Can this be fixed?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Need advice for daughter's boyfriend. </p>

<p>He did well in high school had around a 3.7 GPA, around 2000 SATs, lots of leadership, great kid. The summer/spring before college his mother abandoned the family and the father basically lost his mind, stopped paying bills, feeding the kids, doing anything. BF went away to college, absolutely hated the school, and simultaneously was frantic because the much younger brother was going hungry, wandering the streets (he was like 13) because the mother was whoring around and the father couldn't get out of bed.</p>

<p>He left the college and transferred to an expensive local private. Based on high school record and athletics he did get some merit money, but the parents continued their behavior and he just couldn't handle working full time, raising the brother and watching the train wreck of a vicious separation (they are still not divorced and he continues to support the household). I am continually amazed at the horrors these two people can inflict on their children. I could tell you stories.</p>

<p>So he is now at what should be the end of his sophomore year and has a GPA of less than 2.0. He knows he can't stay at the expensive private, although he hasn't been thrown out, but his GPA is too low even to transfer into a CUNY (I think). I was thinking he could bring SAT scores and all transcripts to the CUNY admission office and try to explain the situation, but I'm not sure that's possible. Maybe one class as non-matriculated?</p>

<p>How does someone in a situation like this ever get back into college? Also, if he ever succeeds in getting admitted, what happens then because he has two years of horrible grades. This is a super-nice, responsible kid who's in a terrible situation not of his own making. Does anyone have any advice?</p>

2

<p>What criteria needs to be met?
Staying close to support younger brother?
How old is his brother?Are there other supports for family, aunts etc?
are his horrible grades because he bombed all his classes or just one and that brought the rest down?
Did he try and get support from either of his colleges for his courses?
Is he on academic probation?
Assuming he is on academic probation and that he tried to get support while at his current school, I would appeal academic probation with the dean of students ( or what ever process his current school uses), and work with them to have a letter explaining the situation for a transfer school.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t try to go full time, he has too much on his plate- perhaps if he could retake a few of his courses at a community college?</p>

<p>Does the brothers school have a family support worker or anyone that can help the family access additional resources?</p>

3

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He would like to get into a CUNY with the ability to take Stafford loans. Almost all the CUNYs are commutable.

He doesn’t want to live on campus because he doesn’t want to spend the money on housing when he’s keeping the home afloat. Doesn’t want to leave and have everyone end up homeless. With his support, the younger brother has been doing better than the older and will be a sophomore (I think) in high school in the fall and had very good grades in freshman year.

No other support at all. The entire extended family, which is large and affluent, chooses to look the other way so as to pretend this isn’t happening in their family. My husband and I are the only help and we don’t have the knowledge to help him. That family is also much higher on the socio-economic than mine, so we don’t really have the right frame of reference.

All horrible. He should never, ever, ever have been supporting a household and going to school.

Some. He was quite capable of doing the work and almost all the classes went south because of stuff either not turned in or tests missed because of family stuff.

Amazingly enough, he isn’t, but he has lost his scholarship and can’t afford to stay. But we can’t figure out a way for him to get in anywhere else, either.
Assuming he is on academic probation and that he tried to get support while at his current school, I would appeal academic probation with the dean of students ( or what ever process his current school uses), and work with them to have a letter explaining the situation for a transfer school.</p>

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That’s what he wants to do, but non-matriculated students at CUNYs can’t receive any aid and while supporting the father and brother on his jobs, he can’t afford to pay for even a couple of classes. My thought initially was that if he could even take a couple of classes that he paid for it would bring up the GPA, but there’s no money left.</p>

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The parents are educated, well-known, upper-class members of the community. If they weren’t an absolute mess, the family should be wealthy, but they both insist on spending money on vacations, boats, stuff like that to make each other jealous, not to mention the mother’s boyfriends and the father’s therapists, so the kids aren’t really candidates for help. I mean I’m not all that sympathetic to people who have made these choices, but the kids were 17 and (I think) 12 when this all blew up and were certainly in no position to make good long-term decisions as to how to deal with this and plan their futures.</p>

