Hey parents of 2016ers – i have a question and would like your thoughts.
d16 has narrowed it down to 2 colleges; 1 financial safety & nearby; 1 OOS LAC and waiting on scholarship amts/financial aid info.
Today on the HS parent portal … first time this year . … I noticed something that frustrates me. She got a “B” in an AP class for last semester; which is OK . . . except i noticed she aced all of her tests, but had 18 missing assignments last semester. Hence the B.
she did just enough to get by; she figured out the grading system. I’m frustrated as we are trying to figure out how to pay for her LAC … . and this is a bad sign. It seems so irresponsible; a bad precedence; she just didnt do the work. I’d talk to her about it, but she’s actually home sick with a fever so i wont be pesky right now.
have any of you experienced this? is it being lazy? senoritis? a bad sign? am i being a helicopter parent? Is this balance between homework/tests something she’ll need to learn on her own? i would so appreciate your thoughts. just shaking my head right now.
@labegg That’s really good for that teacher to show concern. He must really care. @fretfulmother That’s quite strange and scary. At my school Student Council does a teen dating violence awareness campaign in February. Last year someone tore down the 20+ posters I made.
I missed one. I credit CC with giving me the knowledge. However, I am not sure I agree with having total loan debt be as much as your first year salary and no more. I would say that might be ok but it might not. That was the one I missed.
@bgbg4us I have similar frustrations with S16. I’ve been trying to stay away from the portal and have been struggling to get him to take responsibility for checking up on his own work, but he doesn’t feel that it matters as much I think it does. He doesn’t intentionally not do work, but has forgotten to do assignments or turn them in. He only does this for the classes he does not like or does not think are important (mostly English and Health).
I keep trying to emphasize that I don’t feel comfortable sending him away to school knowing that he has the potential to slack off and not stay on top of everything. I also tell him that even though acceptances are in, his transcript is still needed for scholarships. Not sure I’m getting through 100%. It really makes me crazy!
@RyanG1207 Thanks for the laugh today. Although I do wonder if my S would know what a busy signal is! LOL
@bgbg4us I could write a book on my S and how he has torpedoed grades by not handing things in or doing things last minute or other similar behavior. This year he finally (!) for all but one assignment stopped getting zeros on homework.Sometimes he did the homework and did not hand it in (my DH calls that the worst case scenario, spending time doing the work but not getting credit for it). He has 3 classes right now that his grades have dropped because of one or two assignments where he did poorly and I am very upset since these grades are going to the colleges in a few weeks. My DH and I think it is mostly due to his winter track time commitment - S disagrees.
If this is the first time your D has done this, it might be senioritis or perhaps she was overwhelmed with other work and made the choice to put the time in on other subjects. When she feels better, a discussion is definitely in order. In my S’s case, he just dropped to a C in an important class and I don’t see how he can pull it back to a B by the end of the quarter, which is in 10 days. If he’d earned a C all along, I could live with it but he had a very solid B and just tanked a test. It seems to be a pattern with him this quarter. Kind of at loose ends here. Not sure I have any good advice, but I can commiserate.
Wow - I hadn’t even thought about having S check the portals for the schools at which he’s been accepted. I think he’s mostly thinking he’s off the hook now until March when the three RD notifications roll in. I’m not entirely sure that he has EVER made a phone call - I should check on that. Maybe to his dad or me, or grandparents, but not recently. He’ll text or Facetime. Email isn’t a lot better. One of his accepted schools gave him full tuition (NMSF), but nothing about Honors. That might be a deciding factor in that particular school’s case. Getting him to write to his admissions contact there and ask when Honors College determinations are made, and whether any separate information is needed… that was painful. He did it, and received a nice response with information about when those decisions are made, but it sure wasn’t fun to get that done.
So now we get to discuss portal checking. Good times.
OK - off to read all the posts I’ve missed. Hope everyone’s having a great Wednesday! Just a downhill sled to the weekend, right?
