A friend of mine sent me a link to an article the other day about a Ms. Jennifer Temple at Texas A&M who is suing her school for misadvisement.
Temple’s MAIN GRIPE: Being “advised” to fail 3 classes and then not being able to transfer to the University of Texas due to her poor grades.
The counselor “at fault,” according to Temple, advised her to fail 3 classes since Texas A&M will allow grade exclusion for up to 3 classes. Temple’s withdrawal from the courses would have meant losing health insurance (or something to that extent).
(GRADE EXCLUSION? First of all, what kind of inflated system is this? I am curious as to how many universities have similar policies. I know of… none.)
And here is a statement from her attorney <violin music playing in the background>:
“What is truly tragic about this case is that I have given the A&M administrators plenty of opportunity to correct their errors and do the right thing for my client,” West said. “Instead, they have stubbornly insisted they have done nothing wrong.“
Cry me a river.
The last time I checked, it wasn’t an academic counselor’s job or responsibility to advise students on the policies of OTHER UNIVERSITIES.
One of the things I try to emphasize most is that it is ALWAYS the student’s responsibility, whatever the decision is. I try to lay out the options and present consequences of certain actions, but it is ultimately up to the student to make the decision. If, in this case, it was not possible to drop below a certain number of credit hours and remain a full-time student, then I would assume (hopefully) that the advisor would have shared all of the options; if the student interpreted the best option to mean that she should fail 3 classes, then I guess that’s what we have to deal with. Kind of scary. Makes me want to reconsider professional liability insurance lest something like that happen to me…