Can we talk about the kids who struggled their freshman year?

[Anonymous]

my oldest was at harvard and freshman year was terrible. kids were weird, elbows out, NY private school kids out doing their own thing. sophomore year was good and then great.

my younger kid is hearing the same from some friends at home after first Thanksgiving, especially those who were at the dream school they worked so hard to get to.

everything is not "ruined". dropping the class was probably smart. try to stop looking back. regroup over the break and think about next semester and over xmas is when she should be thinking about next summer. socially, everything will improve. she won't be sick forever.

[Anonymous]

Did your DC suffer an injury that affected their sport at college? That can be very difficult to deal with since she went there for her sport and joined a team but is unable to play now. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Parents should remember that when kids move away for college lose their friends and family support systems so they struggle much more than they would if they still had their friends and families close by. They all think everyone is doing well except for them. Because thats what social media shows them..they feel alone.

[Anonymous]

It’s very common to struggle with this big of a transition. And no it’s not different than 30 years ago.

There’s an old saying that goes “if you take out a dozen eggs and drop one on the floor, do you just drop the rest of them because the first one broke?” No, you keep going and do your best to not break the other 11. A bad first semester does not mean all is lost, and there’s nothing wrong with her. Keep reminding her that she can do hard things, bring up times in the past that she struggled and persisted.

[Anonymous]

Plenty of people struggle. It teaches resilience and growth.

[Anonymous]

Both of my kids struggled in their freshman years—lots of tears and talk of coming home or transferring. One is a senior now, and the other is a sophomore. The sophomore is still trying to dig themselves out of the GPA hole they created, but is on an upward trajectory, has a ton of friends, and loves their classes. The senior is also doing well academically and socially. That first semester was especially brutal for both of them, and it was hard to be so far away from them while they struggled, but this experience has made them more resilient. The time flies by!

[Anonymous]

I transferred colleges because I hated the social life at my first one and the Honors College had poor support for my intended major. Got a 4.0 but my freshman year was very disappointing. It was the right decision to leave but my choice of college is still one of my biggest life failures.

Liked new college but withdrew from two writing requirement classes (in different semesters) because they were hard to handle due to weird syllabi and I wanted to protect my GPA. Still ended up being top senior in my major. I asked the departmental advisor how I could get that award having withdrawn from a class in my major. She said that "W's" aren't looked down on compared to "C's", "D's" and "F's". That people have lots of things going on and that "W's" are better than failing. I thought that was interesting. I guess the point was that it's better to know your limits and be proactive rather than fail. I'm not even sure I agree but that is an anecdote that I thought might be relevant to OP's child.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter struggled in their first year with anxiety and depression. She started strong, meeting lots of people and making friends but her anxiety kicked in hard. A radical increase in medication dosage exacerbated her issues. Friends left in droves. She lost weight she didn't have to lose. She was miserable.
The only bright spot, and it was a big one, was academics. Medication was balanced out better by Thanksgiving but, no fault of the school, that early experience was very attached in her mind to the university she now wanted to leave.
She decided to transfer. Put in applications in the spring and transferred the following fall.
She is now a senior, and while anxiety is part of her makeup, she is really really happy.

[Anonymous]

My son begged me not to pay for the spring semester tuition during Christmas break his freshman year. He was struggling big time. IMO so much of it was ego-based and we pretty much made him go back. He was preparing transfer apps early in the spring but never ended up sending them because something clicked that March/April. He is about to graduate from the school he was begging not to go back to and recently told me he wishes he could go back to being a freshman because he loved his school so much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD has had a run of terrible luck in her 1st semester at college (super sick, injuries etc) that led her to need to withdraw from 1 class to protect her GPA on the advice of her advisor. We feel she is on a good track to recover next semester.

But she’s really down on herself. She says all of the examples I’ve shared of people who had a hard time and recovered (dad, grandfather, multiple cousins) are all from the olden days. And I just don’t understand how ruined everything is for her now.

We recognize this is the anxiety talking. And she’ll be checking in with her therapist while she’s home.

DD specifically called out DCUM (as that mom site) and said that other kids don’t have these same issues because they don’t talk about it there.

