<p>At the university I worked at the form was provided/offered to the students during orientation. I think student services was in charge of managing it and I received a copy of the signed release from them. One time a mother called and told me that her daughter had signed one. I told her that I would be happy to discuss her daughter’s progress after I confirmed that the release had been signed. It had not. The daughter just told her mother she had signed it. I imagine that most parents know if their kids are self-motivated or not by the end of high school. The achievers rarely plumet. It is the students who got by with C’s and B’s in high school who sometimes end up with D’s and F’s by the end of their first semester.</p>
<p>“The achievers rarely plumet. It is the students who got by with C’s and B’s in high school who sometimes end up with D’s and F’s by the end of their first semester.”</p>
<p>Momfromtexas, thanks. Deep down, I know you are right. It’s just hard transitioning to this phase for parents as well. Especially when that much money is involved. Simple conversations now have the potential to turn into a battle of wills!</p>
<p>As I said on the Guilford thread: we’re doing this. </p>
<p>I have a very open relationship with my D and she is level-headed and reasonable… I suspect she would have no problem signing it. I also suspect some of the freshmen who “tank” are just like that in HS, at home, prior to college. I do not want to be nosy, run her life, prevent her from getting birth control, or whatever-- I just want to be “there” if/when a crisis starts brewing (for damage control & assistance), rather than “there” to pick up the pieces <em>after</em> the disaster has struck & it is not salvageable. </p>
<p>My D is one of those cockeyed optimists who might fully believe in her own ability to “save” a grade-- and so not take all precautionary steps needed (such as drop EC, drop one class, or get a tutor.) Yes, a good advisor would ideally be the one to give this advice but who wants to count on a good advisor being there, & being heard?</p>
<p>my daughter attended a high achieving prep school and had a 3.5 unweighted.
However her college grades VERY tough, and she was in a tough major and had a tough class, and multiple things happened ( got pretty sick- family trauma- her ADD coach left) that could happen to any kid ( not making excuses but life happens), but she had confidence in her ability to pull it out and she didn’t confide in us the extent of the problem. ( not that I am sure she knew it)
SHe is very bright, and even though she met with the profs for extra help, she seemed to be understanding it, and they didn’t seem concerned, however she also has ADD/LDs and by the time she got back to her dorm, she would be confused again.
She also was worried about taking an incomplete due to illness, because it would mean more $$$, she tried to stick it out.
Grading on a curve in a very tough class, in a school where the average grade of a bunch of very bright kids is only 2.7( the average grade in Ochem is probably quite a bit lower 
makes it not far to fall .She also had already passed her junior qualifying exam so she was fairly confident she was learning what she needed to learn.
Oh well she didn’t want to be doing her senior thesis yet anyway!</p>
<p>“The achievers rarely plumet. It is the students who got by with C’s and B’s in high school who sometimes end up with D’s and F’s by the end of their first semester.”</p>
<p>Yes, but I’m going to pay much more attention to my S’s health (and how much sleep he’s getting), particularly just before finals. Hard to do at a distance over the phone, but we’re going to try. </p>
<p>The problem is that he blew one test he took with a fever and it dropped his grade to a C. It didn’t matter how well he was doing in everything else up to that point, the male child thought he was invicible and didn’t even go to the clinic. He’s wiser now, but…</p>
<p>It’s not always easy to predict who is going to have problems. Yes, there are the bottomfeeders who are no surprises to be found working in fast food after the first semester or year. But kids also fail out of schools where the do not accept mediocre students. The freedom of college is often too much for them. Too many choices, too many fun things to do. And many of these kids are burned out academically having to be such great student all to this great end. </p>
<p>And many just miscalculate. When are you so sick that you need to let the profs know, and get an incomplete? Most kids will tough it out. They may not feel well, but barring mono or something else that the infirmary would get involved, they continue on in their lives just dragging. Not cool to say you’re too sick to do school work when the prof saw you living it up that day as if you were as healthy as a horse. Some kids tend to be overly optimistic or they just miss their mark when they screw up. They had hoped it would work out. Or they just refused to think about it. Some of them do not get enough sleep, are not eating properly, not dressing for the weather (it’s a wonder my son has finger and toes left as he never wore gloves and always lost all of his sock, and to think that we would have wanted to count each and every one of them when he was born. Ha!) Some are partying with wild abandon, drinking too much, taking too much in the way of drugs, and sex can be the most powerful drug of all. THrow in some hormones and emotions, and it’s a wonder any of them are getting through college. </p>
<p>I don’t see how a parent can micromanage a college student even if he wants to do so. Advising is one thing, and keeping track of courses, requirements and grades is also advisable. My son did not keep a single transcript, and only knew he was graduating because he was on the list. Couldn’t tell half the courses he took. By the time he was a senior, I was too depressed and scared to count up his credits. If he made it, I would be thrilled, but believe me, I was preparing myself for bad news. But college is a huge financial investment for the parent, and wouldn[t you track any other investment of this magnitude?</p>
<p>I don’t know that I agree with “the achievers rarely plummet”. Many times their high grades were recieved without the same kind of effort that needs to take place in college. It’s just that if the b-c high schooler gets poor grades in first yr. of college, it won’t be so unexpected. However, some of thos b-c kids know EXACTLY how hard they had to work in hs & therefore,put forth great effort in college…may not achieve A’s, but they may keep themselves away from the D-F area!</p>
<p>Overall, there are major adjustment issues for ALL students with regard to how to study/perform in college classes. Some of this is very logical to parents who have been to college, or just understand this process, but for kids it can be hard for them to understand the radical change.
