@kchendds Your D’s modesty and circumspection regarding discussing grades and GPA may be your take on her personality, but when her home town newspaper runs an online interview with her featuring her GPA and picture, others might not share your perception of her modesty. Might be time to dial down the online media. Just saying.
In reviewing the posting history, OP had a lot of concerns about her DD’s anxiety attacks last summer, so it is possible that this girl is putting so much energy into keeping it together that she’s missing some of the social cues. Or that she is struggling more than she has let on and doesn’t want to upset/worry her parents.
If this is upsetting this young woman, all the more reason to visit the counseling center. This bullying could make her very vulnerable.
Your D needs to discuss this (her anxiety about others teasing her and how to handle it) with her therapist. I hope she has a local therapist at her school. She needs to know how to handle these situations. As Blossom mentioned, this could turn into a lifelong issue. Based on the prior posts she had anxiety issues that need to be addressed .
To answer the actual question of your post, my very smart kid does not have issues with teasing or jealous people . And this is a kid who is bubbly and (annoyingly) good at everything! Choosing who to be friends with and who to politely ignore is a life skill. I would reach out to a therapist for help on this.
@Trisherella oh trust me. It happens and my daughter got bullied the most by her club players when she just wanted to stay in her room to study during a tournament in Vegas at night while the girls wanted to hang out on the Strip. They got upset at her and even physically bullied her. They were 16-17 at age. Also my daughter is not the only one get mistreated in her college right now. There’s a another sophomore player who also a high achiever. They just tease her for being so into school and being “extra”.
My conclusion is, my daughter might be intelligent but she is not very smart when it comes to social life. I just remember she had hung out with people that didn’t even graduate HS at the end while she is the top ten student and number one in girls in her 600+ class. She only started to hang out with the other top students towards the last year of HS. They are still best friends now, never got bullied by them.
I was just shocked to see a top college that turned out to be not so different from anywhere including her 3000 students public high school less than 100 IB students and students from all walks of life People are people. You always have to know who to be friends with. I think I was being naïve.
How did they “figure what she got on tests”? With all of today’s privacy controls, I wonder how this happened.
I agree with the others that your D may need some help navigating the social part of college. Counseling is never a bad idea, no matter how well adjusted and happy one “appears” to be.
@tdy123 People in her college don’t know about her online interview. It is an out of state college. She didn’t tell anyone about it but unfortunately she is one of the ten admitted students of class 2020 which is featured on her school’s website. The coach has brought it up in the beginning of the season though 
And everybody here thinking my daughter is the one having trouble dealing with this sort of bully incident, she is fine. She is only a little sad but it was me that feel I failed her when I falsely told her it would be better in college. Please read my post again. But thank you so much for all the input and concern. We talked on the phone and she just missed the good old time with the nicer teammates. She told me she would ignore them and do her own thing. She and the other freshmen also decided they will be the nice upperclassmen to the incoming teammates and be the one that they will go for help. Like what they just did today. They went to talk to the senior about it and they felt much better now.
Also regarding her anxiety issue, it is well under control. No attack even with being bullied and got a 76 :o on her first Bio quiz when she got a 7/7 on her IB HL Bio with the exact same material lol!!
@Nrdsb4 there’s a girl used to be my daughter’s one of the besties who talked about a lot of stuff now friends with that junior. Don’t doubt it. My daughter don’t like to show off. She used to hide her grades to avoid hatred from others. She got bullied by a teacher as a first grader and since then she had hated being smart for the longest time. She just got better after we sent her to a public GATE program while a lot of kids were also smart.
There’s a point at which our concerns, as well as our confusion, plus our child’s disappointment, do lead us to get good counseling. It’s not a loss or a failure, it’s more a chance to heal and grow, learn some of the lessons some of us, at all ages, seem to sometimes miss.
This may not be as simple as being a top student or who knows what. It can be as simple as learning new ways and new strengths, a little more confidence, some perspective. That’s what growing is.
