College search advices for the kid with bad discipline record?

Parent Cafe
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<p>My son is a High School Junior with a very bad discipline record. During High School he has been expelled once and suspended and gotten detentions several times. Earlier years he has also been once expelled, once "asked to find a more suitable school" and suspended many times. He has been trouble mostly for fighting, back talking, being a smart ass, playing class clown, underage drinking etc. During last summer he however matured a lot and has kept his act together this year and stayed out of trouble. That has made us to have some hope that he may indeed go to college some day. And maybe that day will not be ten years from now, but soon after his High School graduation. </p>

<p>He attends academically challenging smallish private school. His grades are not bad, thanks to school policy to emphasize exams in grading. His GPA is around 3,6-3,7 and he is a very good test taker. His PSAT score is very high, over 230 and class rank somewhere around 10 %. I believe that academically he can manage almost any school. The challenge will be in who will take him and if he is able to handle everything else but academics. </p>

<p>We don't really think gap year would be a good idea. Our son tends to go with the flow and it would probably me beneficial for him to be in the flow that takes him somewhere productive. We have thought about him commuting to nearby college, but the problem is that only college commuting distance is very low quality, and not being academically challenge is not something that helps him perform. His dad was also slow to mature and thinks that best place for our son would be a school there kids party hard but also work hard. Our kid would definitely embrace the party side of things and if all the others would still go to class at the morning, so would he. And if he goes to class, he would probably do well enough. He is a fast learner and very smart and he does have intellectual curiosity, he just doesn't think it is cool to show it. He doesn't have that much drive at least yet and would probably happily flip burgers at least next ten years. So we don't count that much on inner drive before he finds what he truly wants to do.</p>

<p>Our kid has not been in legal trouble (thank heavens), but otherwise his record really doesn't look good. Any advices how to handle school search with this kind of kid?</p>

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<p>Seriously? :eek: Some kids embrace the party side of things so much that they don’t get around to the work side. Does he want to go to college?</p>

<p>My son had a bad disciplinary record, too, with several suspensions. Luckily, his expulsion came in eighth grade, so he didn’t have to disclose it to colleges. Like your son, he got his act together by junior year. He had to describe the suspensions on applications, but he also pointed out that he overcame his problems and had an unblemished record his junior and senior years. It apparently didn’t hurt him–four applications, four acceptances.</p>

<p>One possibility would be to get admitted to a college and then defer for a year. It would give him a chance to mature without the chance of a gap year becoming a gap decade. Is there a community college nearby?</p>

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<p>Your son may be pulling it together just in time. He needs to get excellent grades this year and next. His PSAT indicates great potential-he could score a 2300 on his SAT. The most important thing for him to do is stay out of trouble, and to develop relationships with teachers and a counselor who will be writing his letters of recommendation. He may need to write an essay which addresses his past and shows regret, self-awareness, and new maturity.</p>

<p>Just about every college I know of has students who party hard and work hard. They are not hard to find.</p>

<p>If your son really wants to go to a university, he needs to prove to the admissions people that he can handle the responsibility and that he has learned from his mistakes. He needs to prove that to you, too, before you invest a boatload of money in his college education.</p>

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<p>One suggestion, if this matters to HIM, is for him to get involved in some serious community service projects this year, really give back, and to write about how much he has changed. A lot of times the kids who are in the most trouble (innocuous trouble, not criminal) can be the ones who really do well with charitable work. Just a thought as to how to put a little traction in the equation.</p>

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<p>Thanks for replies. He does want to go to college. In a vague, everyone does it and it will be cool, immature way. Yeah, doesn’t sound good. His only strong point in this is, that school really comes easy on him. If he goes to class, he also usually does well in it.</p>

<p>Community College would be a good option, but unfortunately it seems that the kid does better the more difficult the class is. Easier classes are a struggle, but he for example scored 5 in AP Chem which he took last year without stretching himself at all. He is also now doing very well in his harder classes. </p>

<p>We have talked with him about college and how we are not enthusiastic to let him go away to college, if he does not show continuing maturation from now on and stay out of trouble. We have saved enough money for his college and to be honest I would rather put them even to limping college education pursuits than in some other places he may think it’s a good idea to put them. </p>