@PAO200 I apologize ahead of time if this rains on your parade…and it may not even be the case for your child. My S16 received a couple different “lengthy hand written” notes, personalized with his first name, written in cursive, but when we inspected it really closely we were convinced that it was computer generated. It really did look like a hand written note. Hope yours is the real deal…but check carefully. We were impressed at first (ALOT!) and then a bit irritated that they sent something that was somewhat misleading.
Regarding financial aid/EFC:
First question: EFC because this fall will be the first time I have two students in college at the same time. In basic terms, the EFC is what they think the family can afford (lol) based on their income for that year. I have heard that if there are two kids in college, then 50-60 percent of total EFC is allocated to each of the two kids. Can someone with first hand experience with this let me know if this is correct?
Second question: If the EFC is divided (sort of) between the two kids, and one of those kids has a great scholarship, maybe even a full ride…will the other child’s school know about the full ride and then assign 100% of the EFC to the second child (the one without the great scholarship or full ride)?
All this talk of kids handling their own communication as a step towards adulthood has me wondering, do you think your kids will settle near you after college or is next year one foot out the door with the other foot not far behind? Where would your child like to call home?
My D has no plans to live in Hawaii permanently once she leaves for college. She doesn’t think it would be a good place for her career, and she knows how high the cost of living is here. She used to think she wanted to settle in the SF bay area or NYC, but thanks to a series of Buzzfeed articles showing how much housing you can get for the same amount of money around the country, I think she is reevaluating that plan.
@4kids2graduate My friends will have three in college next year. From what she told me, since their oldest has a full ride for athletics, it’s like they just will have two. So, for them, it basically doesn’t help at all. I am not an expert by any means, but thought I would share. She was just telling me about this.
I know where DC16 wants to ultimately end up because we discuss it often. It would be fine for me because he may be my ticket to where I want to retire .
@Ballerina016 I think they just went through and picked what scholarship they thought you would qualify for from that section of the app. D got the invitation to apply for the leadership one.
My plan is to stay close to home after college. I’m only going 45 minutes away and I can’t see myself going any further. I like the area I live in and there are lots of good school districts around.( I want to be an elementary teacher) So many people in my high school can’t wait to get as far away from our small town as possible but I love it. So @palm715 I want to stay close. My sister isn’t exactly sure, it depends on job prospects(she’s going to Culinary Institute of America and wants to be a baker/pastry chef with the goal of owning her own bakery) but she wants to be within easy driving distance of home. Our dad lives quite far from his dad and we see with how hard it has been for him with his mom’s battle with cancer and death nearly 5 years ago and his dad being far away despite living with my uncle. I don’t want that for my own parents
@Ballerina016 and @MuggleMom my son got two emails one was the alumni leadership scholarship and the other is a low income, with the income being a gross of $86,000.
Thanks for posting, because my son would not have mentioned these to me if I had not asked!
@readingclaygirl he won’t even talk about applying to scholarships until after his final 4 apps are in this Friday! Sadly, this was only an invitation to apply not an award.
He is being a pain about money. I mentioned that I ran the calculators for his top school (school A) and another equally, if not even better school (school B) but lower on his list. The difference in cost according to the calculators was $20,000 a year with school B being easy to afford , and A being outrageous. I told him that if he gets into school B he will be going there (it is a top school) and he said if gets into both we can talk about it then. I looked at him and said, if you get into both schools and the difference is $20,000 a year and you choose A then you are an idiot and we won’t pay. He just smiled.
@2manybooks What are they supposed to be checking for on the portals? It’s a major chore to get my son to check his.
He’s had two acceptances in the last 24 hours. He is four for four and waiting on three more schools. We won’t have final results until late March. He would be happy to attend any of the four he’s been accepted to and has roommate buddies picked for two and one of the ones he’s waiting on. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to room with a childhood friend though.
I am not an expert by any means, but thought I would share. She was just telling me about this.