the podcast. 

Ed Mendoza  
Thank you. Hello everyone, and it's good to be back. Thanks, Matt. So let's, let's start off what, what is academic notice, and what are reasons why a student might find themselves on academic notice. Let me, let me start with my answer with in order to receive your bachelor's degree or to graduate from CSUSB, you need to have at least a 2.0 in many areas, and at CSUSB as a whole, your cumulative GPA, which may include other schools as well, plus your major GPA, sometimes minors and and concentrations can need to be 2.0 as well. But 2.0 is a minimum to graduate. So anytime a student falls below a 2.0 and we only look at two for academic notice purposes, we look at the CSUSB GPA, so all grades, first at CSUSB, and then the cumulative GPA, which is all schools put together, if any of those are ever below 2.0 then we assign academic notice on our transcript for a student, and that just so we can monitor, so we can support and we can help the student Get back over a 2.0 to get them to graduation. Years ago, we used to call it academic probation, and many schools probably still call it that. We changed the name academic notice just because it sounds a little bit better than academic probation as a whole is the real reason, but academic notice is what might show up on transcript. 

Matt Markin  
Now, a student, let's say, they find themselves on academic notice, like, there could be a number of reasons why they might be on academic notice, right?

Ed Mendoza  
Yeah, and all these years that we've been seeing students on academic notice, and the reason we monitor because it's also a an executive order from the chancellor's office for us to monitor students below 2.0 and support them, because the last thing we want to do is to allow a student to fall below 2.0 and forget about them, and that's all and they're on their own. I have a passion for this particular group of students, because I want to make sure that they still get to graduation. And your question is, the multitude of reasons that the first thing we make sure we don't do is assume that the reason is that you're not smart enough. We don't, we don't believe the reason that a student's below two ponos, if they can't handle the work or it's too much for them. There's so many other reasons, and everyone has their own unique reasons. And when they meet with us, that's kind of where we're able to kind of dig a little. We don't, we don't try to get into their personal business, but if we could get to the root cause of something, then we can start making changes so that GPA starts going up, and most students say, You know what? I know. I know what I did wrong, and I know what's going on, and I just need to get better at it. And they just having a conversation, and know, where are we? The principal's office to tell them what they're doing wrong. We want to be an office that says, hey, we're here for you. We want to listen to you. We were college students ourselves. Not everything was perfect for us, either, and we just want to make sure we help them out in some of those reasons, and I wrote down a few, but motivation is a big one. Why are students in school? And usually we ask students in their first year, why? Why a bachelor's degree, and most of them say, I, you know, for my family, or for this and that, so I can help my family pay rent or later on, or to change my our family trajectory. And that's good, but sometimes, in my opinion, if students are doing it for themselves, then they start losing that motivation, because I'm doing it for other people, sometimes in the wrong major, and that motivation is lost when I keep taking classes I'm not even interested in. So I always tell students, find something that you enjoy, because if you enjoy the class, you'll be more motivated to go to class and do well and participate in class and talk to the professor outside of class, and so forth. So motivation is a pretty big one, in my opinion, the one that I've been realizing more and more in these last few years, especially after COVID, is prioritizing school. It's very easy for us to let education or our school fall in the priority list. And I'm not here to tell people how to prioritize. Some people prioritize family, religion, relationship, work, school, friendships, all these things you have to prioritize somehow. And usually the one that slips the most is is education, because everyone else will call you out on the family will call you out. If you're not prioritizing your friends, your partner will call you out. But who calls you out in school? So that one's the one that kind of slips time management, mental health, medical reasons, and another one too, is folks just not asking for help. So I know we've done to podcasts, and I know we in advising, and our partners within advising, keep promoting all the resources students have to do well, but time management, I want to give this one as an example. In all the years that I've been doing advising, I sometimes hear why they do well because of work. Well, no, that's a good that's a reason, and I'm okay with that reason, but the root cause of it is time management. Because there are people that work 40 plus hours a week and still do well in school. They probably just are really, really good at time management and all these things that I'm mentioning here, Matt and I think you would agree, isn't just to get to graduation, but these skills, time management, priorities, prioritizing and keeping yourself organized, this is good for career as well. So the more we practice it here, the better we're going to be in our careers later on, too. So I'll stop talking just to kind of let you go into.

Matt Markin  
No I agree, because one of the things is, like with a student meeting with, let's say their assigned academic advisor, they can ask them a lot more questions, kind of find out what might be the root cause of it, but then also offer their their opinion, their two cents, of strategies to maybe get back on track and do better. But also, depending on what the circumstances, maybe there is something that the university offers like a resource, or if there was something extenuating going on, Is there potential for a withdrawal from a class? Is there something about repeating a class? Is there great forgiveness? There's a lot of other things that a student may not know about, and they can find out during that time meeting with their academic advisor to get them back, you know, off academic notice, back into good standing 

Ed Mendoza  
Agreed. And not only that, but in these meetings, when we're trying to get to the root of it, to support and help, we're also trying to motivate, we're also trying to encourage and cheer you on. And I was below 2.0 when I was a student, and I took a semester off, and that helped me, because it changed my mindset from, I have to go to school because my parents have always told me that to, I want to go to school, and then that helped me. I'm not saying that applies to everyone, but that someone to believe in me is helpful, because sometimes a lot of this we may not share with our family because we're embarrassed about it, or this is the first time I've ever been below 2.0 I was never below 3.0 in high school, for example, those kind of, those kind of conversations. So we want students to feel comfortable coming to talk to us, and the sooner, the better. So now let's not wait till end of the semester when I get my grades. Let's meet with someone while I noticed that, you know, I just got a bad midterm grade, and this could affect my grade overall. Let me see if I can still do something about it, and come talk to us, and we want to help. 