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<p>IDK anything about aid for ny schools.
Thats good that at least the dad is going to a therapist.
My parents had a lot of problems but I just moved out at 17 when my father died.</p>

<p>I’m confused about money situation though, the family is wealthy but the oldest son is supporting the family? There should be help in the educational system that isn’t dependent on income. Especially when there is a minor that is depending on his brother for food & shelter.</p>

5

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Neither parent will be the one to pay the bills because each thinks the other is taking advantage. Which they both are, but the bills are not getting paid by either of them.</p>

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<p>Oh boy. It would be a hard decision, but I would at least consider contacting dshs, because of extent of neglect by the parents. To have that level of documentation might also help when trying to get a subsequent university to consider the circumstances.</p>

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<p>I thnk to a degree the boy is enabling his parents. Is he living at home? I mean can he afford a studio apartment and have brother live with him and let the parents flail around? Seriously. Can he petition for custody of his brother? So he is only supporting him not insane dad and mom?</p>

8

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He is totally enabling the parents and what’s worse is that he knows it. The mother is tooling around with a boyfriend all over town being completely inappropriate and the father just cries and wails. Ideally, the older boy would take the younger son, but I don’t think the father would allow that and the older son would think his father would commit suicide. He’s finally had enough of the mother, though, and isn’t giving her any more money, so that’s a step in the right direction.</p>

<p>Edited to add that the house the father and sons are living in is paid off, so it’s just a matter of paying utilities and buying food and such (which is quite a lot), so a studio apartment might not be cheaper in the long run. Dad is a highly-paid professional so there’s no excuse for falling apart like this and letting his son’s future be jeopardized.</p>

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<p>First step is to get the boys into speak to someone. So they can put a protective shield around themseleves and not let parents guilt them. Cut off the money, no matter how bad dad is. Buy brother food. Dad needs help and he needs to be reported to child services. He needs a serious get you act together threat from the authorities.</p>

<p>The older boy, why did he leave first school? How bad was it? Is he living at home now? How is he able to give mom money? Are they in danger of losing home?</p>

<p>He nee d s to cut dad off. Cold turkey. That is the first step in salvaging this situation.</p>

10

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He left the first school because he was afraid to leave his brother alone. Younger brother was either 12 or 13 at the time.</p>

<p>Both boys are living in the family home with dad. Mom up and left, although she does come over to engage in huge fights with the father. The son works more than a full-time job and has bee at the same place since he was 16 so he makes decent money. If he could get into a CUNY and focus on his schoolwork at least he could take a stop toward having a future. I’m just afraid that this isn’t fixable for him. He’s come to really understand that his education has to be a top priority and made some strides to fixing things this past semester, but not enough to keep the scholarship.</p>

11

<p>It sounds like the family situation is too messed up for anyone to give any real advice - but in answer to the “can this be fixed” question… the answer is yes.</p>

<p>But may be the short-term solution is for bf to take some time off from school while he continues working and gets his personal life in order.</p>

<p>My son had pretty weak grades when he quit school after his sophomore year, though still in good enough standing that he was not forced out – he worked 3 years and then transferred to a public. He was able to transfer some, but not all grades - generally only C’s & above are transferable, which actually works to an advantage after a transfer – since any D or F no longer is part of the GPA calculation.</p>

<p>The 3 years of work time helped my son mature & also get a better sense of what he wanted to do with his education. When he did transfer, he did extremely well his last 2 years. He is now starting grad school & the grad schools were really only interested in the GPA from the last 2 years, so no problem with the early history.</p>

<p>Your daughter’s bf has a lot better excuse for his grades than my son ever did – so down the line it should be fodder for a very good “overcoming adversity” type of essay, depending on how much he wants to share. </p>

<p>In this economy, your daughter’s bf is lucky that he (apparently) does have a full time job and it just might make sense for him to continue to work until he has his personal life under control. If his family won’t provide financial support for college, the bf might be better off to wait until he is 24 and financially independent. My son was not eligible for need-based financial aid his junior year because of the full time salary & savings from the previous year, but for senior year – with the savings spent down – he was Pell eligible and had enough financial aid to cover the full cost of college.</p>