So can other’s share stories of their kids who struggled and recovered? It might help us all to recognize how things can get bad and turn out alright in the end.

Neighbor's son hated Brown, did not do well initial semester as a potential hard sciences major, considered transferring, stuck it out switched to something they enjoyed and are thriving sophomore year.
Another one changed out of premed at William&Mary and graduates prelaw this spring, great LSAT, excited about the future.
Freshman year is bumpy for many.

[Anonymous]

My DD struggled with anxiety and depression. Took a class P/F in order to protect what at the time was a very average gpa. She had a 3.0 at the end of freshman year. That probably doesn’t sound horrible to some dcum moms, but this was a high performing HS kid who completed the IBDP. She was thinking of transferring up until the start of sophomore year which means she would have transferred either spring sophomore year or fall junior year. It was a mess. Long story short she pulled it together, focused on her health and building new relationships, focused on her schoolwork, strung together a couple 4.0 semesters. She graduated cum laude. Your DD can do hard things OP. Tell her that!

[Anonymous]

My dd struggled first year. Was a straight a student going in and finished first semester with a 3.24 which dropped to 2.8 by end of the second semester. She was sick almost the entire year and just really was in the wrong major and didn’t know how to study properly since it had come so easily prior to college. Got diagnosed with ADHD after that year and was able to pull it all back up, graduating this year with a 3.5 cumulative gpa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What did you expect? They’ve been under pressure their whole lives so it shouldn’t surprise you that they feel stressed, lost, etc. People on these forums think that kids who don’t run around the hamster wheel of AP courses galore, a million arcs, etc are losers.

My kid did one EC in HS (met maybe once a month), had a summer job, took two APs and got in everywhere he applied (and got great merit aid everywhere). He wasn’t stressed out and neither were his friends. He loves college and got a PT job because he had so much free time. His gpa is maybe 3.2 or somewhere there bouts. A few summer internships interviews under his belt. Nothing fancy but he expects one offer by January.

Ok...great your kid found their limit. But you do realize that there are plenty of kids at Ivies and other elites that were not overly stressed with 10+ APs, all the extras, top of HS, now having 3.9+ at ivies in difficult majors, with free time for ECs, part time jobs, TA, and the rest? Many top kids are just that, top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD has had a run of terrible luck in her 1st semester at college (super sick, injuries etc) that led her to need to withdraw from 1 class to protect her GPA on the advice of her advisor. We feel she is on a good track to recover next semester.

But she’s really down on herself. She says all of the examples I’ve shared of people who had a hard time and recovered (dad, grandfather, multiple cousins) are all from the olden days. And I just don’t understand how ruined everything is for her now.

We recognize this is the anxiety talking. And she’ll be checking in with her therapist while she’s home.

DD specifically called out DCUM (as that mom site) and said that other kids don’t have these same issues because they don’t talk about it there.

So can other’s share stories of their kids who struggled and recovered? It might help us all to recognize how things can get bad and turn out alright in the end.

My daughter struggled first semester of college. Got less than a 3.0, had to repeat a class. This was at a place where her test scores and GPA put her above the 75%. She is very smart, but didn’t have to do much in MCPS to get good grades so she never learned study skills. That was a wake up call for her. She graduated on-time this year (summa cum laude) and is currently in graduate school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What did you expect? They’ve been under pressure their whole lives so it shouldn’t surprise you that they feel stressed, lost, etc. People on these forums think that kids who don’t run around the hamster wheel of AP courses galore, a million arcs, etc are losers.

My kid did one EC in HS (met maybe once a month), had a summer job, took two APs and got in everywhere he applied (and got great merit aid everywhere). He wasn’t stressed out and neither were his friends. He loves college and got a PT job because he had so much free time. His gpa is maybe 3.2 or somewhere there bouts. A few summer internships interviews under his belt. Nothing fancy but he expects one offer by January.

Ok...great your kid found their limit. But you do realize that there are plenty of kids at Ivies and other elites that were not overly stressed with 10+ APs, all the extras, top of HS, now having 3.9+ at ivies in difficult majors, with free time for ECs, part time jobs, TA, and the rest? Many top kids are just that, top.

So, bottom half of class?