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and so it does mean that a student listening to this, you can contact your assigned academic advisor, you can meet with them, you can communicate with them through email. You don't have to wait until the very end. You can do it during with maybe when something might be happening, or just to kind of give a check in and see what your advisor wants to say. But kind of us talking about meeting with your advisor, I guess the assumption is if a student's GPA does happen to fall below a 2.0 so whether it is their CSUSB GPA or their cumulative GPA, they're not automatically dismissed. 

Ed Mendoza  
No, not at all. We will continue to work with them as much as possible if we ever get to a dismissal. And dismissal to us doesn't mean nice knowing you have a great life, hopefully you succeed somewhere else. Dismissal to us means and let's take, let's, let's make the decision for you on taking a break, because if the hole keeps getting any deeper, it's going to be that much harder to get to a 2.0 later on. So the times that we have chosen to dismiss a student isn't because of one semester. It's because we've seen a pattern of consecutive semesters of that GPA just declining over and over. So we know something's happening, so we rather dismiss to not allow it to go any further down, because if it does, and it might make it really difficult to get to graduation, but if we ever dismiss it soon, I hope, and I always wish they all come and talk to us about it, because we will come up with a game plan. We will come up with a way to get back to CSUSB and get that GPA back up. It might be going to a community college first semester. It might be doing some withdrawals. If we're able to it, might be going through Open University, which is some a way to still take classes at CSUSB, but through a different registration method. So no, we, we, we will not dismiss students right away. We will. We want to work with them as much as possible, figure things out and and give them an opportunity to kind of bounce back and get that GPA back up. 

Matt Markin  
So generally speaking, let's talk about the kind of process. So every every term our office, the sua academic advising office, we're looking at students GPAs. We're reviewing their CSU, CSUSB, GPA, we're reviewing their cumulative GPA. If a student's a 2.0 or above in both of those GPAs, they're in what we call good standing. If they are not and one or both of those GPAs is below 2.0 that's what places them on academic notice. What's kind of the process from there that a student should know. 

Ed Mendoza  
So thank you for clarifying that too, Matt. So yes, if they're below 2.0 in the Cal State, San Bernardino or the cumulative GPA, that's when the academic notice. But I also want to add one more layer to this, if you are an EOP student, Educational Opportunity Program, if you are an EOP student, EOP takes the lead with academic notice for EOP students, for non EOP students, we'll take the lead, and we'll contact them and say, Hey, we noticed you're below 2.0 here's a link so you can set up an appointment with us, so we can discuss, we can come up with a game plan, a target to maybe reach this semester, so we can start improving your GPA. So usually we'll ask students to get a certain GPA for that following semester to show some improvement, and then at the end of the semester, we review again. But hopefully those students in that discussion is good enough to kind of change that trajectory of the GPA, and they can always follow up with us throughout the semester as well, and more than likely, we'll meet with them again when it's time to register and help them pick the right classes. Because circling back to this GPA sometimes is, am I in the right major? Am I taking the right classes, and even the the amount of units right? So I'm working 40 hours, but I still want to graduate in two to four years, so I want to keep taking 15 units. So the way I discuss the students, is it better to graduate in four years with a 2.5 or is it better to graduate in five years with a 3.5 if you had that choice? Or maybe we spread it out to summer to still graduate, so all those discussions will be had,but the process is for us to review and monitor, and we do that behind the scene, but then we reach out to you all students, to come in with me, with us, and in particular, with your academic advisor. Like I said, once again, if you're EOP, you meet with them, yeah, and we'll communicate mainly through email initially. 

Matt Markin  
And so that's just an another reason to continue checking your Cal State San Bernardino email.

Ed Mendoza  
I want to say this, you just brought up a good one. We send out emails, because that's one of the requirements we have to do as well. From that, from the executive order from the chat shop, where we need to make sure students are notified of their standing. But sometimes the way how we word something, and you guys all probably understand this, when you send someone a text message, are they reading it the way you meant for it when we send out emails, I hope it doesn't come off as you're in trouble, because it's nothing like that. We just want to notify your standing and we want to show some support there. So even even on dismissals, we try to put it in a way where said, Hey, that this is what's happening, but please come and see us. So I'm glad this podcast hopefully could cheer up some of that, because those emails aren't intended to be bad. They're tended to, hey, come talk to us.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, and I guess it's just to reiterate too. And you're you mentioned this already, but I think it's good just to mention it again. It's like, yeah, if you find yourself on academic notice, it does not mean that you're not good enough to be in college. Something happened along the way, and we're here to help you kind of maybe fix that or figure out some strategies to get back on track.