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<p>Right. From your description, it sounds like a terrible idea to transfer to a CUNY now. Even if he could do it – and I bet he could – there is no guarantee that the things which have kept him from being successful the last two years won’t keep him from being successful this year, too. And with a third strike, he will pretty much be out.</p>

<p>If he can’t divorce his family, or at least get some emotional distance from them, he should tale a long view. He has shown that he can’t handle academics and his family responsibilities well at the same time. So stop trying, and concentrate on what is most important in the short term, i.e., protecting his little brother and the family’s assets. Eventually, the situation with the parents will get more stable, even if it takes committing the father and changing the locks on the mother. It probably won’t take that. Eventually, the younger brother will be older and more self-reliant (and the older brother should certainly work towards that as a goal). That all won’t take forever; this situation will be different in 3-4 years at most. So deal with it now. CUNY will still be there in a few years, and the boy in question will be better off if he can focus and achieve real success in his last two years of college – with a great story to tell about how he saved his family – than if he keeps trying to do everything and does it all poorly.</p>

<p>While he is saving his family and not going to college, he should find a lawyer friend to help him (a) get appointed his younger brother’s guardian, (b) get appointed his father’s financial guardian, (c) sue (or threaten to sue) his parents for support for himself and his brother, and (d) lien their assets, including the house, so that they can’t dispose of them without his involvement. That will certainly get their attention, and probably speed a resolution.</p>

13

<p>Echoing JHS. The older son needs to get some stability and his family’s situation managed to a much better state than it is now before thinking about going back to college. </p>

<p>As for college/future plans, he can explain his poor grades through an addendum essay which can make for a powerful overcoming adversity story. However, he may want a third-party and/or a sympathetic professor or two reference this in their recommendation letters just in case. </p>

<p>This will be especially critical as some professional oriented grad schools application processes like law school’s LSDAS will average all undergrad-level courses into the GPA…including all grades from failed courses that were repeated. </p>

<p>This aspect really bit some law school aspiring friends who found the LSDAS recalculated their GPA much lower than they thought because LSDAS does count the failing grades in the calculation of repeated failed courses whereas the undergrad colleges they attended didn’t.</p>

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<p>Agree with JHS and you. He can’t do both right now.</p>

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I had absolutely no idea that was the case. Which means that the situation may be salvageable when the time comes.</p>

<p>His current plan is to take a semester off and get some thing together. He desperately needed to know that his mistakes aren’t fatal. I think I can now tell him that they aren’t.Thanks somuch.</p>

16

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<p>For the new school’s transcript, yes. However, grad schools and most employers requiring transcripts tend to ask for transcripts for all university courses taken. </p>

<p>Grad schools and some employers who look at transcripts reserve the right to factor all undergrad courses taken into the undergrad GPA calculations. In case of law school applications, the GPA law schools use is the one calculated by LSDAS which counts all undergrad courses taken up to the first undergrad degree…including failed courses alongside the retaken courses for passing grade. This aspect burned many law school applicant friends who repeated failed courses for credit and thought the first attempts no longer counted in GPA calculations. </p>

<p>Hence, the importance of an addendum essay and recommended who knows enough about the situation to write helpful recommendations.</p>

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<p>I agree with the advice to stop attempting school until things have settled down on the family front. Taking legal steps is very important.</p>

<p>When the time comes, if he still wants to remain in the NYC area, I wonder whether throwing himself on the mercy of a school like Fordham–telling the entire story in detail–might work. One would think that they would be receptive to a student of his ability with his story.</p>

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<p>Poor kid. I hope it works out.</p>

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<p>Why isn’t the family being reported to child protective services? Just because they are “wealthy” doesn’t give them a pass on providing for their dependent child. I doubt they would take the boy, but I imagine they would stir up some stuff! They could demand the father get some help and that utilities are paid and food is in the house. </p>

<p>It may be the OP’s responsibility to report this if they truly feel the boy is being neglected.</p>

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<p>This is way out of control for individuals to handle. I think someone needs to speak to the authorities here.</p>