<p>blueiguana I wish you and your son the best. He seams like a wonderful guy who has very carrying parents. Something tells me he will be fine. Taking a trip sounds like a good idea. </p>
<p>Thank you very much for your post. You just reminded me what is really important. My S is an excellent student, but is also very headstrong and we clash sometimes. Your post put it all in prospective. I am sure to tell him how much I love him latter today.</p>
<p>Blueiguana
Thanks for sharing.
Our home sounds a bit like yours.
Part of my talk with our student recently included that the scores and grades DO NOT define you…and that the compassionate, thoughtful and talented person standing before me was not defined by athletics, SATs, grades etc…</p>
<p>I am so very sorry to hear about the suicides at the school. I recently read about an exhibit–of backpacks-- It is a traveling exhibit and is to bring awareness to this very issue.</p>
<p>We have begun talking more with our student about when there is just too much pressure
–about letting go, taking a break etc
–and that you can always change directions, move sideways, backward etc…Y
our feet are not in cement…and we would be happy to see our student take a weekend, a week, a semester, a year–to be refreshed and take a breather</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing your story. Your student is very blessed to have your listening heart nearby ;o)</p>
<p>My husband and I were talking last night about how our student is really still a kid–a growing maturing kid–and still only 16…
and the pressure these teesna re under is far more difficult from every aspect, school, sports, peers etc than we saw 30 yrs ago</p>
<p>blueiguana, I wouldn’t be overly worried about your son. Everyone needs a release and sometimes a good cry fits the bill.</p>
<p>blueiguana,
I’m so glad you felt comfortable enough to share your very personal moment with your son. There is a lot of pressure on the kids. I have had to bite my tongue several times the last couple of weeks when I see my son taking a much needed break instead of studying for the upcoming ACT test. It just seems that he’s thisclose to getting the next bump for merit aid and perhaps making a reach school into a match. What stops me is the popular CC mantra to “love the kid on the couch”.</p>
<p>Hugs to all of our kids.</p>
<p>blueiguana: I feel so much for you and for your son. Being close to that many intense tragedies is incredibly difficult. You are very right to help him put things into perspective. </p>
<p>I can’t really know, but I kind of suspect that you are underestimating the atmosphere that he is living in. I grew up in the Boston suburbs, and I know very well the “Ivy or bust” attitude out there, or just how people are measured - no, judged - by these numbers. </p>
<p>I live now in a place where people don’t even know how the SATs are scored (we’re in ACT country, but even with that, they think a 24 is awesome). Most kids basically just roll into the state schools. As a result, there just isn’t a lot of pressure all around us, and my kids, who have been in the larger world more, can decide for themselves what they want and don’t want to do. Sometimes I want to scream at the low standards they deal with, but I also remember vividly the terrible, and scary, negatives of being at a very competitive HS. </p>
<p>I once asked my now college jr D1 if the girls had the type of problems I saw growing up, like eating disorders, at her HS. She said, matter-of-factly, “No, they get pregnant instead.” Yes, these are stereotypes, but what I’m saying is that there are issues everywhere, just different flavors. It was a little easier I think for her as a high achiever to have the in-your-face attitude be “Why are you bothering to work hard?” than “You’re not as good as I am and don’t deserve to go to an elite school.” At least with the first, you know they just don’t get it, where with the other you wonder if they’re right. </p>
<p>Kids are working hard. I used to be a social worker with teenagers in residential treatment. Some of them wouldn’t even get their GED, or ever really read properly. But they worked at growing up, every day, and it was exhausting. Even though they were aggravating and made tons of mistakes, they were grateful for the support we gave them. </p>
<p>Every time I see my D2 turn on the TV, I cringe … but I try to remember the big picture, and I remember her hard times, and I know that she’s working very hard to learn how to be the adult SHE will be. Heck, sometimes that’s all I’m doing, too.</p>
<p>Best wishes to everyone.</p>
<p>Thanks for that gentle nudge, blueiguana, reminding us parents to step back and let our kids be kids; and for granting us the opportunity to reinforce with them, the value they contribute…every day.</p>
<p>blueiguana - thanks for sharing. Reminds us that grades/scores is not everything. This year has been unbelievably stressful - and at times, you do need to step up and take a look at the bigger picture. Hope your son enjoys his trip - and that it helps him.</p>
<p>D had a up week last week - this week looks like a down week. Sports season came to an end yesterday as the team lost in the playoffs. It also looks like she is not needed anymore at her part time job. She was upset and down about everything yesterday - cuddled with me on the couch and cried. She had a few things planned for today, but I didn’t give her permission to go anywhere. Asked her to come home straight from school and just chill. She’s not too happy about that, but since she didn’t protest too much, I think she might just want to chill as well. She has a hard time dropping things from her too crazy packed schedule.</p>
<p>So my D has been out of school for roughly a week. (Yesterday was the first official day off, but she had no actual finals last week.) My, my, my, is she ever good at chilling. Got up 10:30-ish. Was on the couch with the laptop on her lap, on Facebook, TV on, all day, except when she was on a raft in the pool. Finally got dressed at 10 pm (!) when her boyfriend dropped by. Now THIS is a girl that doesn’t need to be taught how to relax once school is out.</p>
