First semester freshman grades - 2.0

[Anonymous]

Definitely don't take the money or punish her. She sounds like a great kid and this is a huge adjustment. I have a college freshman who was belatedly assessed as ADHD and he is not accessing any accommodations. So far it's working out okay but he's had a few near misses and still hasn't taken finals. He also was MCPS and midterms and finals are a completely new experience. If I were you, I'd use the first semester as a forcing mechanism to work out a game plan going forward that will enable her to do her best. It's a tough lesson but in the long run it could be good for her journey to being a successful adult. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Local public high schools don’t have final exams? That is setting the students up for a tough road in college. It sounds like the high schools need to do more study skills preparation. The colleges provide resources, but I imagine it wouldn’t be on the radar of a student if it was something new to them.

[Anonymous]

Is this engineering with weed out classes or something else?

[Anonymous]

Montgomery County schools eliminated final exams years ago.

[Anonymous]

I agree that this is an unusually kind DCUM thread -- nice job, everyone!

Scooping ice cream for two years shows you that she knows how to work hard. I recommend everything above -- REALLY trying to get her to seek support, sway her toward easy classes, etc. Has she met her advisor? Are they helpful? (Sometimes they're not at these big schools.)

Hang in there!

[Anonymous]

1.5 first semester. 4.0 since. Just needed a semester to figure it out and get past having COVID.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does she have $9k in her bank account? Being mosey but that's a lot of money!

I was gonna say my DD doesn’t even have $900 in her bank account lol

My kid didn't have $200 in his account (we could not give any money) and had to work as a TA for money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does she have $9k in her bank account? Being mosey but that's a lot of money!

My daughter who had been working since she was 11 had $13K when she went into college by saving 70% most of the time when she got paid.

As I told her when she left for college, read your syllabus and know all test and final dates.

Also more importantly to remember that “C’s get degrees!”

[Anonymous]

It is common but unfortunate when kids don't take advantage of college resources (such as TA meetings, faculty office hours, the writing center, study groups, review sessions, and accommodations if qualified). Perhaps you can get your daughter to meet with the staff at the Disability Services Center to discuss what is going on. They have undoubtedly seen it before.

I told my DD that those resources are part of what we are paying for, so if she wants to be a smart consumer she should took full advantage of them. Also, if you ever want to switch advisors or get letters of recommendations, you will make more of an impression on the professor if you have had one-on-one discussions with them.

I am glad that she did not fail out. This may have taught her that she needs to study more or attend all classes or sleep more or use the school's resources. I agree that since she does seem to care, you need to explore solutions with her kindly. I am not sure I would take money from her. Perhaps just say if this continues, you may ultimately do that or ask her to take out loans. But right now see if it was an adjustment issue and she can self-correct (with support and introspection).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son had a 1.8 2nd semester but a 2.5 1st so the year ended up 2.1 at a T30 school.

He graduated last year and said to me, you never mentioned my 1.8 to me that summer after freshman year, why?

I guess I just knew you knew you had to fix it or the next year you’d be coming home to go to a state school and either you’d fix it or you wouldn’t and there was nothing I could do to make that happen.

I can’t promise you she will fix it.

My youngest got a sub 3.0 and was kicked out of the business school so he changed to communication and had to either sink or swim. We did discuss what would be options for a new major. He was sad.

I don’t advocate for coming down hard.

The natural consequence are pretty apparent.

Do you think your child might have done better (felt more confident/competent) at a lower ranked school?

I wonder this if parents pull out every stop (test prep, consultants, etc) to get them into a school that is a reach.

[Anonymous]

I got a 2.07 my first semester, and ended up going to grad school for physics.

If she pulls it all together, it’s not the end of the world. But she needs to change some things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son had a 1.8 2nd semester but a 2.5 1st so the year ended up 2.1 at a T30 school.

He graduated last year and said to me, you never mentioned my 1.8 to me that summer after freshman year, why?

I guess I just knew you knew you had to fix it or the next year you’d be coming home to go to a state school and either you’d fix it or you wouldn’t and there was nothing I could do to make that happen.

I can’t promise you she will fix it.

My youngest got a sub 3.0 and was kicked out of the business school so he changed to communication and had to either sink or swim. We did discuss what would be options for a new major. He was sad.

I don’t advocate for coming down hard.

The natural consequence are pretty apparent.

Do you think your child might have done better (felt more confident/competent) at a lower ranked school?

I wonder this if parents pull out every stop (test prep, consultants, etc) to get them into a school that is a reach.

Definitely not. The school was a good fit her. It takes a wide range of kids, a large public out of state university. Her test scores were slightly above the 75th percentile, GPA perfectly within the 25-75. A target school, and perhaps even borderline safety school. She got into “better” schools.
I agree that parents sometimes pull out all the stops to get their kids into a higher rank school. That is not us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If only other parents would share that their kids struggle after getting GPAs in HS above 4.0, maybe parents would wake up and smell the coffee. The HS grades are based on practices that don’t exist in college. I’m talking about about retakes. If your kid’s high grades come from retakes, make sure you understand that this won’t be happening in college. Plus most college classes have midterms and finals. If your kid has never had them, they will need to seek out help to learn how to study. Public schools are not really preparing kids for college. They just like to brag about their high graduation rate.

This is very important for them to understand. There may be the odd instructor who allows retakes/resubmissions (I am an adjunct at a regional university and I allow them in the intro class I teach and I know of a handful of others at a nearby T20 school who do), but this practice is definitely not the norm. It can be a rude awakening for students who are coming from high schools where this is a standard practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did she go to a rigorous high school?

If she went to a public high school, this may not be her fault.

I remember the valedictorian at Wilson, or maybe he was salutatorian, wine to a top ten university. He was super smart and driven but got bad grades freshman year. He just wasn’t adequately prepared by his high school.

It would be really inappropriate to send her to a high school thwt didn’t prepare her for college and then get mad at her for performing poorly her first semester.

GO away TROLL

I’m not a troll. He finished first or second in his class at Wilson, is now a successful person, but did poorly his first year at Duke. Despite working hard in high school. Wilson didn’t prepare him well.

Plenty of people attend Public HS and do well in college. In fact, majority of students attend public high schools (or private religious schools that are not elite HS).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Montgomery County schools eliminated final exams years ago.

What??? No finals and a 5.0 grading scale. What a joke.