Profs treat you as an adult, (even if you’re not behaving like one); they give a syllabus & may never again mention in class the 10pg paper due at the end of the term, but it will STILL be due on the stated date. Your grade may be only based on mid-term, final, so there may be no other way to improve your grade (unless you ask & even then the answer may be “no”). You will not be in class every day, but you need to keep up w/ the readings; you can “cut” class sometimes, but if you do it too frequently, you can & will receive an FA(failure for absence). Sometimes, you can go out with your dorm mates to the movies & blow off your evening’s study time/homework time & it won’t hurt you too much in a class - make it a habit & it WILL hurt you at the end of that class. Add into this the over-involvement in many activities; new & time-consuming relationships with a significant other; influence of drugs/drinking and it’s easy to understand that even outstandingly prepared students can be making the wrong choices about how they spend their time outside of class!</p>
<p>I guess that we’re close to Achat’s position: D will let us know her grades as a courtesy, not for me to nag, but both as simply life sharing and in some recognition of paying the freight. D hates to tell us if she’s sick (“You’ll worry and there’s nothing you can do about it”) but the profs at Smith are mostly on top of things and work things out, even well short of mono level illness.</p>
<p>I found that an Ivy league school was no “harder” academically than AP level courses at my very highly ranked public HS (top 10 in Calif) except the workload was much greater-- you are expected to do more outside of class; 100’s more pages of reading per week was the biggest change for me. </p>
<p>Some kids may not realize that too many courses in their area of interest, which they may think is “going easy” for first semester, can be overwhelming because too many lit classes = too many papers & too much reading; too many science = too many lab hours and tests, etc. You need to think of the # of tests/ papers/ labs and spread it around to not get jammed up. Doing this, I was able to get very similar grades to my HS grades. If you are getting 4’s and 5’s on AP tests, you will have the adacemic chops to do fine in any college.</p>
<p>Socially is another story. Kids whose lives had been micromanaged by parents while in HS had very little navigational skill when compared to kids from boarding school or kids whose parents had left them to their own devices in HS. </p>
<p>The dating thing can also throw a “nerd” who may have been a social outcast in HS but who finds themselves in a sea of nerds in college, fitting in just fine, getting asked out, etc. </p>
<p>Maybe the whole emphasis on ECs stems from the adcoms wanting kids who have a “juggling” skill honed already…</p>
<p>my experience is in medicine, not education. But I tend to think that colleges feel like their hands are legally tied about communicating with parents of 18 year olds. I certainly feel that way in medicine. Of course I <em>want</em> to tell the parents that their 18 year old is using drugs, or drunk, or whatever. Or just tell them why the kid is there and involve them in the kid’s care. I would certainly want to know this stuff about my own child. But I am legally restricted from doing so w/o express permission from the patient. Staff at colleges probably feel the same way about communicating with the parents of students they see having problems.</p>
<p>I think this is one of the most important threads I’ve read here. Just the discussion of how different schools vary on the issue of making a form available brings up something that was also mentioned in the Guilford thread: before you send off that tuition check, read the school’s handbook and information very carefully and make sure your kids do as well. It’s not just about knowing grades, it’s also about knowing consequences for various actions and events and deciding whether you are willing to take those risks.</p>
<p>I have two in college now and another a high school senior. And this specific issue was talked about and talked about before they even left for college. And as one above poster mentioned since not all schools have the forms to release student grades I was on the lookout for alternatives.</p>
<p>Both kiddos schools have online accounts for registration, accounts payable, transcripts, planned workload for upcoming semesters, add/drop…the whole deal. So when we set up the kids accounts (before they left for school) I wrote down all the info including the passwords. That way I had full access to all info. Granted the kids wanted me to have it, same way I have access to their emails accounts, at least the ones I know of. So when they get mailings from profs, financial aid, scholarship info, I can see it if I want to.</p>
<p>Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. Usually they ask me to do something, like watch for an opening in a class they really want that is full, and they have to be in class so they can’t wait for it to pop up on the screen. Or make sure their accounts, pending, charged, paid are accurate. (We found a mistake first term.) Also analyzing their financial aid/scholarship packages and figuring out what was the best fit vs. cost. This is probably attributable to us being very close, not just with me but with each other.</p>
