If he finds small talk boring and can’t think of anything interesting to say in his humanities classes, it sounds to me like his current school/classroom/other students might not be a good academic fit for him. He may be academically more advanced than his current situation (despite his GPA) and just kind of tuning out during classroom time because of that.
Do you think that is possible? If so, have you considered having him take a low-stakes, non-GPA reportable enrichment class with highly motivated, academic peers. Maybe over the summer? He might thrive in such a situation, and that would be good information to have. And if he doesn’t thrive, that’s also good to know!
One possibility is the courses offered online at The Art of Problem Solving. These are real classes, not self-paced, and tend to attract kids who are highly motivated in their subject area. I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t have to report any of these classes to colleges, but he could if he wants to. I am only familiar with their programming courses (Python) but I think very highly of those. And lots of people think their math and science courses are excellent.
Agree with this suggestion, 100%, but would also suggest considering trying “family adventure on Saturday, homework gets done on Sunday”. We found with one of ours (who has ADHD-i and had OCD, and still struggles with procrastination/perfectionism cycles) that work will expand to fill (and beyond) the time available, so it was sometimes more effective to do “the fun thing” up front. Doing the work at the outset meant that the fun thing never actually happened, as there’s always more work that “needs” to get done.
There are a lot of professionals on this thread giving suggestions to follow up on the testing, and you may prefer to follow that advice. If it isn’t his eyes or his spending too much time on the computer or the testers not observing him in person, you just have to accept that he’s being him. And that’s okay.
I say there is nothing wrong with him. Let him be satisfied with the 3.1 and (very impressive) 1590. He can go to college. He can get into most majors. It doesn’t sound like he has his heart set on Stanford so don’t worry about that. Find a few schools that he likes, that you can afford, that are close or far or whatever works.
Studying 8 hours a day isn’t helping anything, so if he isn’t enjoying it (learning just for learning’s sake), drop it. He can get a job. He should get some exercise, whether it is on a team or just walking the dog or riding a bike or cleaning your basement. Have him responsible for cooking dinner one night a week; you may end up with spaghetti every Tuesday but if he gets sick of it, he’ll learn to cook chicken.
He’s a B student and there is nothing wrong with that. He doesn’t want to talk in class and after senior year, he won’t be graded on that (for the most part). He’ll be able to pick classes he enjoys.
You have to accept that he’s a B student. I have two average kids. They got some As and some Bs. One got Cs and sometimes I was happy to see that C (math, it did her in). They both went to college (and really enjoyed what they studied). One is an engineer and makes a good salary. The other was a liberal arts major, even has a masters, and makes very little. She’s happy.
Here are my 5 cents. Before sending your son on the path to college make sure that he genuinely wants to do it.
You do not want him seating in the dorm alone editing Wikipedia and barely going to classes for thousands of dollars.
My son did Associate degree in CS and now gets Bachelor in Applied Cybersecurity from the comfort of our home. Sending him to any campus would be waste of money. He does not like to communicate with his age students but will spend hours communicating with adults discussing politics, history or technology. There are many different paths to success.
I can’t weigh in on most of the issues here, but I can respond to this. I had two kids who attended a magnet HS about 30 minutes away, and if they were making that drive today, I would definitely urge them to keep Google Maps up on the drive. Because… traffic! There are multiple ways to get to the school and being able to avoid a backup/accident on one route would make the difference between on-time and tardy. So that screentime seems like a non-issue.
Everyone who agreed with “he should not need to refer to Google maps…at all” must not live near me!
My D24 just graduated from high school about a week ago. Had an unweighted GPA of 3.22 with some C’s on her transcript. 1200 SAT. Applied to 7 colleges/universities & got accepted everywhere she applied. She’s headed to a Colleges That Change Lives college this fall.
If SHE can get into college, then YOUR son can, too, especially with his 1590 SAT score.
I think that you should consider a couple of things:
if it’s affordable, consider getting a 2nd opinion on the psychological testing
focus on finding the right FIT in terms of a college or university for him.
given where he is grade-wise, if you had thoughts, dreams, etc. of him attending a tippy top fancy school, throw those ideas out the window. But there’s still great schools out there who will have a spot for him.
What sort of environment/vibe/etc. does he want? Large school, small, medium? Rural, suburban, or urban? Distance from home? Campus vibe? Those sorts of things.
What sorts of extracurriculars does he like to do? What sorts of extracurricular activities has he participated in so far throughout high school? Which ones did he like the best, which ones did he not like so much & why?
Does he have interests or leanings towards a particular major or set of majors? If yes, use that to help you narrow down where to apply to college (i.e., don’t apply to a college that doesn’t offer a major he wants).
