What to do When Your Child is Placed on Academic Probation or Facing Disciplinary Action: Advice From University Deans
A few years ago, I received a phone call from a parent of a college student facing disciplinary action. Their child had just returned to college for their sophomore year and had been charged with a violation of the school's dorm alcohol policy. The charges arose when the new residents of their child's freshman dorm room found a collection of empty liquor bottles—dated and labeled with their child’s name!—hidden in the ceiling's removable panels, where their child had stashed them the year prior.
Rather than disputing technicalities, I encouraged the parent to focus on their child’s well-being and recommended an honest approach with college administrators. The student took my advice, resulting in a positive outcome: required participation in an alcohol education program and a reflection on the experience and lessons learned.
If you're the parent of a college student facing academic sanctions such as academic probation or required withdrawal, disciplinary sanctions, or other interruptions to their education, you might be panicking about what to do next.
Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place.
At Lantern College Counseling, our team has over 60 years of experience supporting college students in managing academic crises as deans at Harvard University, Wellesley College, and Tufts University.
Beyond one-on-one student support, we run our institutions' academic review and standing processes. Through these experiences, we know exactly how colleges and universities work and how to best navigate their processes and policies. At Lantern, we bring this expertise to support students enrolled at a wide range of colleges and universities.
Parents, if your college student is experiencing serious challenges or disruptions to their education, we are the experts with the insider's view you want in your corner. Learn more about our academic crisis management services.
We can help your child move through challenges to success.
My child has been placed on academic probation or is facing disciplinary action! What should I do?
When you learn that your child has been issued an academic standing sanction, such as being placed on academic probation or required academic withdrawal, or is charged with violating community standards, such as academic integrity, ethics, or student conduct, and facing disciplinary action, of course, you will worry and have your own response to the circumstances. However, things will go best if you can put yourself aside, center and focus on your child, and suspend judgment.
We recommend the following approach:
Assess the situation
Identify institution support resources for your family
Consider professional guidance
Evaluate options and move forward with strength
Assess the situation
When you learn that your child is navigating a serious challenge in college, such as failing classes or being caught violating a school’s academic integrity or substance use policy, after expressing empathy for your student’s distress, pause and ensure you fully understand what is going on.
Understand what happened and why
Open a non-judgmental conversation with your child so you can get the facts about what they are facing. If your child does not want to discuss the details with you, get them connected to someone trusted and impartial that they may confide in, such as a friend, family member, or professional.
It will be helpful to see the precise email or communication your child received regarding the academic or disciplinary action, rather than hearing a summarized version. It will then be easier to formulate the questions you may have for your student’s dean or adviser, or for the relevant university office.
Beyond understanding the precise circumstances, it will be helpful to explore the root causes of your child’s difficulties. Ask them what’s going on academically, socially, and emotionally. Are they struggling with coursework, time management, mental health, or something else? Gaining such insights is critical to knowing how to move forward positively.
Understand institutional approach and academic sanction and disciplinary action policies and processes
Educate yourself about the institution, its policies, and processes. Examine the institution's published materials to be sure you know what to expect and understand the critical steps, deadlines, and requirements.
Remember, as illustrated through the earlier anecdote about the student charged with violating the school's dorm alcohol policy, your child is navigating a situation at an educational institution, not a court of law. The mission of colleges and universities is education. As such, support for learning is central to what you can expect from an institution's response. Your student's advisers will encourage them to reflect on and learn from the circumstances so that underlying issues are addressed and they can move forward in their college years more positively. Often, this learning process takes time and effort on the student's part, and parents can play a crucial role in supporting their child in their self-reflection.
Likewise, students facing academic standing sanctions, such as academic probation and required academic withdrawal, may be asked to provide their perspectives to the academic review board, academic standing committee, or other similar body. In part, such a statement helps the committee members understand the student’s experience so they can respond fairly. However, the statement is also an important learning step as it encourages students to reflect on their challenges, the factors that contributed to them, and how to mitigate or address them in the future. The committee’s response typically includes recommendations to help students plan for a different academic experience in subsequent semesters.
We are university deans with over 60 years of experience supporting college students and their families.
Identify institutional support resources for your family
Every campus has a wealth of free resources available to its students. First points of contact for your child will likely be their dean, academic adviser, or residence hall director/resident adviser, depending on their institutional setting. Additional important support services in moments of crisis include*:
Academic resource and support center (includes tutoring and academic coaching services)
Academic advising
Preprofessional advising (prehealth, prelaw)
The Dean of Students office
Study Abroad/Global Education
Accessibility support
Residential Life Leadership (professional staff members and student leaders)
Cultural and identity centers
Health services (physical and mental health)
Religious and spiritual life
Office of Equal Opportunity
* These offices are sometimes named different things on different campuses.
The academic resource and support center, academic advising, and accessibility support services are all partners for students struggling with their course work.
Students facing academic integrity or disciplinary charges may find help at the Dean of Students office, the academic resource and support center, preprofessional advising, and academic advising offices.
If your child is experiencing mental or physical health issues, essential campus partners may include health services, the Dean of Students office, academic advising, religious and spiritual life, accessibility support services, and others.
Our academic crisis management counselors are deans and experts on supporting college students.
Consider professional guidance
Yes, your family should absolutely utilize the institutional support available to you. However, sometimes the resources available are not sufficient to meet your child’s needs. And, some problems are too “big” for your family to handle alone. In such cases, it may make sense for you to consider professional guidance outside of the university or college – someone unconflicted by institutional responsibilities and with only your child’s interests in mind. Examples include a college success coach, therapist, learning specialist, specialized medical support*, or an academic crisis management expert, like Lantern’s academic crisis management counselors.
Lantern’s specialties include:
Recovery from academic difficulty and academic standing sanctions (academic alert, academic probation, academic withdrawal)
Managing academic interruptions due to medical issues, life circumstances, or other emergency
Guidance about taking a leave of absence
Navigating a return from a leave of absence from the institution (return process, transition back to success)
Expert support for academic integrity or disciplinary challenges
Counsel at a moment of personal or academic transition and reevaluation of college direction (for instance, change of major)
Guidance about possible transfer to another institution (learn more)
* If your child has experienced a health crisis, they will need to get substantive medical care before returning to campus. Institutions will want to know that the student is well enough to return to school, so it will be important to keep up with professional therapy or medical treatment so that your student’s care providers can (with releases) communicate with the institution about their health.
Our counselors have decades of experience as university deans.
Evaluate options and move forward with strength
Once you fully understand the circumstances and have identified possible paths forward, help your child evaluate the options. Be there for and encourage them but let them take the lead in finding solutions. Assist them in creating a concrete action plan for moving forward with strength.
Throughout, we recommend you maintain perspective and adopt a growth mindset. Mistakes are usually not catastrophic and can be a powerful opportunity to learn. Encourage your child to reflect on their situation so they can speak to it meaningfully in the future, should they ever need to. When we work with students, we always tell them that what matters more than what happened is what they say about what happened: what they learned and how they have applied that positively.
We can help your child move forward from an academic crisis with strength.