<p>Granted this is the same child who had me talk to the coach after he did. Don’t particularly know why, but I can ask some really dumb questions and depending on how I am treated gives DS a glimpse of what practice will REALLY be like!</p>
<p>Kids also get their text ISBN#s so that way they have me search libraries, half-com, ebay and thrift stores for cheaper text books. I feel like sometimes I have just way too much info. Can’t keep it all straight. They do know I am an info junkie so when I read up in their course catalogs and find all sorts of neat stuff (internships, research, classes, online classes,) they just love pointing me in the right direction. In turn, since I do some of the grunt work, oldest was able to carry 20 units last semester and make dean’s list. (classes included calc, econ, o chem, and 3 upper division animal science). I thought it was a good trade-off. She shortens her time as an undergrad, gets some valuable research and internships for vet school, and I get to quench my info need.</p>
<p>DS is pretty much in the same boat. He will send via email links of summer programs that might be something he would be interested in. I look and send back. And on and on it goes.</p>
<p>So for us, the online accounts from the schools provide us all with great access. We do the same thing for our checking accounts. I check and if he needs money I just transfer it electronically so he has it ASAP. (on my birthday, he put money in mine as a surprise!) My parents have the info has well so they too can deposit money if they want to without having to mail it. Son has a credit card, and we manage that together as well.</p>
<p>This way we didn’t need to sign forms and make sure everybody had it. I am sure there are college students out there who would never go for this, (son’s roommate being one of them), but I don’t know of too many parents going bug-eyed from looking at the computer screen trying to add a particular class for their child that during registration had a waitlist to the moon. </p>
<p>DS is the one I have mentioned in previous posts about how much he loves college, so he called today and said he had so much fun in his J-term class yesterday, and such a great dinner last night that he wishes I was there with him to have all the fun together. He said I would love his professor and his friends. We are reading the same book right now so we have to yak about what happened in the last chapter.</p>
<p>My secret wish was to have them (5) all go to the same school (college) and then we could all be together, but they have all ended up going different locations for different reasons. I had to swtich to a calling plan that charged the same price no matter where I called and for how long!! It just makes me sad when he calls and says you should hear the wind, see the snow, come sledding… </p>
<p>I really don’t have the financial pull for accountability, since the kids have full rides and have jobs for extras. It’s the idea that more heads are better than one and we all try to work together.</p>
<p>Thought maybe if I shared what is working for us it might be beneficial to someone else.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Amen, Texas137. And, Carolyn, I agree. I will have DD read this thread, and then we can discuss it. There’s often a big difference in an 18 year old and a 20 year old, we want ot work toward trust and independence, but safely.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is a unique circumstance, but…</p>
<p>In the early spring of my freshman year I learned that my mother had malignant melanoma. She died the June between sophomore and junior years. My grades took a large dip freshman spring (even failed a course) and sophomore fall. I skipped class, partied, handed in assignments late, etc…looking back, I believe it was at least in part to escape the grim outlook. I never thought to explain my situation as it would be seen as the usual b-s story, and I was also in denial. I pulled it together on my own at the end of sophomore year and made the dean’s list junior and senior years. I guess my point is that sometimes there are things unknown that can be the cause of the difficulty and not necessarily a predictor of the future. Contacting my parents who were so proud of their first generation college student would have caused pain all around.</p>
<p>The thought of profs being inundated with emails/calls from angry/worried parents would force many from the profession. Sorry parents but this is between you and your kid–leave the faculty alone.</p>
