<p>Doubleplay - At my son’s college (Stanford), a 5 on the Calc AB exam earned the same placement as a 4 or 5 on the Calc BC exam, into linear algebra, so he ended up taking the same math class as a freshman that students with Calc BC backgrounds would be taking. (This system may have changed since he was a freshman in 2002.)</p>
<p>My oldest had a 3.3 GPA in high school, no AP classes as her school didn’t offer them.
She graduated from Reed College in 06 with a biology degree
My younger daughter has similar GPA- she has taken honors and AP but her school doesn’t weight.
The consequences occur when they don’t get into the programs they want because of GPA
If they have difficulty in a class- then they have tutoring or extra study-
If the kids are just goofing off- and getting Cs or lower- then I would limit activity- they wouldn’t get to do extra activities that that were more pleasurable than studying because if you don’t have time for studying you don’t have time for a surf vacation during school, but other than that- I think it is most effective if logical consequences are connected to their cause.
If they are working hard- and getting Cs- how can you punish for that?
Goofing off & they don’t want to study- Id give em chores.
Low grades- don’t do well on the test- dont get the scholarship
But Bs aren’t low grades.</p>
<p>I’m of the “do the best you can do” category. Unfortunately for both my kids, that’s pretty much A’s. Older D pushed herself way too hard to earn that coveted valedictorian title last year. It would have been a lot less stress on all of us if she’d logged a couple of B’s early in her high school career. Younger D (Junior) has chalked up 3-4 B’s so far. For her freshman world history class (which was, indeed, a class from hell. A couple of them were miraculous to be B’s–for which we all did the happy dance. The others were due to tanking the final exam, which brought a previous low A down to a B. Those were silly, and we weren’t particularly happy. The general discussion is --is there anything you could have done differently to get a better grade? Sometimes the answer is yes—and sometimes, she’s just done the best she can. Either is OK. There are lots and lots of kids out there who do the best they can and get C’s. That’s OK. It just depends on the kid.</p>
<p>As mentioned, it’s very important that the students are studying, getting the grades, doing sports, and other EC because they want to. They can’t be doing it because you want them to. All you can do is find the right motivation to make them want to. </p>
<p>My son and daughter were able to see years ago what other kids with low grades had available for options when they graduated. They also saw the options available to those who did well in high school. Both of my kids determined they wanted to do more and have more options. My daughter was in the IB program and did choir and drama for EC. She graduated with a 3.75gpa and is now a Junior at the state University where she is majoriing in business and marketing. My son is getting ready to graduate high school this year. He too is in the IB program with a 4.0gpa and has been a varsity letter football and soccer player since the 10th grade. He wants to go to the Air Force Academy. Both kids however found ways to may academics and their EC work together. Because they wanted to have options when they graduated, and didn’t want to wind up like some of the kids who barely made it through high school, they found the motivation needed.</p>
<p>Each student is different. Some have very big dreams. If you support those dreams and really aspire to help them achieve those goals, then you can get them to see how doing well in school will help them achieve these goals. Again, it has to be for the kids. It can’t be for the parent. If the student doesn’t have any motivation or any reason to excel, they won’t. If they find a reason to excel, they will.</p>
<p>Astrophysicsmom, good comment about wanting some kids to get a B or 2. I was always pretty much the perfect student-not gifted or creative but great at the game of school. However, I got two Bs my very first semester of high school - Honors Algebra and Art (of all things!). Anyway, that totally took the pressure off and I really enjoyed high school. I moved after freshman year and come senior year, everyone thought I would be valedictorian because I had never gotten a B at that school…but I really wouldn’t have changed it. One poor girl got a B on a 4 1/2 week “mini-course” second semester senior year and blew her 4.0. I’ll take my two Bs in exchange for that any day!</p>
<p>I’m waiting for some of you to call me for expecting too much from my kids because I was the “perfect student.” I really don’t expect the impossible, but my daughter has the “good at school” gene-she just needs to study more.</p>
<p>Exactly, missypie. D was down to the day before high school graduation until she was sure she had an A in one of her classes. The top 4 students all had to write a speech—the GPAs were that close—one B and everything would have been turned around. I felt bad for her that she had that much pressure on her right until the end. (and everyone assumed that I’d been standing over her with a whip all through her hs career). I gave her the “it REALLY will be OK if you graduate as number 2, 3, 4 or …out of 575” speech a million times senior year, but I understood where she was coming from in terms of having worked so hard to get so close. </p>