I like the advice that, if there were some nagging health issue, one would see a doc. It’s the same with these little ‘people issues.’ Think about it. So many kids do seek personal help, in college. There’s an active poster (college kid) who recently did and he was surprised how the talk time helped.
My daughter’s coach knows her grades before D does, and so does the scholarship leader of her sorority. Everyone knows. Everyone knows how much (or close) other players have in scholarships.
My daughter is the opposite and is very popular, but all the togetherness is too much for her. She steps away. Her best ‘low drama’ year was sophomore year when daughter lived with other athletes who aren’t on her team. Those girls travel when daughter played at home and vice versa. Daughter hung out with teammate on her team when she wanted to. She’s in a sorority and again, controls the amount of time she spend with them.
Another source of help is the team captains. My daughter is a captan and often has younger kids telling her that they’ve received mean comments. She usually tells the older kids to knock it off. If she needs the coach, she tells the coach, but the coach is a big gossip herself. However, if there is a big issue with group bullying, the coach needs to know. I know of several teams where the entire groups of upperclassmen were disciplined or even suspended, but these are severe cases. It is not possible to know if your daughter is being too sensitive (they didn’t include her on a social outing) or if they are being mean and hurtful. I think she should speak to others in her class about it and see how they are being treated.
If I were your daughter, I’d separate from the team until next season. Be social with another group. Study with other groups. When practice starts again next year, there will be freshman (new faces), a new start.
@lookingforward the issue is on me this time… not her. She is doing great. It was me that feel frustrated I couldn’t get her out of that undesirable years after years in school. I was just trying to understand more and learn more about what smart people are facing. Unlucky yet lucky, I am not smart enough to worry anything like that. All I need is to find perspectives from other people.
@twoinanddone they are practicing as off-season non-stop since Jan. The Captains are the seniors and they are gone. She is fine though but she said she will keep a distance with her and some others. Thanks!
“She only started to hang out with the other top students towards the last year of HS. They are still best friends now, never got bullied by them.”
same thing happened to my DS.
She WILL find her peeps in college. Just remind her [ and yourself] that it sometimes takes more time for those who are REALLY smart AND aren’t as socially adept as most people.
Well they can’t practice as much in the off season (if her D3 school is following NCAA rules). Practice is cut down to 9 hours per week instead of 20. I would imagine the new captains have been appointed/voted on. Or she can talk to the coach and just asked to be released from the social obligations outside of practice. If the coach asks why, she should tell the coach that she feels intimidated by the juniors and welcomed in social activities.
Not everything is bullying. There are some duties that do fall to the new members of the team - cleaning up the equipment, set up, etc. but not in a punishing way. Everyone has duties, everyone has to haul the equipment at some times. Picking up trash is okay, picking up a locker room the older kids have purposely trashed is not. Having special seats on the bus for the seniors is okay, making the freshmen sit on the floor is not.
My daughter has been hauling nets and cleaning up the field after her teams since she was 10. She never leaves a mess for others to pick up, but when she assigns a duty to a freshman, she does expect that duty to be done. And my daughter is ALWAYS there beside that teammate, hauling the last net and picking up the last ball and trash that didn’t make it to the trash can.
@twoinanddone They have practice with the men’s club 2-3 times a week and two hours max each session and a lot of lifting together. They also have weekend social with other sport teams at least once a week. She has been cutting down on the social and only hang out with her freshman friends and her boyfriend she met in this college. The coach is allowed to participate 7 practices (I think) this term and this weird dynamic has been happening since it started. I hope it will get better when the season starts because my daughter will be on the court a lot with them. She was the only freshman that played last season and the junior and some other girls were nice to her. I am thinking playing against other school as a team will bring them closer naturally and be on the same page. Let’s cross our fingers.
I want to be careful about what I say here, but this sort of thing can be a problem for some of the other students. People are quick to notice even subtle differences between how they and others are treated. Without a greater context, it’s hard to determine where this animus is coming from, but you shouldn’t assume it’s just because they are not as smart or as achievement oriented or what have you.
