With the fall semester quickly approaching, many incoming freshmen are excited to have a fresh start to prove themselves academically and socially. Every year, however, a portion of freshmen are expected to fall short of the grades LSU academic professionals would hope to see. “Right around 25 percent of freshmen do this,” said Andrew Halphen, manager of transfer services of undergraduate admissions. “They perhaps didn’t make the transition from high school to college. . .they may have went from a small school setting to a large school and just weren’t able to handle the environment change.”A student who makes poor grades his or her first year in college while on some sort of financial aid may also encounter financial issues.”Obviously they have to be able to maintain a certain GPA to be able to qualify for money [the following year],” Halphen said. “If you’re not doing well in school, we don’t want you to be spending money and wasting your time on your academics when you need to sit out, refocus and come back,” Halphen said. “We don’t want to set you up to keep on putting money into something if you keep throwing it away.”Amy Marix, associate director of the student aid division of undergraduate admissions, said students receiving financial aid are required to maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) each year. “If students do poorly, they may not meet SAP and will have to appeal to receive their financial aid,” Marix said. “This is for federal grants, loans and workstudy.”Steven Johnson, biology sophomore, said his academic performance was not up to par his first year at LSU.”Being responsible for myself brought on lots of other responsibilities, which stressed me out even more,” Johnson said. Johnson said extracurricular activities, like Tiger Band, took up a lot of his time with only a one hour class credit for about six hours of work each week. “At midterm I had all C’s, and I knew at this rate they were gonna be D’s,” Johnson said.To try to save his grades, Johnson said he joined study groups, went to summer school and went to the Center for Academic Success and spoke to a counselor. Johnson said he was able to earn two A’s and two B’s in summer school and significantly improved his GPA.Although Johnson said he lost TOPS within his first year at LSU, he has hopes to reapply after a few years of obtaining a high enough GPA.”As for future freshmen, hit the ground running and try to build a network of tools and people together that can help you with your classes, even possibly older students who have been in your shoes,” said Johnson. “Stay healthy and sleep well.”—–Contact Jennifer Raines at [email protected]