<p>Thank you, yabeyabe2. I’ll have him check in with the Guidance Counselor before finals next week to see how they do it at his HS. And yes … he is a kid poised to bloom in the right environment. His current joke is that quite a few formerly straight A kids (at his private, rigorous Catholic school, which he started the same week that he had his Chabad barmitzvah!!! Talk about diversity…) already peaked in soph/junior year and it’s downhill from there for them, while he, on the other hand, is just coming into his own and the best lies ahead!</p>
<p>^^ Chiming in to say that sometimes the longer road has the best flowers and the prettiest views! I come from a family of late bloomers (my D is no exception) and while we (my immediate family) have been in the shadows during the high school years, college is where we really shined (of course after the bumpy freshman year). A couple of my friends kids, who were academic superstars in high school, fell completely apart in college with suicide attempts and eating disorders. So, so sad.</p>
<p>S2 and I did the thank-you’s the last week of school. I ordered coffee mugs from Pitzer (where he will matriculate in the fall). He baked mini- chocolate chip cookies which we wrapped in saran and tied with big orange bows. I found some cute orange notes cards with “thanks” on them, and he wrote each of the teachers / counselor a personalized note. 4 did rec’s (different ones for different schools) and one helped with editing of two of his essays. The teachers really liked the gesture.</p>
<p>A little woo hoo for my “B” son. I think he’s going to get an A in AP computer science and College Algebra! Another late bloomer, I think!</p>
<p>mom2sons - your thank you gifts sound perfect. I’ll have to remember that for next year.</p>
<p>I suggested to my D today that she start jotting down a “brag” sheet. She nodded, seemed to think it was a good idea. I remarked that it would be helpful in lots of ways, including making sure her recommenders know as much as possible about her.</p>
<p>She remarked that her math teacher already knows there’s more to her than what’s on the surface. She was the only person in class who knew the serial number of the starship Enterprise. I think her “brag” sheet is going to look kind of different from the usual kid …</p>
<p>Seriously, I think this kind of exercise will greatly help a kid’s confidence. Seeing it all in front of them, who they are, what they’ve done, is a great perspective when at an isolated moment they might feel they’re kind of uninteresting. </p>
<p>My D seems to have brought her GPA up this semester, got a few things clicking in her own head, got less suspicious that teachers didn’t believe in her. I can’t ask for more. She took SAT2s this morning, found Math 1 surprisingly easy, but Lit and US History harder than she’d expected. I think she didn’t do her homework on how the tests were structured, might have done some guessing, which I fear gets penalized on these tests. But I was gone this past week and it was her business to prepare (plus do some major end-of-year work for school). I’m not sweating anything; everything is a learning experience. She only took SAT2s because one school she likes a lot “recommends” them, so it was a good faith effort at best. </p>
<p>We’re so looking forward to summer … and she’s getting a very nice “senior” feeling right now, feels pretty special.</p>
<p>Congrats to everyone on moving another year forward!</p>
<p>I would like to suggest starting of three new threads based on the year they will entering college</p>
<p>3.0 to 3.3 (GPA) Parents Thread (2011 HS Graduation)
3.0 to 3.3 (GPA) Parents Thread (2012 HS Graduation)
3.0 to 3.3 (GPA) Parents Thread (2013 HS Graduation)</p>
<p>This thread has almost 250 pages and students in different years need different types of help. My son is in this category (very bright but low GPA’s due to LD) but will not graduate for 3 more years.</p>
<p>If others think this makes sense, I could or someone else could start the threads.</p>
<p>I agree that more threads for what’s been called the “3.X” student would be great. It doesn’t hurt to have a big “how are you doing” thread (similar to the “class of XX” ones), just to chat. But when there is golden information, it would be nice if it were easier to find. </p>
<p>We also have the issue where the GPAs fluctuate, so many of us bounce around the “B+”, 3.0-3.3, 3.3-3.6, etc. threads. I think it helps if we’re all open-minded, but again, you are right that specific info gets buried.</p>
<p>Dividing by grad year could be useful, but it’s also nice to have people blended because the newbies learn so much from the veterans. </p>
<p>Please go ahead and start more specifically defined threads. But I bet (and hope) this one will keep going as an overall discussion. The more the merrier, in my opinion.</p>
<p>At one point, I believe we suggested to CC setting up a subforum for future parents. Nothing happened.
