<p>^^^ and how is that comment helpful to the OP?</p>
<p>OP - best of luck to your son.</p>
<p>OP - Best of luck…and hope you don’t have to hover too low…</p>
<p>^ ^</p>
<p>My comment was to praise the OP for her generosity and implicitly, to back her in case her son decides to complain about the “extreme restrictions” which he really has only himself to blame.</p>
<p>I agree with cobrat it seems a generous plan. Since the OP is asking for opinions, here are a couple pats on the back for generosity.</p>
<p>buffmom has told us of the student’s new plan, terms, and conditions.
It may be buffmom doesn’t wan’t to reveal more, but I strongly hope there is much more than we have been told.
What if student breaks all these rules? What if he follows most, but breaks one? What if he appears to be doing better, but falls short? What if he doesn’t get the “at least all B’s”, but makes one C? What if he gets 2 C’s, but an A or 2? Much is clearly laid out before he goes back, that the student must do this, and this, and this… That’s good. But imo, looking for loopholes if one has fallen short of expectations is human nature, and one never knows what might arise. Have all these, and other, combinations been covered?
I ask rhetorically because it’s not my business to know these answers, but I sure hope the student does. If he has any different understanding of any possible consequences than the parents do- for any degree of a slip-up- , then this student will surely feel cheated by parents if consequences do arise after-the-fact that weren’t spelled out beforehand.</p>
<p>Unless I missed it, I don’t think we ever found out the reason for the poor grades. If the reason was “just didn’t study enough”, the plan sounds great. Obviously if the reason was “drug addiction” or “mental illness” the plan probably wouldn’t work, but I’m sure you wouldn’t have made the plan if either of those were the reasons. I am still concerned about executive function issues - did you ever say if he is ADD and/or had orgainzational issues in high school?</p>
<p>Best of luck to your son OP. I am currently dealing with a very similar situation (I am a student in this case). The rough spots will hopefully pass and hopefully your S will be on his way to succeeding.</p>
<p>Background info:</p>
<p>D—graduated from same school where S2 just finished 1st semester; she breezed through
S1—senior architecture student at WASHU in STL
S2—A/B student in high school; he did HW in the parking lot before class, was the school’s star athlete, editor of the yearbook and every teacher’s pet but never cared to go the extra mile to really excel which was fine and his decision BUT he tried to apply the same techinques in college!</p>
<p>No known learning differences but this could certainly be discussed when he starts his required Probational Advising with his counselor. By using the GPA calculator in order to get up to a 2.0 it will require B’s but of course this could be any combination of A’s, C’s, B’s whatever it takes to reach that magic #.</p>
<p>Hands down, and by his own admittance, the #1 problem was pledging the fraternity and all that it involves. Drinking goes along with that and he admits that was on the heavy side. Denies drug use, girl problems, depression, homesickness, and other crazy things we came up with!!</p>
<p>Our plan is not perfect but a place to start and most likely tweak as we go on…we have room to be flexible and fair and keep the faith that S2 will grow up and get his feet moving in the right direction.</p>
<p>buffmom, it’s great that you’re giving him another chance, that he has a plan of action, and that he WANTS to improve. </p>
<p>Here’s hoping in a couple of years you will return to this forum to advise another worried parent when their kid crashes and burns first semester – that it’s not necessarily the end of the world, or their college career. And then give the example of your own son who dug himself out of a deep hole – and emerged the stronger for it :)</p>
<p>One thing I forgot to mention was that way back in 1976 I crashed and burned (even worse than S2 did) my very first semester and dug out of the hole and yes came back stronger and ended up teaching for 20 years!</p>
<p>buffmom,
I am happy to read of your family’s decision.
Wishing your son the ability to focus and supportive friendships.
(It is my belief that our DSs friendships were a major factor in his success).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Given the reason, I think your plan sounds like a good idea.</p>
<p>buffmom, your plan sounds reasonable… deja vu for me. Just be vigilant and hold his feet to the fire. I’m sure S2 got tired of me breathing down his neck (it was tiresome for me too) reminding him so often what was at stake but it worked. To his credit he never complained about my helicoptering. He developed better habits because there was no choice and because I kept reminding him of how un-fun his life would be if he flunked out and had to come home and live w/ us! That last thing might have been the biggest impetuous for him :)</p>
<p>Good luck to your family and hope you have great news to report in the Spring.</p>
<p>Buffmom: thanks so much for sharing your situation and your journey with us. I have learned a lot.</p>
<p>I have a S that came home from 1st Q of college with 1.93, enough to earn academic probation (all Cs and a C-). We have had several long talks with him about what he wants to do, whether he wants to go back, what he plans to do, etc. </p>
<p>In 2 days he is on his way back to try again. We have let him know that we will be watching more closely this time, but we don’t want to be helicoptering. Ultimately it is up to him to swim or sink, and we can only pray and provide guidance. He has one more Q to bring up his grades or he will be dismissed from school. (It is quite interesting that a student could be dismissed from college without actually failing a course, but that’s the way it is.)</p>
<p>Ultimately, he has to want it bad enough to do the work. His problem is wanting to stay anonymous and fear of asking questions. We have told him he needs to be a pest at his teachers’ office hours and make sure that he asks anytime he doesn’t understand. </p>
<p>I’m hoping that all of us will be able to report back in a few months with some stories of redemption!</p>
<p>Buffmom, Thank you for your update. It sounds like you have found a very good plan with your son. Please come back and share his success with us after the spring term!</p>
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<p>Just to veer a little to the side. I know that freshmen don’t have the best choice of professors, but my son had an issue with an adjunct and office hours. He failed Stats first time around. He, too, was afraid to go to office hours and ask questions when he didn’t understand. We told him he absolutely had to. So…on the retake he had an adjunct, whose “office hours” were 30 minutes before each class. So…you don’t understand what was assigned on Thursday…then the first opportunity to talk to the prof is 30 minutes before class on Tuesday. Or you don’t understand and there is a test next class and the prof won’t be back at the school until 30 minutes before the test.</p>
<p>I’m not criticized adjuncts…schools should be ashamed of themselves for how little they pay some of them. And of course, if you’re driving half an hour to teach one class, you would want your office hours to be either right before or right after class. And yes, many profs are very helpful via email. </p>
<p>My point is that times are different than when we went to college and the profs were around a lot. If your kid says it’s really hard to connect with the prof, the prof might well be an adjunct who is on campus very little.</p>
<p>^That’s so true…hopefully the school has other resources like Math labs, tutors, etc. available. My kids have had very mixed results with adjuncts…my youngest got an F in freshman english, which was a huge surprise to us, but it looks like the adjunct made a grading error. The poor kid actually has 2 other classes with wrong/missing grades so he’s been put on academic intervention for now! Unfortunately, he didn’t find this out until final grades were posted and the adjuncts won’t respond to emails so he’ll have to file a formal complaint and hope someone at the college can get to the bottom of it:(</p>
<p>Another bookmark. My son was a “star athlete” and yearbook editor too! Is yours in engineering?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1263136-parents-engineering-freshman.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1263136-parents-engineering-freshman.html</a></p>
<p>This experience would explain why some colleges don’t allow first semester freshman to pledge a fraternity…</p>
<p>Frats & sororities can certainly be a BIG distraction from academics for many young people. I know that pledging a sorority caused me to get a 0 on a calculus midterm but fortunately an understanding prof gave me a 2nd chance, especially after I told her I was quitting the sorority. The sorority went on academic probation that year & the next year was disbanded.</p>
<p>NO not an engineering student…in the School of Business for now.</p>