<p>Preamble: This is a long post and is likely to have rambling sentences and typos.</p>
<p>I attended a very prestigious day school in the Boston area and did very little work, EVER. There was not a night that I spent more than 2-3 hours on work, and most nights was on the couch watching some meaningless college football game, or browsing the internet reading messageboards (surprise surprise I'm on here). The weekends were worse, I'd usually do about 2 hours of work on a weekend. It wasn't that I was lazy in general, I was just completely apathetic to what was taking place at a school filled with above average intelligence kids from affluent backgrounds.
The end result was a GPA around 3.1 over 3 years. What saved me from complete collegiate letdown was my passion for community service and volunteering. I took a trip to South Africa and helped at a rural boarding school, worked at a single parent daycare center, was an active intern for the 2004 Kerry campaign, and worked at a summer camp. These activities brought me to a point where I cared for other people and became willing to go beyond what was enjoyable because of the moral responsibility that comes with intelligence.
I decided that staying at school filled with mediocre wealthy white kids wasn't going to help this scenario, and so I picked up and left. I ended up taking night classes at Harvard Extension, getting my diploma from the local highschool without ever stepping foot inside a class there, and working at an innercity tutoring program 30 hours a week.
After graduation I signed up for the AmeriCorps program and headed to California to work with Habitat for Humanity building low income housing, and planning to apply for Fall 2006 admission without the help of a college counselor. I have ended up getting into schools like Northwestern and Vanderbilt and have a bright future ahead of me.</p>
<p>Moral of the story:
Your child can get into college if they care. They must care about something and have a purpose for their life. Being undecided on what their major will be is fine, but only if they have too many interests rather than too few. Secondly, make sure your kid is actually doing their schoolwork rather than faking it like I did. I was able to play off my average grades because they were at a tough school, but the reality is that almost any kid without a learning disability can get A's if they actually do homework, take notes, study, and pay attention. Further, don't think that doing 5 different activities is going to help, it is about your child's genuine interest that matters, PERIOD. Wilting to advice of some college counselor who tells your child to do ___ indicates that they are insecure. Don't let your kid waste their youth on petty booze, sex, and "fun". Joy>Fun, and Joy is waking up with a future and having the ability to make an impact on a community.</p>
<p>brackis: I have a question for you. I applaud that you took your own path. But you say that you didn't work very hard in high school and then give advice to "make sure you kid is actually doing homework rather than faking it." Here's my question: assuming your parents knew you were "faking" it, would you have wanted them to "make sure" you did it and at what level? How do you think you would have responded if your parents had forced that issue? Do you wish they had? Do you think they should have? Do you regret that they didn't? </p>
<p>I don't think I'm phrasing this well enough but, in hindsight, would you have responded well to that parental pressure or do you think you might have dug your heels in and done even less?</p>
<p>When you've read enough of these boards, we parents really struggle with how much is too much: when do we interfere (which is not well tolerated or received by our kids) and when do we back off and let them figure it out on their own?</p>
<p>I would love a kid's (sorry to call you a kid!) perspective, please.</p>
<p>A good and valid question; I would say push your child to do work for a purpose. I consider myself a very hard worker when I am engaged in a subject or project, but there was no gravity in highschool in regards to how my grades could affect my future. I never considered the financial benefits of getting top grades, and became complacent. Make your son or daughter realize how serious college is early on, because if you lose their attention in 9th grade it will be harder for them to be brought back into academia later on. Second, address the typical arguement of, "well I won't ever need to know this stuff after highschool so why bother studying it?" by encouraging your child to take whatever classes they want to, and making them understand that there is value in a good grade even if they do not see value in the curriculum.
One thing I forgot to mention was that my "senior" year, I did stay at my old school through the first grading period, Thanksgiving, and had actually gotten grades at the level of a 3.8ish as a last push incase I decided to apply for the class of 2009, but at that point was so unhappy with my situation that decided to leave. Had I been focused on getting into college at an earlier age, I feel I could have dialed up this work ethic.</p>
<p>To address the "faking it", my parents really didn't know how little I was doing. When you are in your bedroom sitting at the computer with the door closed it is easy to sit on AIM rather than work on a paper. Sure the paper got "done", but not proofread well nor was it as detailed as it could have been. Kids are deceptive and will go to great lengths to prop up a false image.</p>
<p>
[quote]
brackis: I have a question for you. I applaud that you took your own path. But you say that you didn't work very hard in high school and then give advice to "make sure you kid is actually doing homework rather than faking it." Here's my question: assuming your parents knew you were "faking" it, would you have wanted them to "make sure" you did it and at what level? How do you think you would have responded if your parents had forced that issue? Do you wish they had? Do you think they should have? Do you regret that they didn't? </p>
<p>I don't think I'm phrasing this well enough but, in hindsight, would you have responded well to that parental pressure or do you think you might have dug your heels in and done even less?</p>
<p>When you've read enough of these boards, we parents really struggle with how much is too much: when do we interfere (which is not well tolerated or received by our kids) and when do we back off and let them figure it out on their own?</p>
<p>I would love a kid's (sorry to call you a kid!) perspective, please.