The idea of dividing by year is interesting. I once suggested dividing by region of college search, as very few kids semed to be looking in more than one region, so western parents wasted a lot of time plowing through dozens of pages on the East Coast.</p>
<p>Emmybet, your daughter seems exceptionally grounded; congratulations on a job well done!</p>
<p>I like the idea of breaking us up by the years. I think those of us that have rising seniors(!) will have different concerns then juniors and especially sophomores and vice versa. When a thread gets to be so many pages, it’s overwhelming for newbies. I also agree with the grade fluctuation but it’s really important for us to keep talking in the midst of the college search and also for support. It often seems that the average High School student on CC is NOT the average I know in real life. I don’t think any of us will cause a fuss if the grades go up to be over 3.3!</p>
<p>OK here it goes, I will be starting one by year, thanks for the input</p>
<p>I have started three threads based on year of graduation. This thread should continue as an overall thread.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/939937-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread-2013-hs-graduation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/939937-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread-2013-hs-graduation.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/939935-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread-2012-hs-graduation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/939935-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread-2012-hs-graduation.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/939933-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread-2011-hs-graduation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/939933-3-0-3-3-gpa-parents-thread-2011-hs-graduation.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks! </p>
<p>Well-grounded? She’s doing pretty well right now, I will say. But as anyone here would say, she is definitely a teenager. And she’s surely going to be “well-grounded” if she doesn’t get her closet and desk cleared out by the end of next week…</p>
<p>See everyone on the myriad of threads. I hope the vets keep joining in! We need you!</p>
<p>Hi all…mine just finished finals and hasn’t been home since Friday…emmybet: if it was only her closet; her entire room is covered in clothing, books, papers, etc…we are giving her until this Sunday or she isn’t leaving the house…I like the “well-grounded” approach…</p>
<p>I wish the only mess issues in our son’s room were things as sanitary as clothes and books. I’ve been fighting all year to get him to remember to bring cups back down to the kitchen. If he actually finished what was in them I wouldn’t mind so much…or if what he left unfinished wasn’t so often milk (usually resembling cottage cheese by the time it gets down to the kitchen). :eek:</p>
<p>rodney, my daughters room is so bad right now I can barely see the floor. This coming weekend she will spend some time cleaning it. She leaves for the summer on 6/23 and I have told her that if she doesn’t clean it I WILL and she won’t like all the stuff I get rid of! Hopefully that will motivate her.
A few months ago the mess was was bad in her room we found a family of field mice living there! Now granted we live in the country so it is common to get mice migrating inside…but it took forever for us to notice them in her room b/c of all the STUFF!</p>
<p>Oh, I love these stories! I’ll confess the closet and desk (and windowseat and bookshelves) are merely the icing on the cake, which of course is the floor. My H thinks we need a dumpster to deal with it! D, too, has a deadline … I won’t pull her from the summer play, but at our house it would be Dad who would clean it out - and I mean OUT! So she’ll get it done. </p>
<p>I’m surprised we haven’t had mice … hollie, I hope none of them died. Nothing worse than that smell. That happens to us in the basement occasionally (we’re in the country, too). Actually she would never get mice - our 3 cats spend a huge portion of time in her room (lots of comfy piles to curl up in, you know what I mean?).</p>
<p>She has heard many times that we pity her college roommate. That probably will be the make or break for her. My D1 is only average-messy, and her roommates were about the same, but D2 could send almost anyone running for the hills.</p>
<p>EmmyBet–LOL on pitying the roommate. I can’t decide whether I’d rather he have a fellow slob roomie, or a relative neatnik. With the latter, there’d be some tension but maybe some progress as well; with the former, there’d be more comfort, but security might have to come dig them out with earth-moving equipment by October.</p>
<p>Oddly enough my d has been away at sleepaway camp either as a camper or staff the past 10 summers and she is neat as a pin there!!! Just blesses us with her mess. She assures me that her neat self will prevail at college. We’ll see! And emmybet- rest assured my dh caught all the mice alive and set them free. ( it was a mama and babies)</p>
<p>My parents were astounded that my law school roomie was even messier than I was. They felt it was karma–and we are still friends 30+ years later.</p>
<p>We may have to return to CC and this thread in case we end up at similar schools, (roommate matching anyone?) Emmybet; we just had the roommate conversation yesterday…it went like this:</p>
<p>me: " So, who do you think is going to put up with this in college?" “Your roommate will throw your crap out the window”</p>
<p>she: “I’ll either be neater then, or find a roommate that is as sloppy as I am”</p>
<p>me: “Lotsaluck”…</p>