Anonymous wrote:It's not a given that kids show their parent their grades? Oh my! Let me make my 11th grader know now what I'm expecting of her when she enters college.

Kids, probably. But except for the rare freshman who is 17, college students are adults. If parents are paying, I suppose it might make some sense to share semester grades, but personally I view paying for college as an investment in my child and not buying either an expectation of certain grades (some classes are hard enough that a C is respectable, whereas in others you practically have to try to sabotage yourself in order to get less than an A) or any control over them. We just let the kids know that we have X amount to pay for their higher education and that after that amount was exhausted they would be on their own and expected to support themselves, barring serious extenuating circumstances.

I had a full ride merit scholarship to cover undergrad (tuition, fees, room & board, plus a few hundred dollars extra per quarter for miscellaneous expenses) and my dad still demanded not only to know my grades on a weekly basis & after every major assignment, but he also expected final say over my major and choice of classes. It was a decidedly unpleasant dynamic, so I made sure to do things very differently with my own kids. 1 has graduated college, one college senior, and my 13 year old has yet to even think about university.

It's not a given that kids show their parent their grades? Oh my! Let me make my 11th grader know now what I'm expecting of her when she enters college.

Now I am going to brag. My DS got straight As his first quarter at a difficult college. He called me as he learned each grade

I'm laughing at this post because here I am right now texting my son to to find out about his grades!!
Yes! By all means ask her. You should be interested in her grades and her overall well-being. Because she is a college student hasn't stopped you from being her mother or caring about her performance in school.
.... FYI, he just texted back. He got 78% in Business Fundamentals and 84% Organizational Behaviour. awaiting Marketing & MicroEconomics.

sitting with the course catalog ticking off courses

oh my, I just read this. I am guilty of this but I didn't care if they took longer than 4 years to graduate. DO NOT depend on the college, necessarily, to provide perfect guidance. In addition, I think parents studying the course catalog BEFORE the student picks a college in the first place, is essential and few parents bother. Parents send their kid off to college demanding that they graduate in 4 years, with certain grades, and blah blah blah, and haven't done the minimum as parents IMHO, to learn if the college is a good academic fit.

Parents ~ if you are going to be that worried, know their password. Especially from the beginning, as at that time, lots of administrative chores are being done that require your attention. Many students go through 4 yrs of college without ever changing their password - - so it's right there for you. If you can't help yourself. I think looking a couple times during the fours years, if you had real concerns, is not reprehensible - again if you had true, serious concerns.

My parents would never have thought to ask or make conditions.

In college, though, I simply told them. I got excellent grades but i would have told them otherwise

Forcing a college kid to share their grades? You people have major control issues and really ought to grow up.

I am paying for the damn thing since her highness wanted to go to an out-of-state school, so I better see the grades and they better be B and up.

I honestly don't remember whether my parents knew my college grades and, if so, how. It was a complete non-issue because I was getting consistently good grades -- so nothing to hide or worry or complain about.

My parents absolutely wanted to know my grades. And since they were paying for room, board and tuition I thought that was more than fair.

Both of my kids have merit scholarships that require them to keep a specific GPA - DC 1 needs a cumulative of 3.2 or higher and DC 2 has to keep a 3.0 each semester to keep the merit award. Both also have an outside scholarship that requires a 2.0 (and if they're not getting that, I'd think we'd have a different problem on our hands).

We would certainly not be paying for the full cost of their schools without their merit aid, so I do drive home the importance of staying on top of things...if they don't, the natural consequence is simply that they'd either have to make up the difference themselves if they lost the aid, or they'd have to find a cheaper school to transfer.

Now, lucky for us we have a pretty close relationship with both kids and they always tell us not only their class grades, but when a big test/project/presentation is coming up and after, what the got on it. I think keeping the lines of communication open is key (rather than checking the final grades after they're posted and freaking out)...but of course getting to the point where your kids feel comfortable sharing their grades with you/knowing you won't freak out is a process that starts loooong before college.

My daughter will be a freshman next fall and I plan to check on her grades, mostly because she has a merit scholarship and needs to maintain a certain GPA to keep it past freshman year. We don't need to know the details behind her grades but she knows we don't intend to make up for the money she would miss if she falls below the required GPA.

Not only did they see my final grades, the expectation was that I'd talk to my mother every Sunday to tell her how things were going. It was only natural to tell her about a big exam or paper coming up and the next week, I'd tell her how it went.

It wasn't her being demanding or a busy body. It was natural to share.

And I'm sure if I was difficult, she'd remind me that my dad was paying the tuition bill and they wanted me to do well.

I have the password; better to consistently check than have surprises when it is too late to help provide guidance. Less is needed each year, but it does help remind these kids that they are accountable to someone for progress.

When I was in college my parents were very hands off - just like in high school. Grades arrived by mail back then but they would never have opened mail addressed to me. However, when I saw the envelope, I would open it and leave it out but I have no idea if they ever looked and I never asked. In fact, I transferred schools and the way they found out was when I was heading off to my new school (3 weeks after my first school would have been in session) and I told them that I needed a check made out to XYZ University instead of ABC University. They were kinda surprised but went with the flow. The only requirement they ever made was that I had to get it done in 4 years. I think they were hands off because they knew I would tell them if I needed help but I never did. It also was a time when they both had very intense jobs and were gone for weeks/months at a time so I think that we all just tried to relax and enjoy each other when they were home.

On the other hand, my husband and I know a lot more about our kids grades. We both talk to each of our college kids at least once/twice a day and text multiple times during the day so we know the minutiae anyway. Although we have their log-ins and passwords, we don't use them because by their own volition the kids are sending us screen captures when things are posted. My husband is a little more in touch re the grades than me since they have all gone into the paper-type majors (History, English) rather than the STEM field which is my area. They also are in the habit of sending the papers electronically when they get them back from the professors because the profs will have comments on them. Again, my husband gets in to that and really helps them analyze the comments. That kind of stuff drives me nuts so I leave it alone.

I just asked two of the kids and they said they are the norm for their friend group. Both kids looked at me like I was crazy and said they think their friends certainly tell their parents their grades.

The long and short of my answer is ... we don't check our kids' grades because we already know them. But I agree with the PPs who have pointed out that if a parent (or grandparent or aunt or uncle, etc) is paying then the child has a responsibility to keep the payer informed.