freshman woes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More specifics please

Did they have a hard time socially or grades or both?

Do they want to go back?

If it’s grades Cs get degrees they go back you encourage

If they don’t want to go back then the option is community college period

NP and that's not how it works in my world. I'm not paying $45,000 a semester for Cs because DC is too tired/ busy/ distracted/ bored etc to go to class.

NP and wow, you are a peach. What are you paying all that money for? I want my kid to have a healthy, productive and joyful life where they can support themself. I do not pretend to know what path that will take. I also want them to work hard and they always have. If, however, they were struggling (and struggling can look a lot like tired/busy/distracted/bored) my first response would not be I am not paying for that. I would rather my kid have a degree with Cs than no degree. My undergrad would not have impressed you but my ultimate career would impress many (probably not you but I don’t really care).

In any event, the cost of dropping out can be very high, I would rather the degree even with poor grades.

I would rather they go to a more reasonably priced school if they are not going to work to full potential at an elite, costly one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More specifics please

Did they have a hard time socially or grades or both?

Do they want to go back?

If it’s grades Cs get degrees they go back you encourage

If they don’t want to go back then the option is community college period

NP and that's not how it works in my world. I'm not paying $45,000 a semester for Cs because DC is too tired/ busy/ distracted/ bored etc to go to class.

So you don't give them another chance? Pretty harsh

[Anonymous]

Encourage them to finish out the year and then reevaluate. Tell them to view second semester as a fresh start.

[Anonymous]

OP, it sounds like your child is non-binary. Maybe the struggles have to do with not feeling accepted, struggling to find their people, etc. Maybe the school isn’t the right fit? Are there roommate issues?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Encourage them to finish out the year and then reevaluate. Tell them to view second semester as a fresh start.

This. Many many kids find college to be stressful, not fun. This is especially common 1st year. And parents should visit DC at school on a few weekends during the Spring. Facetime and telephone are not enough to evaluate how they really are feeling and doing. I think DC would benefit from a boost in emotional support. Send a care package with favorite snacks now and then too.

If you are religious, then ask the appropriate campus pastor / priest / rabbi to reach out. Most campus pastors have experience dealing with students having adjustment issues. They also can be a sounding board who is neither a school employee nor parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, it sounds like your child is non-binary. Maybe the struggles have to do with not feeling accepted, struggling to find their people, etc. Maybe the school isn’t the right fit? Are there roommate issues?

Oh for Pete's sake. What a foolish statement.

It sounds like OP is being cryptic and doesn't want us to bias our responses by projecting our own "sons" or "daughters" on the situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More specifics please

Did they have a hard time socially or grades or both?

Do they want to go back?

If it’s grades Cs get degrees they go back you encourage

If they don’t want to go back then the option is community college period

NP and that's not how it works in my world. I'm not paying $45,000 a semester for Cs because DC is too tired/ busy/ distracted/ bored etc to go to class.

So you don't give them another chance? Pretty harsh

Sophomore year is second chance. If grades don't come up, State U it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

OP here. All good questions.

They said they made some friends.
Grades were not good and they admitted attendance was an issue.
They said they want to go back but also said they don't know if they want to go back.
I know that this will be an ongoing conversation until second semester starts mid-January and I know they have to decide and commit or decide to stay home and take classes here.

Why was attendance an issue? What steps did they take to address it? If they haven’t thought about or taken concrete steps to improve their situation, what would be different either returning second semester or if they came home to take classes here?

I’ve known a few people to turn things around after a rough start - sometimes it’s the parents pulling financial support that motivates the change, sometimes they needed to transfer to a school closer to home or a smaller environment where professors would know that you missed class and it’s obvious if you didn’t do homework, sometimes they needed to address health issues (mental or physical health) but key to all of this was the person pinpointing what they needed and being able to advocate for themselves when they needed help before it became an even larger issue.

[Anonymous]

OP again. If they don't go back I think the options are comm college classes or full time employment

Horrible options. Horrible unless the student, themself, is driving this.

[Anonymous]

How do you know attendance was an issue? How do you know this? I'm thinking you know too much.

[Anonymous]

OP -are you sure they already haven’t been asked to leave? This happened to a cousin -she was told to leave her Slav because of grades in a foreign language and for failure to attend school. She was given a letter outlining the terms under which she could return. Her parents weren’t told (FERPA) and the kid moved out of the dorm in with friends and pretended to her parents that she was still attending. Her parents would have never found out except that someone opened a letter from the college mailed to her home (where she was supposed to be).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP -are you sure they already haven’t been asked to leave? This happened to a cousin -she was told to leave her Slav because of grades in a foreign language and for failure to attend school. She was given a letter outlining the terms under which she could return. Her parents weren’t told (FERPA) and the kid moved out of the dorm in with friends and pretended to her parents that she was still attending. Her parents would have never found out except that someone opened a letter from the college mailed to her home (where she was supposed to be).

Did the parents pay for college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you know attendance was an issue? How do you know this? I'm thinking you know too much.

Some kids actually tell their parents things you know. Perhaps OP questioned the low grades and *gasp* her kid honestly admitted to skipping classes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP -are you sure they already haven’t been asked to leave? This happened to a cousin -she was told to leave her Slav because of grades in a foreign language and for failure to attend school. She was given a letter outlining the terms under which she could return. Her parents weren’t told (FERPA) and the kid moved out of the dorm in with friends and pretended to her parents that she was still attending. Her parents would have never found out except that someone opened a letter from the college mailed to her home (where she was supposed to be).

Did the parents pay for college?

Doesn’t matter under FERPA. Colleges don’t want to deal with parents. That’s why both of mine signed the FERPA waiver. And yes parents were paying for everything and spending money not knowing she was living now in an off campus apartment doing nothing

[Anonymous]

Tell him to join a FRAT