<p>Before we had kids, H and I wondered how we would deal with kids who had trouble in school–because neither of us ever did. And, as you, I don’t see that we expected too much from our kids—we always enjoyed learning (and still do) and that was part of our life…and when it became clear that they’d both got the “good at school” genes (now, is that a dominant or recessive gene?), it made for a really fun ride through the school years (so far!!)</p>
<p>I have one kid who breezed through school with little study (7 AP’s) and made all A’s except for 3 B’s along the way. Life was great.</p>
<p>I have another kid (3 yrs. younger) who has always disliked sch. and struggled though some subjects. At this point in his senior year, his transcript shows a few A’s lots of B’s, 5 C’s and 1 F (Spanish,long story, is retaking). His SAT score pretty much matches those grades. All along the way I’ve tried every thing you can think of restrictions, groundings, punishments, offers of rewards. Nothing really worked. He’s either going to do it or not. At this point I’m leaving it up to him. I continue to ask about grades and encourage him to do his best this year but when it all comes down to it, he has to row this boat. He is a good kid, works hard at his part-time job and is a stand out football player (could play DII or III but is not interested). He has sent in an application to a small state u. It’s not a sure thing for him. We’ll see. He’s almost 18 years old. Whatever happens is of his own making and he will have to own it. He knows this and is prepared to go Comm. College if nothing else.</p>
<p>"The others were due to tanking the final exam, which brought a previous low A down to a B. "</p>
<p>True story- my son had a high A in world history. On the final exam, he wrote “T” and “F” instead of “True” and “False”, and the teacher had instructed that they needed to write the word out. So she marked every single true and false question wrong on his test, which accounted for about 1/3 of the test. Fortunately, he did OK on the rest of the test, but he still made a sixty-something and his final grade took the hit. One of those hard knock lessons in life.</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread! I’m with the “do your best” crowd on this. S isn’t doing his best right now and his grades are showing it, so when he’s not competing in his sport he can’t practice during the week. Time to hit the books and he can practice all weekend if he wants to. Academics first here. Just started this this week so we’ll see if its effective or not. Sometimes he’s just too tired to concentrate after a 14 hour day. You guys know the drill!</p>
<p>Doubleplay, that’s so true about what they can accomplish IN class. S said to me the other day, “I really get it when I listen. I never did that before. Its so much easier when I pay attention.” H and I looked at each other, astounded. It never occurred to us that he wasn’t LISTENING…no wonder he didn’t “get it”…yikes…</p>
<p>Wow, you’re a tough crowd. I always hated “do your best.” For me, that meant unless I was absolutely perfect at everything, I probably wasn’t doing my best. I’ve tried to avoid giving that particular message to my daughter (as she’d be most likely to get perfectionistic). Instead, I’ve promoted, “keep learning and keep your brain growing.” For our family that’s worked a lot better and has helped us keep things in perspective. We do value academics --my husband and I both have doctorates-- but we try to de-emphasize the grade part as much as possible. I guess that’s what makes general advice so tough, it can’t take the individual personalities into account.</p>
<p>Doubleplay, the professor of the intro economics courses at my college has similar instructions. You need to cleanly circle the letter choice of multiple choice answer you chose. If you circle the entire answer (with text) or write the letter to the side of the question, it’s marked wrong. It’s apparently to prevent cheating because with a large circled answer or a big letter on the side of the page it’s not hard for people to copy. (There are also multiple forms of the exam given out.) He tells students the policy beforehand, and he drops your lowest exam grade, so it really shouldn’t harm any students’ grades.</p>
<p>I can’t believe a high school teacher would actually take all those points off, though–especially for a good student who is getting high grades. I get the lesson, but it’s a little excessive, in my opinion.</p>
<p>My oldest chose to attend a college that doesn’t do grades
If they are learning the material- if it is challenging- does it matter what grade they get?</p>
<p>Students from her liberal arts college receive Phds ( from other schools) at a higher rate than graduates from Ivy universities
The fact that you can probably count on one hand the students who graduated with straight As recently on one hand, doesn’t impact the value of the education.