<p>Getting more involved with community service is something we have to talk with him. It could be a good idea even though the kid is somewhat busy with his sport, which he is finally allowed to participate. Discontinuing that is not an option. I suspect that the threat of getting again suspended from his sport is one of the major motivators for him to stay out of trouble. It also provides him the kind of friends we would hope him to spend time with.</p>

<p>At this point he really is not very self-motivated with his life and I do hope time and maturity will help. But i also think it is our responsibility as his parents to try to kick him to right direction in a meanwhile, after all, he is not yet even 18.</p>

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<p>You can point him in the right direction. You can tell him you love him and you think x,y, or z would be a really good idea, and then, he is who he is and he will do what he will do…sounds like he’s decided to change his ways. Why not just enjoy that for a little while. :)</p>

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<p>Are you sure he would be happy flipping burgers for 10 years? :slight_smile: Standing on your feet for 8 hours a day earning minimum wage while the grease odor saturates your hair and clothes gets old pretty fast. As does pumping gas, bagging and carrying out groceries, working as a receptionist, a file clerk, or most other entry level jobs. When you combine the tedium of the work with the low pay, it tends to serve as an excellent motivator for getting an education or learning technical skills.</p>

<p>If your son has not held a job, I’d encourage you to have him work full time this summer. (That is if there are jobs to be had.) Working at a “job” teaches life lessons that young people may have otherwise missed out on. A side benefit is learning about the lives of their older coworkers who, for whatever reasons, did not get the education or training they needed to have satisfying work.</p>

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<p>your son sounds bored. i would load the responsibility on him and see how that works.</p>

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<p>“When you combine the tedium of the work with the low pay, it tends to serve as an excellent motivator for getting an education or learning technical skills.”</p>

<p>Ay-men.</p>

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<p>Sounds like he needs to work…work hard.</p>

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<p>We also thought that working full time in minimum wage job during the summer could help. So we helped him to find a perfect job. Physically demanding, outdoors, unglamorous and repetitive with minimum wage. We really hoped it would make him see the importance of education. And… Son liked it a lot :smiley: I’m in fact very proud of him being able to see importance and meaning of that kind of work and take pride in it. I’m also sure, that it was a big factor in his growth last summer. Anyway I’m a big believer in kids working in manual labor, customer service and cleaning while in High School/early college. It can give great experience and insight. Often much more so than many fancy and cushy internships even though they may look much prestigious in applications. </p>

<p>And as little as minimum wage is, for S it is a lot of money. We have always been frugal with our kids pocket money, toys and entertainment and because his behavioral problems we have probably withhold most of his pocket money anyway. So for him minimum wage is big money. And we really didn’t feel comfortable charging room and board from our 15-year-old so he was allowed to keep all his earnings and use it to nicer clothes, going out with the friends and gadgets etc. and saving the rest for future purposes. We have explained to him how much our lifestyle costs, showed our budget and talked how little minimum wage really is in the long run, but he is sixteen and mostly able to think forward to his next meal. If even that far. </p>

<p>He will be working full time also this summer. He has been asked to come back to same job he did last summer but he has been looking for also other options. I’m very proud of that, but not at all sure, that working would solve our problem with his attitude towards schooling.</p>

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<p>I have found that flipping burgers, etc. doesn’t necessarily build character, and it is stultifying boring for brilliant kids. I assume that you have consulted professionals, so you would know if your son has bipolar disorder or depression. I don’t know your financial situation, but given that he is at a private school, perhaps you could afford to send him to Outward Bound or National Outdoor Leadership School or even a summer program at a top college, such as Columbia’s Pre-college program. With his PSAT score and grades, you might find that colleges offer him substantial merit aid, which would defray your future expenses.</p>

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<p>Yes, our son has had through neuro-psych evaluations in the past. Nothing special has come up. Very active, bordering hyperactive, but no real attention issues, no signs of mental health issues, very high IQ, lowish emotional maturity. Some smallish processing and learning differences but nothing going even close to LD. So he is just a smart but immature kid who hopefully has now started to mature.</p>

