<p>Amen, geezermom! My son is a clone of yours, a year younger.
We are lucky they are great kids, they just have that “late blooming” y (otherwise known as the “why?”) chromosome!</p>
<p>There are so many long ones in this thread. </p>
<p>In any case, I think I understand OP’s point - I feel your pain!!! When a child you know is smart and very capable but not willing to work a little harder to get what she/he could have is very bothering to me. My D is like that 100%. She just flatout refuse to study neither SAT nor ACT.</p>
<p>At the time I was about to knee down if front of her and beg but then… … It is her life and her decision. </p>
<p>About GPA, I know it is the #1 thing college looks at. We check our kids’ quaterly report cards. If one is close to be a B, we call teacher to see if there is no problem from their side and we talk to the kid about it. Fortunately, none of mine has gotten a B yet. An A-, yes but not a B. DS usually gets high B and low A in the early part of the year and we have to keep an eye for him. For DD, she will have typically such an high averages, she could fail teh final and still get an A (figuretively speaking).</p>
<p>I also have a daughter like this. Freakishly high SATs and a respectable, but nowhere near perfect, GPA. You know the potential is there and it’s frustrating. When mine is passionate about something and applies herself she achieves such great things…state and national awards in academics and athletics…BUT when she finds something tedious or boring, she is quite satisfied with less than her potential. I know she makes this bargain herself and the way she looks at it is…‘yes, I only made an 89 on that test in that horribly boring subject, but I was too busy setting up the database of volunteers for the new tutoring progam that I’ve started at the high school. I’ll do better on the next test and make sure my average is at least 90. Que Sera.’ </p>
<p>I do recognize in this the ‘well adjusted’ facet of not being overly perfectionistic about every little thing in life. The problem is…sometimes in life you do have to do well at things you don’t like. This lesson has to be learned too.</p>
<p>Geezermom - great screen name, by the way!
I, too, have a son like yours. Outstanding SATs, including a perfect CR (with zero studying, no prep classes, etc), likely NMSF. 4s on his APs. He’s a B/B+ student in the “core” classes. His only real passion is music. He is not a gifted performer, and got a late start, but it’s the only thing he is willing to work at. He does the bare minimum to get by in his other classes. His teachers enjoy his class contributions while bemoaning his failure to turn in homework or meet deadlines. </p>
<p>Do I get frustrated with him? Absolutely. I nag the heck out of him, which he mostly finds amusing. It doesn’t do any good to nag him (I just can’t help myself LOL). On the other hand, I must say I worry about the kids on CC who write about taking 5 AP courses in a semester and are posting about their “horrible” (i.e. 3.9) GPA at 3 AM. Such stress at such an early age. I am thankful that my son is a happy, self confident young man with a wonderful sense of humor, many friends and a generally optimistic outlook on life. Obviously, I wish he had more As - what mom wouldn’t. He may well end up at a so-called second or third tier college (which he may find surprising in spite of my having told him that his grades are not going to cut it w/ the more selective schools), but I have no doubt that he will do just fine in whatever he ends up doing. And so, I am sure, will Geezerson.</p>
<p>You are not alone, mine is not a slacker but refuse to kill herself over grades. Sleep is her EC :). Luckily, nobody here goes nuts over colleges so I don’t feel too pressured.</p>
<p>great post calmom!</p>
<p>Geezerson 
– I’m sure he would love that one! But I have not suggested that he look on CC because I find the kids so totally crazed and anxiety ridden–and some of them don’t seem very kind, to put it mildly. The thought of teenagers assessing each other’s “chances” is pretty laughable. So I’m sticking to Parents, thank you very much.</p>
<p>Today’s a better day. He emptied the dishwasher, carried out trash, figured out how to stop the Prius from beeping when it’s in reverse, etc. What a helpful kid! I’m more relaxed thanks to all the humbling advice I read here.</p>
<p>Thank you all for posting this im extremely nervous about getting in any college…I had a really hard freshman yr…65-straight 4 quaters in math(they thankfully passed me) so a D-(64=failing…at my school and old school) </p>
<p>and o-k so so grades in english and living environment( i passed both tho i can say that and i passed the LE regents by like 18 points!!! Well for me but 8 points if i were to want the regents diploma but im in a new school so i will b getting a private school diploma)
History i had a B+ in b/c its my best subject and a really easy teacher(if u had 3 paragraphs and say maybe half of what he asked for u would get a 40 or above out of 50 on the essays for the tests!!!) i ended up w/ a C average in freshman yr…
i had a lot of trouble due to the fact i didnt get enuff help and like the above i was very lazy w/ my hw they actually made my mom sign my hw book saying i did my hw…towards the end</p>
<p>now I have a good average and i will graduate w/ somewhere between a 2.8 and a 3.0 due to freshman yr…its a match for my favorite college…</p>
<p>i also did ok in MATH A i have a 70-something average in math A…which i took in 8th grade…and a 85 average for the second half of 7th grade when i took the first semester of the 1.5 yrs of Math A</p>