Grades can be an indicator- but they shouldn’t be * the* indicator, IMO.
Otherwise you get students who will go for the easy teacher/class, instead of the * best* teacher/class
Let the others shoot themselves in the foot by doing that.
Go for what will serve you best in the long run.</p>
<p>It isn’t as obvious when they are in high school, but do you remember learning toilet training- or other independent skills?
When they are making progress in one area, they can seem to backslide in another. It doesn’t mean that they lost that skill, but it takes a lot of energy to continually push forward. How many of us never stop until we are forced to slow down because our bodies actually become ill?</p>
<p>Some kids tolerate a lot more pushing than others- but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t harming them.</p>
<p>read Into the Wild.
I don’t think it was unrelated that Chris McCandless had parents who didn’t seem to get that he was the one responsible for the choices he made in his life & that he wanted the freedom to make them.</p>
<p>The above post is coming from the perspective that most of the parents on this board are pretty involved and have moderately high expectations of their kids</p>
<p>But I also wanted to add that I realize that the opposite viewpoint can be even more damaging.
I know adults who really don’t expect much of the kids- and it isn’t hard to pick up the message your parents don’t think you are smart enough to go to college/do well in class.
Its hard to believe in yourself with that environment
Yes some kids do have the attitude" Ill show them!"
But I think more often the student feels that when it is hard or tedious, that it isn’t worth pushing on.That there isn’t any point in having high goals.</p>
<p>corranged,
I thought it excessive too, maybe take half off? Especially with a student that she knew wasn’t cheating (he aced the rest of the test, and for crying out loud, she knew he had a high A). Just goes to show him, though, that you have to follow instructions because some people are REALLY legalistic.</p>
<p>** jasmom** said:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You have one VERY lucky D. Go to any AA meeting in an upper-middle class neighborhood and you will hear the chorus of memories of school that: “my A’s weren’t good enough.”</p>
<p>My son had a high school final exam where the teacher didn’t mention that one of the pages had been copied back-to-back, with questions on both sides. The other pages had questions only on one side.</p>
<p>My son did not notice the one back side with questions and left it all blank. The teacher pointed it out to him when he turned in the exam but would not let him have his paper back. He got a C on the exam (but as it turned out, an A in the course).</p>
<p>Sometimes this business about being sticklers about filling out paperwork correctly goes a bit far.</p>
<p>I have to agree with jasmom. Maybe it’s because we’re in the same profession. 
I don’t think I’ve ever communicated the message “do your best” to my children. I don’t think ANY of us does ‘our best’ all the time. I think it’s important for kids to want to learn, to enjoy learning, and to have a life that is balanced with academics, extra-curriculars that they love (and not those which parents think will look good on a college application), friends, community, and family. I think this message can be communicated, and these feelings fostered, in both overt and subtle ways for kids: parents who value education and learning, parents who read and who are willing to try new things, exposing your kids to many different activities through their childhood, travel, community service, open communication, mentoring the value of a work ethic and a job well done regardless of one’s profession, and lots & lots of family time. </p>
<p>We all want a good education for our children but that good education can be had at hundreds, or even thousands, of educational institutions. The other thing to remember is that college is not for everyone. Even involved and educated parents may have a child whose future does not necessarily include a college education. I’m not saying that this is the case with the OP’s kids. These comments are of the general nature, but I will say that feeling that “dire consequences” should be considered for a child who has achieved straight B’s, particularly in the first marking period of the year, is, in my opinion very harsh, and a mistake.</p>
<p>Dire consequences seem excessive, but if a formerly straight A student is suddenly getting straight B’s, I know I’d be concerned. Not sure what I’d do about it, it would depend on the cause. Maybe the ECs are worth it. There were times when I knew if my son spent a little more time on English essays and a little less time reading up on the latest version of Linux his grades might be a little higher, but there would have been a loss there too. In the end I think the choice he made was right for him.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is a good idea to “punish” a kid for a bad grade. Especially if the kid is making an effort but is just not blessed with superior intellect. </p>
<p>If the kid is not making an effort then the parents need to remedy the situation even IF the grade is good. Plenty of brilliant but lazy kids coast along on their smarts, for a while getting straight A’s , only to find out that when they are finally challenged intellectually they don’t have the study habits to succeed. May not happen until college for some.</p>