<p>^^^now that sounds like the good life!</p>
<p>^^^yup, I have one that is very good at chilling. Two more finals Wed and ACT on Sat and he is done!</p>
<p>H, S and I met with S’s GC Monday after one of S’s final exams. With info obtained from this board and other sources, he had a list of about 25 schools. Just Sunday there were about 35 schools on the list so we are headed in the right direction. I think the list is pretty darn good, but I keep getting a nagging thought we are missing schools that would be a good fit for S.<br>
GC was not as prepared as I would have liked, only had soph years GPA and SAT scores available. How hard is that to pull up online? Anyway, once we got her caught up, she had some good stuff to contribute. S’s list contains very few of the schools a lot of the kids in this area apply to. Our thinking is he will have less competition with others from his school if we look outside the area and I think a lot of the local popular schools are not as good a value as some of the less well know schools on S’s list.<br>
GC agreed with us that S is in a bind with his high SAT scores and low GPA. I was surprised when she suggested S apply to a lot of reaches. According to her, he is clearly capable but many of the schools will deny him with his low GPA, so roll the dice and maybe there will be schools who will be willing to take a chance on him. It was suggested that S consider bringing up the SAT/GPA mismatch in any interviews he does over the summer and she will sit down with him in Sept to figure out how it should be addressed on his app. That was a big relief, because just a couple of weeks ago she told H that it was not her job to address that type of thing. (we really have not been happy with this GC since freshman year) Not sure why the 180, but I will take it.
GC told us that she will be checking off the box that states S has taken the “most challenging/rigorous” courseload. Another sigh of relief. I knew S was taking more honors/AP classes than most of his friends, but he isn’t running around with the brightest bulbs either.<br>
GC will go over S’s list and let us know which schools, in her opinion, will need to be shown some love so we can be sure to visit if we haven’t already done so. In addition she will review and try to beef up the list. I will be interested in seeing what she comes up with. Last I have decided to have S contact all the schools on his list and request info except for the ones we have already visited or attended info sessions.</p>
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<p>And I permit it because there are so few days like that. All this morning is drill team officer dance practice, tomorrow morning, too, then they go away to camp (the kind of dance camp where you’re so beat that you can’t move at the end of it) for five days.</p>
<p>blueiguana, thanks for sharing. The movie “Race to Nowhere” is getting lots of attention for exactly that reason. It just screened in my town, and they had to add an extra screening and talk with the director because of the overwhelming response. I hope every CC parent gets a chance to see it.</p>
<p>It kills me that our bright, talented, wonderful kids feel bad about themselves if they get a B. I know in my house it is not coming from us-- it’s more from peer competitiveness and general college anxiety. I have to say, it helps to go on a competitor site, m y c h a n c e s-- even if it’s not accurate, it’s comforting. On CC you can get this notion that even at tier-2 schools you have to have a 3.9, 2100 and 8 APs to get in; that other site shows tons of stats that suggest otherwise, that a smart, “normal” kid will do just fine.</p>
<p>Anyway, here’s to a teenage summer of summer jobs, happy volunteer work, days at the beach, time with friends, and no academic pressure!</p>
<p>Thank you, Blueiguana. And other great parents for also sharing on this thread.</p>
<p>We hit our junior crisis mid-semester. My S had done his first real college visits during Spring break, and instead of inspiring him freaked him out because he realized that his GPA wasn’t where it should be for some favorite schools. He had a disastrous mid-semester report (all Bs but 1) and a bit of a break down (yes, tears etc) where everything seemed a bit futile in face of all the grades he couldn’t go back and change, and the upcoming pressure of SAT/SATIIs/APs/IB exams. Plus the usual ECs and summer program applkications too!</p>
<p>Well, we had a very long, productive talk about not being able to change the past but only live in the future, and things really changed after that. He stayed after school to make up missed work in 2 classes, and he really hit the books.</p>
<p>Final results? 4 As 2 Bs, a great SAT score after taking it in April (not happy) and May (very happy), and a kid about to embark on a tour of East Coast LACs plus a great summer theater program after that.</p>
<p>As to the reaches/safeties questions, we too are a bit stressed on that. Lots of the LACs S likes seem to be in the reach/match area and not too manny safeties in the bunch…the SAT/GPA mis-match makes things so hard to figure. </p>
<p>The schools we are visiting are: Vassar (big reach) Bard, Hamilton (big reach) Colgate (reach) Skidmore, Bennington, Bates, Connecticut College, Trinity College and Wesleyan (big reach). Even the schools that I didn’t mark as reaches are, um, kinda reachy and competitive. We are also sad that we can’t visit during the school year but we are far away and S’s EC and IB schedule makes visiting during next year near impossible.</p>
<p>blueiguana, thanks so much for sharing, your son is lucky to have you as a parent. </p>
