Seeing how freshman year went for my D24, I’ve learned to expect bumps in the road. It’s been pretty challenging at time but things are much better now.
Pretty much every aspect of a student’s life changes at the start of freshman year of college. Where they sleep, where they live, who their friends are, where they eat, how they get to class, how much actual TIME they spend in a classroom, how they do their laundry, etc. They go from being in high school where maybe a lot of their teachers remind them of stuff all the time, to probably having at least 1 professor who covers the syllabus on the 1st day of class and that’s when he/she reminds you of the big paper due at the end of the semester…and then they don’t say anything about it until the day it’s due.
So if you’re not paying attention, if you’re distracted, if you expected the professor to be like your high school English teacher reminding you all the time of the big assignment due date that’s coming up, the student who forgets WILL learn the hard way.
D24 learned a lot of things the hard way last year. But this year, sophomore year, is better. Does she have a good GPA right now (GPA through end of freshman year)? NO. Her GPA at end of freshman year was 2.05 and she failed a class that she’ll be retaking next semester.
Last week, D24 got a 97% on a big presentation for her public health class. She’s getting A’s and B’s on the weekly quizzes in her psychology class. She’s enjoying her Intro to Health Professions class. She no longer gets all of her meals to go and eats alone in her dorm room…actually eats with real live people in the dining hall every day. And she got some mental health help, too. She’s tried new things. And her confidence is up.
Does D24 have the grades right now that you need to get accepted to PA school? Absolutely not. Is it the end of the world? No. She could retake the classes later at a community college. She could continue as a biology major at her LAC and after graduation, go to an ABSN (accelerated BSN) program and become a nurse. She could go work as an EMT for a year or 2 while she figures out what she wants to do next. She’ll figure it out. Her path isn’t a straight line. But that’s ok. 
She’ll get there.
I fully expect that D26 will have some bumps in the road, too. I’m worried that she’ll stress out way too much about getting straight A’s. Worried that we’ll have to figure something out w/allergy shots for her while she’s off at college. Worried that she’ll become a social hermit and will struggle to make friends with people. Worried that she’ll end up with a roommate who’s a butthead. Worried that she won’t be able to find her ‘crew’ of people at college.
I’m still figuring out how to move from being the driver of the bus to being a passenger making occasional suggestions to my kid(s) (the new bus drivers) as to how to drive the bus. Sometimes I’m great at it. Sometimes I’m just ok at it. Sometimes I totally suck at it. 
At the same time, I feel both super excited for my kids, nervous for my kids, and sad that the days of when they were little are now gone. When you’re in the thick of it, doing carpools to soccer practice and baseball games on the weekend and all that, you don’t have much time to savor things. But here we are, almost halfway through senior year and holy cow, our kids are going to be graduating next May/June. Where did the time go?
Sometimes I’d like to just slow the clock down a little bit.
(for context, to be fair so far they have straight As this semester , and I’m just hoping they can hang in there till finals go at least keep most of them)
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Although he is the only one of his friends who is still taking a full schedule spring semester (block schedule). Everybody else has late start or early release, because they have fulfilled their graduation requirements. My attitude is to take this time and try out classes they find interesting and he did (the alternative was to get a job!). But he also said that he would miss seeing his friends during the day.