<p>Geezermom - My kid would never look at CC - it simply wouldn’t interest him. I have shown him some posts from time to time from the “music major” forum. (That’s how I originally found CC in the first place - I was googling for info about colleges and careers for music after he announced that he might want to pursue a music major in college). I must say the folks on that forum are, for the most part, pleasant and try very hard to be helpful and not critical. Anyway, I agree with you that quite a few of the kids on CC, especially the “chances” threads, are more than a little harsh with one another. And high school students “chancing” each other is simply a waste of time - only the admissions officers at the colleges know why they may choose to admit one applicant and not another.</p>
<p>If your school sends heaps of kids to top schools, they probably keep scattergrams. Geezer, you and your son should make arrangements to view the school scattergrams as soon as possible. </p>
<p>As HeliMom pointed out, scattergrams are tough to beat. Adcom makes an effort to be consistent school to school. If the scattergrams at your school say that your hs sends only 4.0 GPA kids to UNC, then UNC will probably be a Holy Mary app for your son. Within the top schools, look for those that take quirky but passionate kids. Those schools will have a few dots that fall off matrix. Your GC should be able to confirm those dots as genuine quirks–not wealthy legaices or athletes.</p>
<p>Lots of schools say they take quirky candidates, but the scattergrams prove otherwise. Still, there are some that do see beyond the stats, Barnard for example.</p>
<p>Quirky kids from little known schools have a better chance of being seen holistically, IMO. If they only see one app every ten years from a little known school, adcom doesn’t have to worry about keeping a consistent profile.</p>
<p>calmom,
Great post! But it is hard to have one of these kids (I’m in the club) who could probably put in more of an effort and “do better.” I have taken to saying to my kids, “You should try to do as well as possible (in HS) because you will be giving yourself more options in the future.” They “understand” you while you are saying it, but as my H says, “The road to h*ll is paved with good intentions.”</p>
<p>Been there done that. Finally about senior year of HS I started a new mantra “lower your standards…hope he stays out of jail, marries someone kind, and finds some degree of happiness in this life.”<br>
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
They will do what they want. Are we as adults never guilty of not doing our absolute best? Do we never take “the easy road?” We do, and sometimes, so do they.</p>
<p>ebeee,
you are so wise. It’s so different when it’s someone else that you love so much!! It’s almost like you can self-destruct yourself, and live with it, but to watch someone else is agonizing! (That’s an extreme example).</p>
<p>I always try to remind myself of the stuff I did (or didn’t) when I was my kid’s age. (My mom was clueless though.) Times were so different. As long as we busted our asses in the yard and house doing chores on a regular basis, things were OK. Oh, and also being respectful.</p>
<p>momof3sons – I also am the parent of a boy like that, though his high school GPA was very high, due largely to the fact that he attended a less competitive high school (easier to get A’s). The problem was that the same kid with the same habits went off to college – so he ended up in a very expensive LAC with very uneven performance, and discovered that while he still got the A’s in the classes where he was engaged, he no longer could get easy B’s while slacking-- so instead he ended up with a combination of A’s and Cs, D’s & incompletes. Through the wonders of math, a 3.0 GPA, but to a mom who was paying a 5-figure tuition, not at all acceptable.</p>
<p>A few years in the work force and a transfer to an “easier” college has worked wonders, especially since he has won a prize (a coveted DC internship) at the easy college that probably represents a better opportunity for him in the long run than the liberal arts degree he would have obtained from the more prestigious school if he had done well. </p>
<p>But this all illustrates the pitfalls of parental pushing – they are on their own when they go off to college, and 18 year old boys living hundreds or thousands of miles from home do like to play. The kids who are highly focused and competitive academically will likely stay that way, and the slackers and procrastinators will continue with their old habits. So test scores aside, the best “fit” college is the one that fits the learning style and habits of the student. My son’s college #2 is like his high school – he can work if he wants, slack off if he wants, and still get all A’s – but it also turned out to offer some good opportunities in his areas of interest, and his strong intellect put him at a competitive advantage when he decided to apply for an internship. </p>
<p>I’m just saying that too much parental angst or prodding may not have good results in any case – we don’t want to send our kids off to colleges where they are in over their heads in terms of workload or competitive atmosphere. </p>
<p>Yes, of course some of them will blossom and grow in their new environment, but you can’t count on that or make it happen. The best kind of motivation is intrinsic – so that’s where it helps to be supportive of kids who seem to have unreasonably high aspirations, as well as tolerant and respectful of those whose goals seem modest in comparison to their abilities.</p>
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<p>Calmom, I hope not. I hope my D will do better in college because she can choose when to take her class. In high school, she cannot choose the time she starts, right now she has to be at school at 7:30 A.M, she is not a morning person. On non-school day, she gets up at 12:00 P.M. In addition, I think she can somewhat choose what class and what professor to take. In high school, she has no choice.</p>
