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<p>This.</p>
<p>Oops, rejected for 10 char. OK, College Confidential requires me to say more. What courses does she imagine she’d be taking in med school? Hint: science courses.</p>
<p>Lots of wonderful advice. Thanks so much to everyone who replied!</p>
<p>Re spending money - that has been one of my mistakes, giving her money. I’m going to start, next semester by doing what some of you suggested, giving her a little every month, and when it is gone, it’s gone. Of course she will resent me for this, especially since she is around some very wealthy kids who have their own platinum credit cards! She’s already complained about how when she goes out with them, they have so much more spending money than she does (if they’re spending money on clubbing, then I’d prefer for her not to have any!) </p>
<p>It’s Chemistry that’s doing her in. I should have been clearer - saying sciences in HS were challenging might not have been clear. What I should have said is she had to study, unlike in something like English or History where she could sleep through class, read the book the night before the test, and get the highest grade in the class. She had to work for the A’s she got in all her HS science classes, and now she admits that she didn’t study for her college Bio class and is trying to make up for it now. </p>
<p>The 100 level Bio and Chem classes have a reputation for being brutal, for weeding students out of the major, and out of pre-med.</p>
<p>Her dual enrollment classes were Econ, Anatomy, Psych, and a couple of language classes. She said her CC classes were easier than her AP classes. Only subject she really had a hard time with in HS was pre-calc, and so did many other kids who took that class with that teacher. So part of this is that she’s just not used to working. Sp we don’t know yet if she can make good grades at this school with effort because she hasn’t made much of an effort, at least not until now. </p>
<p>I still think she should major in something she really likes, while taking the science courses she needs, but also keep her options open. Will try to get her to see the gray area, and learn how to compromise.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice on the drunk/druggie brother. Unfortunately, her father (my ex) is not in the picture, and brother’s mother is, to put it nicely, rather unbalanced. So no help there. I won’t fight with her about not going with brother (I tried that when she wanted to go to him over the summer, and she just got more determined to go) so won’t do that now. But all I’ll give her is a bus ticket home.</p>
<p>I’ve told her I will not subsidize going off to her brother, but I don’t think she believes me. If he’s homeless now, it will be very cold, so hopefully if she takes off she won’t last long.</p>
<p>I was one of those kids on FA when I was in college. Back then, the LAC I was at didn’t give out that much FA, so most of my friends were full pay students and graduate of some NE prep schools. In order for me to have money to socialize with them (ski trips, formal dinners, road trips to nearby cities, concerts), I had to work 20 hours a week to earn spending money. Even then, I had to turn down a lot of outings. Most of my friends had 10 to 20 pairs of designer jeans, and I had to save for months for a pair. I never complained to my parents because I knew they struggled to pay for my schooling (we had 4 kids in my family). What inspired me (or pushed me) was I wanted my kids someday to have it easier than me. </p>
<p>Thirty years later, my kid is one of those kids with an Amex platinum card. We got it for her because it’s free (after we pay a big fee for my husband and myself) and it has a lot of card benefits. Even though we now could afford to give our kids a lot more than my parents, I never forgot where I came from. Our daughter works 2 jobs on campus, and she works every summer to contribute to her tuition. We have an agreement with her about the amount she needs to contribute, and minimum GPA she needs to maintain (3.0) in order for us to pay for her college.</p>
<p>When your daughter is home over the holidays, you may want to have a discussion with her about what your expectations are for her to stay or drop out of school. I would encourage for her to get a job on campus if she could. At some point she needs to owe up to her actions and take the consequence. I think the fact that she doesn’t believe you wouldn’t subsidize her if she should go live with her brother is probably because you don’t have track record of following through with your words. Unfortunately, kids are very smart, if you waffle then they won’t take you seriously.</p>
<p>Everyone, thank you so much. Academically, it all worked out, and she actually made Dean’s List. The class curve in those science classes helped, but I told her not to count on that (it’s not often you go into a final with a D and end up with a B- in the class). So she’s talking about staying with this program but adding a double major in a field she really likes and is easy for her.</p>
<p>I’m so glad several of you brought up the financial issues. She does have an entitlement mentality that because she’s doing well in school, she deserves an apartment. I’m having to tell her that life isn’t always fair, and her friend whose families are multimillionaires can afford things that I can’t. She is not getting an apartment over the summer, and I am not sending her money if she goes to her half brother. I’ve told her that if she goes, all I will pay for is a bus ticket home.</p>
<p>She does need to get a job. This semester, so I don’t cut her off abruptly, I’ll give her a little spending money every month, but when it is gone, it is gone. We’ll see if she gets a job then. When I think of it, she really doesn’t need spending money, since she has a meal plan and a dorm room and I pay for her textbooks.</p>
<p>Califa, so glad she turned things around. Deans List! She must be thrilled.</p>
<p>You may want to sit down with her and talk about being proactive about finding a job on campus. Waiting until she’s broke for her to wake up and look for a job seems to me to be reinforcing some of her work/life habits that already are problematic. If she’s accustomed to doing things at the last minute and having them work out ok, she may need your help thinking in advance about her financial needs. So if you tell her, “we are so grateful that we can stay on top of your tuition/room/board fees and we can swing $50/month for the next 7 semesters to cover incidentals. I’m happy to help you think through what it’s going to take for you to stay on your budget” that seems to me to be more helpful than handing her $50 and waiting for her to blow it in the first weekend.</p>
<p>Very happy news. It may nevertheless be helpful at some point in the not-too-distant future, for her to have an encounter with a relative/friend/associate of the family who has experienced first-hand the long-term consequences of living according to impulse. This happened to both my brother and my sister, slacking their way in (and out of) high school and then 4-year colleges. They didn’t even have any scholarships to lose. But what they did lose after that (because of dropping out, supporting themselves, marrying early) is years and years of freedom and self-determinism. They were yoked to the need to survive. It extended the college years into their 30’s, robbed them of that pride of graduating with their class, in concert with their chronological age, and --to say the least-- stalled the inauguration of their careers.</p>
<p>No student should be made to feel that failure (or bad choices) is a permanent situation, but OTOH, these watershed years are irreplaceable – with the absence of dependents and with the developmental stages particular to adolescence. I’m so happy for this recent outcome; I would only be happier (if I were her parent :)) if the positive lesson could be reinforced somehow with confirming testimony of someone older/wiser.</p>
<p>OP’s daughter needs contingency planning, soon.
