Colleges for smart, creative underachievers?

redpoint
Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:30:29 +0000

One of my kids, just a freshman now, is very quick and bright, creative, great writer, but is doing badly in school, at least right now. She does great on her papers, and decently on tests, but is terrible about turning in her homework. She just doesn’t see the point of anything that smacks of (to her) busywork, like conjugating verbs, etc. She has ADD and major anxiety issues. Her attitude is enough to make me pull out my hair, and she is on meds and sees a therapist. I don’t need, nor am I asking for, parenting advice.

Does anyone have experiences with making lists of colleges for bright kids (she’ll probably do well on her SATs) with kids with not so shiny grades. She isn’t the type to suffer fools gladly; she gets bored and frustrated in classes where the teacher has to explain things a few times, because she picks up concepts quickly and easily the first time, and remembers what she learns. She is also, oddly, definitely the college type, just not able to dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s. Terrible executive functioning due to the ADD.

Any ideas or experience?