<p>Last week I saw the look of total exhaustion on my son’s face and I started to wonder if looking at top colleges with heavy demands was the right thing to do. I asked him to kind of put his arms around what he was feeling at that moment and then think about if he wants this high stress experience on an ongoing basis. He said he really didn’t mind and that it would make him a stronger student. I still have to digest that, but I just don’t know what to think. He has always been one of the big fish in a small pond. Would he be happy as a small fish? I know it is his choice, but…</p>
<p>Bravo Blueiguana, for a thoughtful and insightful post. All I can say is - I was there too with DS1 and I pushed too hard. I eventually stepped back, and am approaching this round with DS2 with the same mentality as you are - that is I ask DS2 repeatedly if he wants to follow this crazy senior path with 5 APs and all they entail. Initially, he said ‘no’ but today, he’s changed his schedule and said ‘yes’. I plan on watching carefully, and encourging him to think hard about his school choice, focusing on places with slightly less rigor than he might be able to secure admittance to…</p>
<p>missypie - sounds like your D is having a wonderful time. I can just see my D doing something similar late next week! She knows how to chill, loves to chill - but the next 10 days are going to be stressful. She has a final paper, a project in one subject, two finals and a ton of NHS fundraising activities to follow through on. Why now?? She claims she inherited these from her predecessor on the NHS board and needs to follow through. She was out until 10.30pm last night and looked exhausted when she came home. So I vetoed yet another non-mandatory activity she had for this afternoon. Her schedule just makes me tired sometimes!!</p>
<p>Thanks all for sharing, especially blueiguana. I’ve tried to alleviate the pressure for my kids without lowering the horizons. Life is not a race. </p>
<p>I told my brilliant but severely dyslexic son that he could finish HS in five years. He finished in four but didn’t take SATs or complete college apps until his gap year. He declined membership into NHS and only did the activities that he thought were meaningful. The big consequence: He got into Ivies and is at one of the top-rated LACs. He went to college one year older and more mature. He managed the pressure of the school and the adjustment to college well – won a prize for academic performance at the end of this, his freshman, year. </p>
<p>My rising HS junior daughter, who is susceptible to pressure, is not taking ACTs until September. I’ve suggested she stop AP French in her senior year – she started AP-level French in her sophomore year but doesn’t really want to take the heavily grammar-laden course that is left. But, she thought that colleges would want to see that she took 4 years of French. She’ll take an AP-level Earth Sciences course instead, which she’ll find easier and much more interesting. She wanted the Advanced Stats course, but the timing was off. And, she took physics out of sequence (she took AP-level bio junior year) so that she would have more math before taking it. She’s taking the non honors physics instead of the honors physics. She plans a gap year as well. </p>
<p>If we as parents can take pressure off by a) as blueiguana is doing by saying we love you no matter how you do; and b) by actually removing constraints, our kids have a higher probability of getting through the minefield safely. I wish I could do more. The pace and pressure are good for some people and not for others. Just as the ability to perform on timed tests is a skewed measure of ability to think or ability to reproduce knowledge, the ability to cope with the pressure may correlate with success in some fields but would not in others. I think it makes sense to teach kids to game the system to make it work for them and not the reverse.</p>
<p>We are transitioning to summer here too. Co-op classes have ended, AP test done, summer swim and dive started but one more game in soccer left, and ACT this Saturday. D seemed a bit worried when I told her that it wasn’t just junior year that was the hardest but also the first half of senior year. I have already talked to her about how she doesn’t need to find lots of colleges if she really likes the colleges that are EA and would be happy there. We will see how many she applies to after scores come in and some visits are made. Summer is work, dive, summer classes, a few college trips, a lengthy Northern Rockies vacation trip, a short summer program, and some relaxing times at concerts and maybe a beach trip.</p>
<p>Thank you blueiguana. It is so easy to lose sight of what’s important when one gets caught up in the madness of wanting top grades/top scores/top everything. Our issue is that D really wants to go to a smaller, challenging LAC and without merit aid, all I can afford is a state school (very little chance of any need-based aid, especially with her dad not being interested in contributing but his income counting anyway - a not unusual situation I hear). Anyway, while lots of the pressure on D was self-imposed - she loves doing well - part of it admittedly came from me, reminding her that she really needed tippy top grades if she wanted merit aid at a good school. I actually shook my head when she said she may get a B in pre-calc and/or physics (she has nothing but honors and AP classes at a competitive school). Now I feel like a jerk. She has finished finals and standardized testing as of today, and is planning a theater/dinner end-of-the-year outing for the literary magazine that she edits (which includes her freshman brother on the staff - very fun). I plan to celebrate the end of a stressful year with both of them, talk about spending the summer trying new ice cream recipes and getting classic moveis from Netflix, give them lots of hugs, and remind them that they are awesome kids doing the best they can and that is ALL I expect them to do. Everything will work out just fine. Thanks for the reminder of how precious our kids are.</p>