<p>We already decided that even if we are not sure if we will be ready to send him to college fall 2012, we should probably take some steps towards that direction. Visit few schools, suggest that he should take a SAT this spring and start to think of college. Because if he does continue this maturing trend he has going on, he could very well be ready by the time he has graduated from High School.</p>

<p>Even in that case the question remains, how much his discipline record will hurt him?</p>

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<p>I’m not sure if the larger state schools that are primarily stat driven (SAT/GPA) even look at discipline record. It’s probably an appropriate question for the GC. He is unlikely the first kid with this issue.</p>

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<p>He might want to investigate Americorps [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.americorps.gov%5DAmeriCorps%5B/url”&gt;http://www.americorps.gov]AmeriCorps[/url</a>] </p>

<p>I know from writing an article about it a few years back that it definitely can be a good maturing experience for some kids, and colleges tend to look on it very favorably. There is also a small scholarship as well as living expenses, and a large list of colleges and universities that match the scholarship.</p>

<p>Some kids who mess up react favorably to the opportunity to make a difference for others, and help themselves at the same time. Worth a look.</p>

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<p>p.s. I would definitely avoid the “party hardy” schools. It’s a recipe for disaster and heartache.</p>

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<p>Truly bright kids can be a challenge, can’t they? Especially if the academic brainpower is there, but the maturity levels lag.</p>

<p>I like your description of your son and the sorts of assistance you’ve noted that you’ve sought. </p>

<p>As such, I’m wondering whether you have considered raising your questions with people associated with, say, the Davidson Institute for Talent Development in Reno, the Belin Center for Gifted Education at the University of Iowa, Northwestern’s Center for Talent Development, Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth or Stanford’s Education Program for Gifted Children? Or even with the head of admissions at Bard College at Simon’s Rock (which is a college for high school students)? I’m not suggesting that your son look to attend these places as universities, only that it seems highly likely to me that questions akin to yours will have been raised before with people directing these programs and they may be able to offer more considered and specific insights for you.</p>

<p>As far as considering actual colleges, an earlier poster noted that larger state schools are likely to be more numbers driven, without any reference to disciplinary issues, and this seems to me, too, to be a path your family might explore. While you did state that one of your concerns is whether your son might be able to come to grips with the non-academic side of his future college experiences - hopefully, in another year and a half’s time he will be able to do so readily! - do know that international universities (in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, for example) almost assuredly will be numbers-driven. </p>

<p>Re highly selective domestic colleges that might be on the list of schools your family would like to be considering which seem to suit your son’s academic interests, certainly I’ve always heard anecdotally that school disciplinary issues can be fraught. That said, perhaps you might consider liaising with various admissions offices and put the ‘are prior disciplinary issues of x-nature an impediment/dealbreaker for legitimate consideration for admission’ question directly to them? If the answer is ‘yes’ (or any variation of ‘yes’), at least you know the answer.</p>

<p>Your son’s school, of course, also may have views.</p>

<p>Best of luck to you and your family.</p>

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<p>It is a mistake to sugar-coat this. Discipline issues are very much highlighted these days in almost all college applications. Colleges don’t want the risk of taking a student who might cause trouble on campus or increase their liability risk. Your son will have to write an explanation of his discipline history if he applies to colleges that take the Common App. One way to finesse this problem is to have him take a rigorous college-level course (Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, etc.) and do well in the course or do a highly respected and well known program like Outward Bound, and then get a letter of recommendation from his professor or group head.</p>

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<p>You might also look into sending him to a boarding school for a post-grad (PG) year after he graduates from high school. Colleges look favorably on PG kids and it is ideal for giving them that extra year of maturity. </p>

<p>Does he have a sport? Something he loves to do and would like to continue for another year at the h.s. level. That helps with PG at some boarding schools but not all. My D is a 4 year senior at such a school and she has known many PG’s (esp. boys) who just needed another year of ‘marinating’ before going off to college.</p>

<p>Governor’s Academy, Lawrenceville, Northfield Mount Hermon, etc., are all great places. He’d have to handle a lot of tasks without you there…laundry, work-job, homework…and that can help mature a kid too!</p>

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<p>Maybe a gap year. Maybe Arizona State.</p>