When you go on campus tours, consider making a stop in the school’s tutoring center. If he’s like my kid, he’ll clam up and not ask any questions or say a word, but you could ask a couple of general questions there in front of him…stuff like “What sorts of tutoring or other services are available here and how would a student sign up for that? Is there an extra fee or cost for it? What would you recommend a new freshman to consider when they’re starting out here at college X?”
For example, let’s say you were to tell us that your son is a STEM kid, maybe interested in engineering/computer science/aerospace or related topics (cybersecurity, for example, which has options in computer science & business departments at that school). I’d tell you to take a look at UAH (Univ of Alabama-Huntsville). OOS tuition there is $23,702/year. Room & Board is $11,540. With your son’s current stats, he’d qualify for their UAH Academic Merit scholarship which would knock off $15,965/year of tuition, bringing the tuition+room+board per year cost to a low $19,277.
You have to maintain a cumulative 3.0 UAH GPA, must keep your GPA each semester above a 2.0, and take earn a min of 12 credits per fall & spring semester in order to have the scholarship renew at the end of each academic year. Scholarship will not renew if your GPA falls below a 2.0.
I agree with this. But if I’m reading this correctly, this young person is looking at Google maps not while he is driving. Perhaps the parent can clarify.
When I read that he spends an hour on Google Maps, my first thought was that he is playing a game like Pokemon Go or some other game that employs real world mapping.
Agree with other posters to have him assessed for autism spectrum disorder.
I guess I just assumed having Google Maps on your screen while driving would count as “screen time” because how would the phone know differently, but I agree, although it’s minor in the scheme of things, maybe the parent could clarify. Otherwise things are getting muddied with speculation that he either can’t find his way to school, or is wasting time/obsessing with maps.
So after reading through the posts I still stand my what I said. First an evaluation. They work on brain waves to alter or achieve what your after. I have seen this in action too many times with positive results. Working on brain math centers for kids struggling in math. Adhd, aspergers, executive functioning, study habits, comprehension, and so on. Many kids that were medicated were taken off their meds etc.
They start with a brain mapping. It will target the areas that need help. I have seen this in action personally and on family members/others. I have made referrals for others with all sorts of issues with positive outcomes. They are able to dictate my personality and what I was and others were struggling with, with little info from me about me to start.fyi
Since nothing else seems to be helping I would do a consult to see if this even makes sense.
I am sorry about your concern for your son’s welfare. It almost sounds like he has too much time on his hands. I know with both my kids that are 180 opposite that they needed to work during high school and college and /or be involved with something time consuming. They needed to feel the pressure of only having so much time to get their work done. If they had too much time then their procrastination kicked in.
To everyone else on here. Yes, many people/students just read on discord, quoria, reddit etc without playing the games etc etc. Many read just on CC for years… Lol… … Not really that different.
Yep! 1 of D24’s classmates set up a Discord server for their grade when everybody was at home during COVID and they’ve all continued to use it ever since. D24 isn’t a gamer at all, but chats w/friends on Discord multiple times a day. D26 is similar…uses it to chat w/friends from school.
One of my kids usually has a ‘do it well, get it done, and enjoy your free time afterwards’ approach. For my other, who struggles with procrastination, focus, and perfectionism, life looks very different. Kid sits down to do work, can’t get started, is distracted by youtube, gets overwhelmed so procrastinates, redoes imperfect but good enough work, then rushes through other things, and sometimes doesn’t want to speak up for fear of looking stupid. It’s mostly some adhd and anxiety coupled with teen executive function immaturity. I have seen a 20 minute assignment take hours, and I likely only have some of the insight into my kid because we homeschool so I see it closely every day.
The only thing that we’ve found that helps is to do a lot of physical activity and to have work done in defined time intervals. Knowing that there are 2 hours to work before dinner, ball practice, a social event, etc, helps kid to organize their time and activate the ‘panic monster’ that seems to be necessary in order for this type of person to get something done.
In case helpful to OP and others. We had a time middle to high school when we were trying to figure out wide difference in grades vs testing combined with odd reactions to sound for our daughter. Public school was not helpful and taking us in directions that didn’t seem accurate. Reading this book put us on the path to narrowing to two processing issues and then reaching out to specialists within to determine/confirm: The Mislabeled Child by Brock and Fernette Eide
He primarily read fiction books - any genre of fiction, really. He read some of the same books that I read when he was older. When I say ‘high school’ level books I really mean books that were labeled in the library as for grades 9+. He started reading adult books when he was 8 or so. He decided in middle school that he didn’t like fiction anymore, and since then he’s exclusively read nonfiction.
So he is only using Google maps when he gets in his car? Or is he spending an hour the night before mapping out his way to get to school? In my opinion, there is a difference!
That makes sense. His teachers noticed when he was younger that he struggled in his writing classes because he wanted his handwriting to be exactly perfect, although I thought he had outgrown that.
His condition is not type 1 diabetes. I had the same condition that he has, and it did not affect my performance in school.