Do you ask to see midterm grades when your kids come home for Thanksgiving break?

[Anonymous]

So if the kid gets carried away with freedom Freshman and grades slipping. You are paying. Financial aid won't cover repeats. Then what? By sophomore year they would be settled into the routine. Freshman year though ???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had three go through college and never asked grades. Only info I ever got was when any of them happily announced Deans Lists or financial awards because success.

We/I believe that once we decided to have children we wanted to give them every opportunity we could and then trust them to be responsible with their decisions.

We paid majority of tuition for our kids education-borrow what we needed, had them get (is it Stafford?) loans. As we saw college as very much one of their first adult decisions we did not choose the colleges for them, require specific majors. All 3 graduated in 4 years. Two went on for advanced degrees. One borrowed for an MBA (3 years out she told me she’s almost done with loans as she first concentrated on maximizing money for a house); other got full ride for law degree though borrowed some for living expenses.

Sounds like your kids didn’t need you to push. Some do.

[Anonymous]

If I am paying for it - F yeah.

I watched my nephew drop out and my sister was clueless the entire year letting him be on his own. 45K down the drain and he is back at home going to community college. This was a straight A student in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had three go through college and never asked grades. Only info I ever got was when any of them happily announced Deans Lists or financial awards because success.

We/I believe that once we decided to have children we wanted to give them every opportunity we could and then trust them to be responsible with their decisions.

We paid majority of tuition for our kids education-borrow what we needed, had them get (is it Stafford?) loans. As we saw college as very much one of their first adult decisions we did not choose the colleges for them, require specific majors. All 3 graduated in 4 years. Two went on for advanced degrees. One borrowed for an MBA (3 years out she told me she’s almost done with loans as she first concentrated on maximizing money for a house); other got full ride for law degree though borrowed some for living expenses.

Sounds like your kids didn’t need you to push. Some do.

Then it doesn’t sound like they are ready for college.

[Anonymous]

We have two recent college grads and a current college student (plus one still in HS). We've never asked to see midterm grades, and have never encountered any problems as a result, but here's another perspective from a NYT piece by two authors from this area, neuropsychologist Bill Stixrudd and test prep exec Ned Johnson:

"If you have a student who has started college, the struggle may be evident in midterm grades. Many parents, however, don’t see those grades. We often recommend that parents — particularly those of vulnerable students — make signing the grade release a prerequisite of funding college. After all, you wouldn’t invest in a company without being able to see its quarterly earnings."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/well/family/when-a-college-student-comes-home-to-stay.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I am paying for it - F yeah.

I watched my nephew drop out and my sister was clueless the entire year letting him be on his own. 45K down the drain and he is back at home going to community college. This was a straight A student in high school.

That's shocking. What were nephew's ACT/SAT score & AP exam scores? A grades are a dime a dozen; inflated grades bamboozle a lot of parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So if the kid gets carried away with freedom Freshman and grades slipping. You are paying. Financial aid won't cover repeats. Then what? By sophomore year they would be settled into the routine. Freshman year though ???

My kid isn't on FA, but he does have a merit scholarship which requires that he maintain a certain GPA. He understands that if he loses the scholarship due to bad grades, he cannot stay at his school and will need to transfer elsewhere (we will pay what we are paying, or less, but not more) or leave for a Plan B.

He loves his school, so it has not been an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I am paying for it - F yeah.

I watched my nephew drop out and my sister was clueless the entire year letting him be on his own. 45K down the drain and he is back at home going to community college. This was a straight A student in high school.

That's shocking. What were nephew's ACT/SAT score & AP exam scores? A grades are a dime a dozen; inflated grades bamboozle a lot of parents.

Stop. Lots of kids do poorly the first year for a variety of reasons: depression, being overwhelmed, being sway from home, different learning curve. SAT scores do not indicate what students will be able to handle the pressures off college.

Sister could have been clueless or not, and nephew still could have failed out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I am paying for it - F yeah.

I watched my nephew drop out and my sister was clueless the entire year letting him be on his own. 45K down the drain and he is back at home going to community college. This was a straight A student in high school.

That's shocking. What were nephew's ACT/SAT score & AP exam scores? A grades are a dime a dozen; inflated grades bamboozle a lot of parents.

Stop. Lots of kids do poorly the first year for a variety of reasons: depression, being overwhelmed, being sway from home, different learning curve. SAT scores do not indicate what students will be able to handle the pressures off college.

Sister could have been clueless or not, and nephew still could have failed out.

SAT tells a clearer picture about a kid’s college readiness. Grades are bull.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If I am paying for it - F yeah.

I watched my nephew drop out and my sister was clueless the entire year letting him be on his own. 45K down the drain and he is back at home going to community college. This was a straight A student in high school.

That's shocking. What were nephew's ACT/SAT score & AP exam scores? A grades are a dime a dozen; inflated grades bamboozle a lot of parents.

Stop. Lots of kids do poorly the first year for a variety of reasons: depression, being overwhelmed, being sway from home, different learning curve. SAT scores do not indicate what students will be able to handle the pressures off college.

Sister could have been clueless or not, and nephew still could have failed out.

SAT tells a clearer picture about a kid’s college readiness. Grades are bull.

You are really arguing that SATs tell you something about a kid's emotional maturity and readiness for college? You clearly do not teach and advise at the University level like I do..

My experience is that, for the most part, the kids who fail out are the ones who've had parents micromanaging them since they were infants and now, left to their own devices, have no coping skills. Doesn't matter how high their SATs or how great or low their grades are

[Anonymous]

I don't ask about midterm grades because final grades are curved. The only way they have of judging where they may stand before that is via general discussion among classmates. We did make a habit of weekly FaceTime calls so we had an idea of how he was doing generally. You can tell a lot by just looking at their expressions as they chat about what's going on. Even more by what they don't talk about. Thanksgiving and winter break are all about home. I wouldn't want to think about work at those times, why would he?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Or do you wait for end of the semester over December holiday break?

Our Approach is “No midterm grades, no turkey for you!”

[Anonymous]

His coaches are on it.

[Anonymous]

It will be many years before my child goes off to college, but I would definitely ask to see the midterm grades. I care and I would be curious to know... and yes, also because I am paying for it. It's no different than my boss evaluating my work because s/he is paying my salary. This is how life works. Don't be a wus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait for the semester. Actually, I wait for DC to tell me, and that’s when she does.

Midterm grades usually represent less than 1/2 the work reflected in the final and are never computed by the prof. So not reliable/meaningful.

+1 I'm a university prof and the formal grades in the gradebook wouldn't tell you very much about final semester grades at this point. At the end of the term, they get 25% participation grade (they've gotten subjective feedback at this point but don't know their 'score'), final exam (25%) and final paper (25%).

If you are concerned, you can ask your kid if they are feeling okay about their classes. Anything worrying them. Maybe encourage them to (on their own) make a plan for finishing the last few weeks, which can be stressful and jam-packed. (In these conversations, you might take note of their stress level as much as their specific answers to how they are doing.) Encourage them to attend class (honestly, the kids with lots of absences tend to be surprised with low grades at the end of the term) and not leave term papers til the week before it is due. Maybe give them a chance to lower your expectations if they know a class isn't going so well.