Ed Mendoza  
Yes, I agree. Thank you. They all belong here. They all got it. They all met the requirements to be admitted. They belong here. We just got to improve. We got to make some changes. And I always tell students, try to try some little changes. You don't have to change everything about you, just tweaking a little bit here, tidying a little here, and if it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, let's figure out what else I can do for it to work. 

Matt Markin  
Of course, one of the questions we get a lot is, I also have, I also received something from financial aid about something called saps, something called Satisfactory Academic Progress. Is that the same thing? So if I meet with the academic advisor because of academic notice, am I clearing up everything with SAP for financial aid?

Ed Mendoza  
Great question. And the answer is no, they are different and separate, but there is a correlation between the two. So academic knowledge, where our office is, in particular, just trying to help raise a GPA. Back to a 2.0 or higher, depending on the goals of the student. SAP stands for satisfactory academic progress. It's a federal regulation that all universities in the country must follow, and our financial aid office takes a lead on that. SAP looks at the progress of a student the way i i explain it, and I'm not sure this is the best way, but this is the way I explain it to students, but the federal government is willing to offer aid, grants, free money, or loans to students to help them get to graduation, because if they get to graduation, the mentality is more money, spend more money, pay more taxes, help the economy. The more students we have with a bachelor's degree, the more will help the economy in the long run. So what Satisfactory Academic Progress is looking at is that the student making progress to get to graduation, if they're not making progress to get to graduation, then the government starts questioning, should we keep giving this student financial aid? Should we keep giving them grants or loans if there's a chance that they're not going to get to graduation? So yes, if a student below 2.0 they may be dealing with that. If a student doesn't pass at least 70% of their courses for the term. They may be dealing with SAP. If a student has a lot of attempted units, more than what is needed to graduate, they may be dealing with SAP, but financial aid office will send their notification out to students about SAP. The one thing I would add about SAP, SAP is a process that we must do as a university and our financial aid office does a wonderful job of sending that a message out as early as possible for students to be aware of it so they can make a decision about the following term. But I do want students to know that if you ever get a sap notice that you failed SAP, there is a SAP Appeal, and we encourage all of you to submit a SAP Appeal to explain what happened, what's going to be different, and get another chance to keep receiving financial aid. Financial Aid isn't looking to take money away from students. They just want to make sure students are progressing, and as long as students start doing well, that financial aid will be there as long as they're still eligible based off income and family size, right? Great question. It is separate. Our office does not handle SAP for EOP students. EOP students, their academic notice and their SAP is done together within EOP for non EOP students, SAP is done separately. We can support we can help in any of those questions you have for SAP. There are a small percentage of students that have to submit a sap academic plan, and we can definitely help with that, because it does require an advisor to sign off on the courses taken. 

Matt Markin  
So as we wrap up any last tips that you have for students?

Ed Mendoza  
And this is and I say this knowing it's easier said than done. And I say that because I know who I was when I was 18, 19, 20, 21, and I don't need any help. And and that's the biggest thing. It's not to be embarrassed about it, not to be ashamed about it. Whenever something doesn't go the way we want it to go, it's okay to go talk to someone about it, and what can I do differently? Because if we don't, and it keeps happening over and over, then that makes it even worse in the long run. So asking for help, asking for resources, and I don't mean help, like I can't do this by myself, but I mean help in terms of, I'm just not aware of everything. Matt, you and I were students here before we know what is out there. We've been working here for a long time. We know what resources are out there for every single student. Now I'm expecting students to know every single thing I mean, so that's why we're here, and that's why we get paid. Our job is to be here and meet with students to give them all the advice we can give so they can get to graduation. So asking for help, finding a way to prioritize school, finding a way to keep it towards the top, not in a slip, because if it does, that's when the GPA kind of starts suffering. And then any skill that all of us need, even us as employees, is time management. Try new things. If a calendar on your wall is what works great, if it's alarms on your phone, that works great. What if it's having someone hold you accountable as a friend or something great, whatever that way is, to stay organized and time management, because I think that would help in the long run, and checking in with folks, checking in with each other. The other thing that I haven't mentioned yet, but it's, I think it's pretty important, is talking to your professors for if I didn't turn something in, or if I missed something, what's the worst that happened? Just ask the professor. Can I make this up? Ask the Professor, this is what happened. Are you able to work with me? Can we do something? The worst case, the professor says, No, at least that's what you already expected, right? So I want to change that expectation and tell you that these professors at CSU or CSUSB are wonderful, and they want to work with you. They were students themselves, and they know how life can get in the way at times. So they'll, they'll be willing to work with you, but reach out to them, and they'll help you out. And the last thing, I'll say this imposter syndrome thing that people have talked about, it, it's, it's real. And what that means is that do I belong, and I believe every one of our students belongs here, and they can all succeed. Some just might need a little extra help or guidance or or someone to count on. As you know, there's so many first generation students. So who do they normally go to to ask for that help? That's what we're here for. 

Matt Markin  
A lot of great tips. So thanks so much for being on the podcast again. 

Ed Mendoza  
No. Thank you, Matt.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai