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[quote=Anonymous]College prof here.  This isn't actually about college at all.  This is about a HS student who is currently lodged somewhere between unrealistic and self-punishing.

No student who is actively failing something "likes the challenge": she's insisting on staying in for some reason that maybe she doesn't even know.

It might be a sense of identity based on previous academic performance ("I'm not the kind of kid who fails," or "I'm not the kind of kid who quits").  It might be inflexible or entrenched old ideas about her future ("I've always wanted to be an engineer / a physicist / a computer scientist") and not knowing who she is if those ideas are changing, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.  It might be embarrassment, even on the very simple level of not wanting to leave or disappoint a kind teacher.  It might be sheer denial.  It might be a sense of being overwhelmed or trapped because of not understanding what the alternatives would be or how they would work.  It might be a consuming secret belief that she has already essentially failed and now needs to repay the cosmos by facing the proverbial music.

Whatever it is, the motivation needs to be addressed first.  Then the alternatives to failing the course.  Then the successes that her future will doubtless hold when she is back on track.  Then the college applications.  A bad grade, a bad semester, a bad year, a bad stretch - there are so, so many schools that are willing and able to look past that and welcome kids who are in the process of building a better record.  Don't stress about the schools.  Figure out the kid.[/quote]

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