@sylvan8798 the trend has been so consistent that the result we saw the people who were mean or have bullied my daughter were the people with a different goals about their future than my daughter and so happened they are not the high achieving bunch. I don’t see them less, I see them different from my daughter’s choice of path. It happened to my daughter and it is history and fact. No assumption on any people that we don’t know or have nothing to do with my child.
What I mentioned that you quoted was the purpose for me to show how normal adults see my child as a person. If she is a person with all sort of personal problems as some posters suggested, she wouldn’t have been chosen to be the leader so many times. It is a reference to tell people some history of my daughter in less than a paragraph. I was not trying to imply people are any less. I would never think of that and I don’t like to think anyone is less unless they proved me wrong.
Can you give a few concrete examples of the bullying your daughter is receiving both currently and in the past? I’m confused about EXACTLY what kind of behavior you are talking about here.
My kiddo is just like yours. Salutatorian. Goes to a top school. Over-achiever in a pre-med program. Beautiful, funny, wicked smart, leader, etc. etc. etc. Blah, blah, blah.
Your post sounded absolutely bizarre to me. No offense, but I don’t think myself or my kiddo could identify with any of the observations you’re making here about bullying and jealousy of academically gifted kids from affluent homes. Doesn’t ring true to our experience. I can’t for the life of me remember a single instance of this sort of thing touching my kiddo’s life. Not in highschool and certainly not in college.
My kiddo has lifelong friendships with people from all walks. None have ever been mean to her. From an unemployed musician, to a career Firefighter/EMT, to a grad student in medical residency, to a retail clerk/freelance photographer…her best friendships are not based on achievement or affluence. They’re based on commonality, intimacy and shared respect, humor and love.
Gotta say, I think the casual way you label people and talk about status is extremely offputting. I’m sure you don’t mean it to be. I don’t think you realize how arrogant it could make you sound to many people, or how judgmental. Might be something to give a second thought and extra consideration to.
I think if you refer to, or treat people as if they are “other” or “less”, it opens you up to hostility. And it’s deserved hostility…because in reality, no one is better than anyone else. We all achieve. We all fail. We all do our best to live the best lives we can.
My Grandma used to say: “A good remedy for victimhood…is gratitude.” Be grateful for your kiddo’s many advantages in life.
“I had been telling my daughter her whole life that once she is in a college where she belongs, she would have a better life and better friends. She had really tough life in that area because she was always in a wrong school for the wrong demographics. I thought it would end once she got into a great school which only takes successful and intelligent students. I thought they would share the same vision and have the same mentality”
I think this little clump of sentences…describes the root of the problem.
OP- again, I don’t know why you are so resistant to the idea of counseling. For your D, for you.
You are posting about a 19 year old kid? How old is your D? Who has a “history” of being bullied? And you’re worried that the problem is that you promised her that if she worked hard and got into a good college with smart people the problem would go away???
You are worried about the wrong thing. And you are addressing the wrong problem.
I don’t know you or your D. But I’m willing to bet that you don’t have a lot of insight into how she relates to her peers- whether they are fat and ugly and poor or affluent and smart and adorable. I bet you have only limited insight into how she relates to her teachers and coaches. And you have very limited insight into the dynamic between mother and daughter both growing up and now.
You are getting a lot of personal validation from having raised a D who is a varsity athlete. I get that. But your response to my suggestion that she walk away from a team comprised of a bunch of nasty/sniping/bullying mean girls is “she’s a varsity athlete”. Again- are you going to encourage to stick with a nasty and abusive husband because he’s good looking and has a high status job?
There are nasty people everywhere and there are good, kind, supportive people everywhere. Your D can learn to surround herself with the kind and supportive ones (with the occasional clunker), or she can continue this pattern for another 19 years of ending up with the jealous backsnipers.
You really want her spending another couple of decades with the same dynamic?
This is a skill which can be taught. Your D can learn to value herself for other things besides being cute and affluent and athletic, which will allow her to walk away from abusive situations with her head held high, and will allow her to be friends with the kind of people who love her for her sense of humor or ability to empathize or any other quality that has nothing to do with grades or money or coordination.
Help her develop this skill. It is just as important as her gpa to her success as an adult.