<p>Toorich, while some kids will change given favorable circumstances, Calmom is correct that most will not. This is why colleges rely so much on HS GPA, it really is an amazing predictor of success in college and lots of other things. A strong GPA is about so much more than intelligence, it’s about discipline, organization, goal orientation…putting all the pieces together successfully. That’s what success in many careers is about too.</p>
<p>Not all HS GPAs are created equal. Some high schools are easier to get As. For example, D knows a sophomore at her high school who gets straight As but she’s getting up at 3:00 A.M to study. This kid has 4-hour sleep a day. Insane.</p>
<p>TooRichforAid: hope for the best, but plan for the worst. </p>
<p>Colleges do give more flexibility, but it is not unlimited. My son wasn’t a morning person either, but most of the classes he wanted to take at his first college were 9 am classes – so he pretty much got into the habit of staying up all night, going to the morning classes, then taking a late afternoon nap – probably sleeping from about 4 pm to midnight, which unfortunately did not mesh too well with the on campus dining options. Fortunately he had suite-style living with a kitchen and is a vegetarian very fond of his rice cooker. </p>
<p>My daughter had later classes for the most part… but then she had to schedule her work study hours, and the best block of time for that were those class-free mornings – so sleeping till noon was still out of the question.</p>
<p>And college has plenty of boring professors and required courses that cannot be avoided if one wants to graduate. One of the advantages of high school is the structure tends to keep kids on track – the lack of structure in college is where many kids mess up, falling into habits of skipping class regularly and falling behind in their reading because their teachers aren’t monitoring them through regular homework assignments.</p>
<p>I’m not sure for kids to take all late classes for 4 years. Imagine how hard to working world could be for them!</p>
<p>True, all GPAs are not created equal and my kids have been at schools that required little and one that requires a great deal. At the more difficult school my child who had always gotten straight As continued to on the whole. The one who won’t go the extra mile for the A didn’t change either. Work ethic.</p>
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<p>I agree that you can’t plan for people to become “different.” IME it is not so much that they change but that it might be easier for them to get more favorable circumstances. However that still means they are more likely to do better in what they were already doing welling in, and do decently but maybe not stellar where that was happening before. That doesn’t mean one individual can’t change a lot but just from what I’ve seen, on the whole, it seems to be what people want to believe but not really the case as much as they would hope. However the good part is grades in many cases may not be AS important as they were in high school and certainly a B/B+ average will not be a cause to worry unless you are trying to be hyper competitive. </p>
<p>But in general, I will lay it to you straight. I have no disrespect for the habits of anyone - not everyone is a student who wants to get all As, and that desire comes largely from an internal drive to please yourself and a strong motivation to please others. But IME, this is mostly inherent and not due to circumstance. I am so noooot a morning person. I have to push myself to get in bed by 1 am and even then I can lay awake for hours anyway. High school here starts at 7:20. I workout twenty hours a week. Waking up was not very fun. But I have a strong desire to get As. And I did what I had to to do it, even though I felt like crap every morning. That’s just how it goes. This is a personal thing. It doesn’t make me better than anyone else, and it doesn’t make anyone else worse. I’m not actually that smart, so I suppose we could call it even. Either way it won’t matter in the end much, will it? No one who didn’t do that is going to look back and say “darn it, I wish I slept less and got an A in history”. But I’m happy this way and your kids are happy that way. Neither of us is going to undergo a personality change next year.</p>
<p>Basically I think people need to do whatever they have to in order to be able to live with yourself at the end of day. If you want to cheat, lie, steal, fine. Contrary to popular belief, you’re NOT hurting me. But when you’re burning bridges and at the end of the day have that nagging feeling that your lifestyle is disappointing yourself, that might be something you want to consider. There are some people out there, working as artists in one room huts, but they’re happy. Really happy. That’s the life they want. We define success so narrowly, and it’s difficult not to, especially in communities where we see so much pressure to achieve and so much bragging about who won what where. It’s as hard on the parents as it is on the kids. On one hand, you don’t want to be seen as helicoptering and pushing your kid somewhere they don’t want to go, but on the other hand, you’re made to feel basically inadequate if you don’t engage in keep up with the Joneses somehow. But I think if you really look at the situation you’ll see that pressure is largely external and we can reject it. Most people get where they’re going, if they don’t revert to a life of crime first, and even then in a lot of cases there is never a “last” chance unless you do something terribly wrong. Basically, doing super well in high school opens up some immediate options, but if you aren’t the kind of person doing what it takes to seek those ones, they probably aren’t your thing anyway.</p>