<p>Help! What to do–my son who is a senior has been accepted by a very good school. Now he suddenly says “Grades are not important” and is not studying.<br>
He has this “Hippie” persona and says that he doesn’t care about grades anymore. Says he doesn’t need a “high paying job” and will just do what he enjoys and live simply. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Explain to him that any acceptances he has are ‘contingent acceptances’ and he can still be rejected. Have him read the literature from most colleges where they indicate that if senior year grades slip or even if the levels of classes are reduced significantly, they might end up rejected. It doesn’t need to be your opinion - it’s generally the statement of fact from the college. These contingent acceptances do get declined because of this sometimes.</p>
<p>Regarding the ‘not needing a high-paying job’ - he’s young and naive and has no clue of the real world. Has he sat down and worked out a spreadsheet of what living expenses actually are and the income needed to pay for them? Does he factor in taxes (a lot of HS students don’t consider the big income tax hit), savings, college plans for kids, auto expenses including insurance, gas, maintenance, and the list goes on? Unfortunately this area of practicality is something most schools don’t teach.</p>
<p>Is he intending NOT to go to the college? If that is the case it is a different conversation than if he thinks they have to take him now no matter what. 2 of DD’s friends had their acceptances withdrawn after their final grades were in. They did nothing the second half of the year except what was absolutely required to pass enough classes to graduate. It is not urban legend that many believe, it really happens.</p>
<p>It happens, but you have to really bottom out. Like multiple Ds and Fs bottom out. If he gets a C in a hard subject and a B in an easy subject, I doubt anyone’s even going to bat an eye.</p>
<p>^^ How low one must go will depend on the particular college. I’ve heard of some people being rescinded from some UCs for fairly slight dips (a ‘D’ or major changes in the schedule of classes from challenging to light).</p>
<p>One of my son’s friends just dropped out of college to do political campaigning. I admire his dedication, but he is 20 and has a better idea of what he wants to do in life. 17-18 might be a bit young to make such an irrevocable decision.</p>
<p>I can appreciate his recognizing what’s important to him; that he’s not materialistic. Those tree-hugging peace-loving hippie types (of which I was/am one!) tend to be very visionary. That is admirable. I would tell him, though, that plans don’t always work out the way we thought, and it’s always a good idea to keep one’s options open. Even if he has decided to move to The Farm in TN, or to a tropical island and live on coconuts, he should still at least finish high school with good grades. It’s only 1 more semester, after all. That way he will have something to fall back on if he gets tired of coconuts. And, he can have a better chance of changing the world if he doesn’t have to struggle to make a living. Many visionary ideals get set aside because of the stress of paying the bills.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ya know, the vast majority of the world gets by without a high paying job, somehow. It really does depend on what lifestyle you’re looking for, once you get beyond subsistence pay. My H quit medicine for teaching, and we didn’t even see a change in our way of life, since we never looked for a high level of consumption to start with. My d, four years out of a top LAC, works a relatively low paying job that didn’t require a college degree, which she adores, and supports herself doing so, since she apparently lives on air.</p>
<p>Of course, the young man should do well enough in his classes not to get rescinded if he would like to attend this school (and if he’s like our family, undergraduate school is for development of mind, not professional advancement), but his not needing a lot of money is, to me, something to be celebrated these days.</p>
<p>Thank you, Garland.
I appreciate his sense of values, guess I just worry that he won’t be depending on us to support him someday. He is younger than most seniors, and I know he has growing ahead of him.
He’s had all the middle class comforts, so he hasn’t known what it’s like to support himself in today’s society.
What he will be like in 10 years–should be interesting!</p>
<p>Sounds like a perfect candidate for a gap year of volunteering. Any chance he could defer for a year? Planning for something like that might motivate him to finish out the year and have something different to look forward to.</p>
<p>well, if he isn’t studying how does he spend his time…sounds like a job is in order!!!</p>
<p>
Very few decisions in life are truly irrevocable (like getting pregnant or having children, for example); this isn’t one of them. There are plenty of kids who don’t go straight to college from high school (either by choice, revocation, or non-admittance anywhere), grow up a bit, and realize that they can’t do what they want to do without college and then go.</p>
<p>Please don’t misunderstand; I would also be tearing my hair out if this were my kid! But maybe it’s time to sit down with him and have a chat. “OK, if you still can go to that school, fine. But let’s just assume for argument’s sake that your acceptance is revoked. What do you plan to do next year? Living here rent-free and doing nothing is not an option, BTW.” Talk it through. He may discover that working a bit more in HS is the easiest thing to do!</p>
<p>Oh, one more thing - is he really not doing anything? A friend’s d said the same thing, but when push came to shove, she did some work - not as much as she had before, but enough to graduate with B’s. And around here, a lot of the senior year teachers lighten up anyway.</p>
<p>you can enjoy life and live simply…
you don’t need a high paying job to be happy…</p>
<p>you can be happy and poor just as easily as you can be unhappy and rich. </p>
<p>That said, he will need to study no matter what he wants when he gets to college if he wants to graduate from said college. I agree with the proponent of a gap year. Or perhaps the summer will do him good. </p>
<p>What school is he going to attend, if you don’t mind me asking?</p>
<p>We are just 8 days into school after the holidays. Sometimes kids are on such a high those first few months, Aug.-Dec., with school applications, and acceptances, that January can bring on a slump. Has he had any quizzes/tests yet that he got a C/D yet?</p>
<p>He could just be saying stuff to irritate you.</p>
<p>If he’s paying for college, I guess you can’t do anything. But I’m assuming you’re paying right??? If you catch my drift…
Good luck!!!</p>
<p>god you people and your manipulative power of the purse</p>
<p>i’m not saying he shouldn’t get good grades but i can’t think of a way he’ll want to do it less. </p>
<p>i pay i win…</p>
<p>As a senior in high school as well, I can kind of understand where he is coming from. After working hard for 3.5 years, and after finishing all those applications while keeping up with everything else, one starts to wonder how it is for those other kids that didn’t have that dream school dangling just out of reach for the past 4 years…he should be allowed to let up a little, as long as he doesnt go too far…It is possible that the whole “hippie mindset” will prbly come to pass once he feels relaxed enough and is ready to work hard again…this is true if he set his goals for college himself and followed through… because that shows dedication and intelligence both of which will not have just disappeared…</p>
<p>unless he’s getting Ds and Fs there is not need to worry</p>
<p>Yeah…if he’s dropping from straight A’s to A’s and B’s (and maybe 1 C, but C’s are starting to cut it close), then there’s no reason to panic. If he’s getting D’s and F’s, then he is in real danger of having his acceptance rescinded.</p>
<p>lol i know ppl who’ve gotten straight Cs and still have not gotten their admission to a school like Yale rescinded</p>
<p>but then again that person got Bs and Cs in HS anyways…</p>
<p>Are there other issues going on, like depression or substance use? Those issues are more easily investigated and addressed while he’s living in your house as a HS senior than next fall, when he’s basically unsupervised.</p>