<p>Katwkittens, that is an excellent suggestion. I’ll do that with my rising freshman son. Carolyn, You are so absolutely right about researching the school where your student is going. When that poster with a son at Guilford started her thread, I went back to research what the policies are for the schools my kids attended/attend. I found it difficult to get this info on some websites, and very unclear info when I did get the info. For all the research I have done on colleges, I never bothered to find out exactly what it takes to get thrown out. I was counting on a warning semester or probation at least before anyone would get kicked out. I was more in tune with what the disciplinary issues were for suspension and expulsion than the academic procedures for dismissal. Upon doing a little research, I was shocked to find that several schools directly address the very issue that the Guilford mom experienced. It is entirely possible to be summarily dismissed the moment your grades hit a certain low level, and someone without a history,ie 1st term freshmen can easily go that low without knowing it, as some courses are heavily exam weighted. The instant that gpa threshhold is hit, an auto dismiss letter could be sent. Now, I think that policy is truly inconsiderate, but certainly right there. Johns Hopkins is one school with this pretty clearly stated in their handbook, but other sources on their website are vaguer about what happens. Few people research this situation until too late. Who on earth expects to flunk out at half year?</p>
<p>Interesting timing of this thread-- I got a call from my s. this afternoon (it is his first week back at school)- he sounded very matter-of-fact (in retrospect, to keep me calm, I suspect) as he informed me that he was on his way to the E.R. Apparently he bent over to pick up his backpack and was too close to the newspaper rack,which gashed him above the rt. eye as he stood back up (ouch!!) He, none-the-less, trotted off to his enginnering lab where several people told him he looked like he needed stitches. The school health svcs docs were booked for the afternoon, so he was taken to the E.R. He is the kind of kid who would tell me all of this anyway, but I imagine the bill would eventually work its way to us as well. I asked him if his school had the release form being discussed here, and I think I offended him. He asked why I wondered (he didn’t know), as he tells me his grades and his health status anyway (which is true). I count my blessings that he is so open and forthright, comfortable sharing with his parents, and proud of his grades. Not sure son #2 is following in these footsteps. If I know the right questions to ask, he (#2) answers honestly, but he is not one to volunteer information. Good thing son #1 fills me in when necessary…
P.S. the 3 stitches come out in 5 days.</p>
<p>Achat –
When my daughter goes to college, I am going to require her to show me her grade reports simply as a condition of my providing financial support. She knows this because I announced this to her the day I found out what my son’s grades really were, midway through the year he had decided to take some time off. </p>
<p>FWIW, my son was a high achiever in high school - that’s how he got into selective colleges – but he had a pattern in college of doing great in courses that interested him, and blowing off the courses that didn’t. In high school he could get by with that attitude - do the bare minimum of required work and still get an A – but in college it didn’t work. In high school he could essentially fake an essay… in college he couldn’t. I trusted him… and I trusted the school. My son’s GPA was ok – he had a tendency to get A’s and D’s, but there were twice as many A’s so it all came out to a B average — but obviously I was not too happy about the D’s. </p>
<p>Like your son, mine was evasive when I asked about grades – he didn’t know, he hadn’t received the grades yet, he had them but didn’t remember, etc. </p>
<p>My feeling is that if I am paying tuition, then I have a right to see the grades. I don’t feel that I will need to have my kids sign any releases --if they have academic issues at school, I have no intention whatsoever of talking to profs for them – I expect college age kids to be able to fend for themselves. But the bottom line is that I am not going to pay out dollars without knowing what the result is. It’s not a matter of being punitive – its just that I would want the opportunity to be informed and have some input in the event that there are problems. </p>
<p>Anyway - my point is that I think you are right to ask to see your son’s grades, and really think that the “right” is simply a matter of money … if I am going to be the “Parental Scholarship Fund” then I get to set the same conditions about maintaining a minimum GPA and courseload as any other provider of financial aid.</p>
<p>if my mom or dad asked me how i was doing in any class i’d tell them. wether it was an A or an F. although i am a legal adult, theyshould be allowed to know… they help pay for some of my tuition.</p>
<p>I understand the viewpoints here but my feeling is it’s ethically wrong to ‘tell on’ a grown adult. If someone is old enough to sign up, fight and die for their country at 18, they should not have professors, or anyone else, telling on them if they are a poor college student. It 's time to accepts one’s own responsibility for one’s own actions no matter how ‘nice’ his/her parents may be. I realize this is a painful process, growing up, but we ALL have made mistakes, it’s part of the process of maturity. Time to cut the cord!
I would not want my son’s progress to be secretly sent to me after he is 18.</p>