Med school acceptance is not a given for most, and it is quite a bit less so for her.
I would also encourage some flexibility in the bio choice for major. While it is the easiest of the typical ‘sciency’ pre-med majors, it is also I think one of the least useful majors to own if med school does not pan out.</p>
<p>My daughter is in a similar boat – strong HS student but science is not her strong suit. She plays with the idea of pre-med, and has decided to take a test the waters approach by taking the first two semesters of chemistry. If she does not do well she will drop the idea since later courses are harder and less than a 3.5 science gpa is really not competitive. I do appreciate her pragmatic nature.</p>
<p>^^^
OP’s daughter DOES have a contingency plan (she decided to double major, the second major she likes/does well in) AND made the Dean’s List, turning a D into a B-. </p>
<p>Sounds to me like she’s turning things around. Good for her – and I’m sure a huge relief to her mom.</p>
<p>katliamom,
I may have misunderstood, but I thought the ‘new plan’ was a way to stay in school, and perhaps salvage the scholarship. My point is that the daughter has to plan for the possible day that she is not accepted to medical school.</p>
<p>Second, the daughter did not turn a D grade into a B-. The curve did. Half of pre-meds do not matriculate into medical school, so the way that B- was achieved is relevant.</p>
<p>I am very glad for OP and her daughter that imminent catastrophe appears to have been averted, but it is unwise to think that the underlying problems are solved.</p>
<p>Outside of the various issues the OP mentioned, one thing I think her DD should look into is finding study skills workshops. Her story rings only too familiar with my own story, for a lot of kids school comes too easily, they don’t have to hit the books, study hard, and get good grades. I literally through most of my school career never had to study hard, never had to develop the discipline and such, and got through with a very high GPA…until I hit the high level courses my senior year of high school…and struggled with college as well.Having school come easy is no gift as some people thought, because eventually you hit courses that simply require the nose to the grindstone (music is like that as well, there are phenomenal ‘natural’ musicians who never amount to much, because they never learned the work and discipline to really get there). The schools I went to couldn’t/wouldn’t acknowledge that and they basically looked at the bright/gifted kids as a gift, who would do great no matter what they did…I am grateful we sent our S to schools when he was younger where they wouldn’t let him get away with coasting, they forced him to use the study skills and such.</p>
<p>As someone who has been there, I highly encourage the DD (and other kids as well) to take some study skills workshops, to help them handle the challenging stuff and yes, handle the classes that ‘come easily’ even better. I never had trouble with humanities and other courses in college, because I could understand the material easily and could write a heck of an essay in a couple of hours, or research papers and the like, but I wish I actually had to work through some of them, because I probably would have learned more:). In any event, having that framework can help a student learn anything they need to, and the experience of learning to work hard can’t hurt, either.</p>
<p>I also would encourage your DD to get a job, even if only for a few hours. Besides teaching responsibility, it also helps frame time IME, to make someone understand about scheduling time and not wasting it…not to mention that it can teach responsibility as well.</p>
<p>Thanks again everyone, for the great advice, and for commisserating with me. Of course we’re happy about the Dean’s List, and I’m trying to tell her to take that as a lesson. Turns out she did very well on her finals after doing nothing but studying, so had she spent the first part of the semester doing more studying and less partying, she’d have done even better. I don’t know if she’s listening, but I’ve tried to tell her that she can’t count on the class curve to save her again, especially when she gets to the upper level classes. </p>
<p>A possible contingency plan is to apply to PA and DO programs at the same time. She’s interested in holistic medicine, so she might actually prefer a DO program, and most of them are less competitive. She also might wind up actually preferring the PA route because she doesn’t like how long it takes for physicians to actually launch their careers, plus there’s the mountain of debt med school would entail (I can cover undergrad, but by the time she finishes her degree, that will be gone).</p>
<p>I’m going to the advice some of you gave and tell her that there will be $50 a month spending money, and when it’s gone, it’s gone. She has a dorm room and a meal plan, so she doesn’t really need spending money (and apparently quite a bit of it went to partying last semester). There’s a thread about a kid who’s broke and I’m reading through that (many similarities except she didn’t drop a class). </p>
<p>With the drunk/druggie brother, she will just have to accept that if she goes off with him, there will be no money from home. She’s also really been pushing for an apartment with her college friends over the summer… they are quite wealthy. It’s hard for her to accept that I cannot afford an apartment for her, and she is getting snappish and resentful. Just something I have to deal with. Another reason for her to get a job… she can live at home over the summer and earn her own money. I think that’s the only way she’ll realize the value of money, and perhaps understand that I have other priorities than funding an apartment and travel for her.</p>
<p>I like the idea of a study skills workshop. Read somewhere that some colleges require these for freshmen. Especially if she does make it to med school, it’s much better that she learn how to study now. I always wondered if everything being so easy in high school would create problems later, and now it looks like it has.</p>
<p>“I like the idea of a study skills workshop” - All parents do. But bright formerly successful students can be stubborn/proud about them. Any hints about courses or or books that have worked?</p>