dismissed first semester Freshman year - any advice

Parents Forum
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<p>To the OP and all who have had the courage to candidly share your stories of your kids’ disappointments and mistakes, my heart goes out to you. This is one of the most instructive CC threads I’ve ever read simply because it reflects real life. Not that we all weren’t being realistic while we were caught up in the years of college admission game playing and final scoreboard rejoicing! But back then, I sure didn’t want to consider the big picture perspective that has been openly and honestly discussed here. Thank you all for your thoughtful contributions. </p>

<p>hornet, I’ll offer a cautionary tale about getting emotionally invested in an Americorps or similar service opportunity. My daughter is currently mid-gap year. Her plan had been to do an Americorps year before starting college, and it looked like a sure deal until mid-summer, when the director called to advise they were swamped with applications from unemployed college grads (another reality check!) and felt obliged to give them precedence over high school grads. In addition to the economic factor, you’ll also recall the President made an impassioned call to service to young people and successfully pushed legislation to expand service opportunities. Demand exceeded even the expanded supply. A quick Google search will yield data and anecdotes galore, but the upshot is, in 2009, Americorps, Peace Corps, Teach for America and similar service organizations nationwide experienced a huge increase in applications. Now, being selected to volunteer is practically as competitive as getting into college! 2010 may be different, and the figures probably vary by location (we live in a big college town).</p>

<p>Best wishes to all, with a special salute to the young man who posted from his military service.</p>

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<p>If this pattern of behavior is unusual for your son, you may want to consider looking into whether he was suffering from clinical depression or BP – the sleeping all day is a potential symptom.</p>

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<p>Tx-thanks for the advice on Americorps. What a terrible experience to be ready for Americorps and then not have it available at the last minute. What did your daughter end up doing? I had heard that college students and college grads were flooding the portals of these volunteer opportunities. We are trying to cast a wide net with gap year possibilities. I really don’t like the idea of using his college fund for the gap year but it may make more sense than having him fail next fall.</p>

<p>I, too have enjoyed the honesty and hope posted on this thread. It has opened some real discussion useful with my son for me.</p>

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<p>I can’t say enough about what CC can offer to those who are willing to use it as a springboard. We don’t have a basement, but if we had, I’m sure D would have been happy to bury herself there for a while after her HS forced her to leave after her junior year. CC was a great place for her to regain her confidence in small, personalized classes with great instructors. </p>

<p>The price was low enough that she felt she could experiment by taking courses she whimsically thought sounded fun and challenging herself. She also had no urgency to push herself harder than she wanted. My niece has also been taking courses at her CC in CA. She has been working while she takes courses, so she takes lighter loads when the work is taking more of her time & energy & the CC has been very flexible for that as well. She can also take courses from several different CCs, depending on her work schedule.</p>

<p>Your S has many options available to him. ALL of our kids want to do great things and have great opportunities but we do them no favors by constantly smoothing the path for them. I think we help our kids best when we help them see what their options are and encourage them as they choose the one(s) they feel are best for where they are NOW (loving the kid on the couch). Tough love really CAN help our kids be stronger!</p>

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<p>^^^Ditto HImom. This is a great thread.</p>

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<p>This thread has struck a chord with so many people, including myself, reading it is like attending a support group! Each experience is personal and different. </p>

<p>Our D attends a small private LLC and has received lots of support by faculty. Even her statistics professor emailed her when he realized she skipped to consecutive classes after receiving a D on a test – he was that perceptive – and encouraged her to keep trying. </p>

<p>Our S on the other hand is a freshman at a very large public flagship OOS and was so naive and unprepared that he got a D in a notoriously easy class (it had over 400 in the class and only two tests, the midterm and final, and he skipped class on the day of the mid-term not realizing there was a test that day! Stupid, stupid mistake. He was shocked to learn there was no make-up.)</p>

<p>S has stepped into every single screw-up typical of freshman: caught under-age drinking that put a probation on his record for one year, skipped classes because no one noticed if he wasn’t there, rushed a fraternity and learned that it is a big time commitment (too little, too late), and just failed to implement any time management strategies. That was semester 1. Hopefully he will change his ways semester 2. He knows that he screwed up (he sort of wants to transfer but with such a low gpa and probation on his record, that will have to wait…) and he vows to correct the situation. But will he? Time will tell. He is far away and aside from supportive text messages and emails there’s not a lot we can do. It’s completely up to him.</p>

<p>There are always extenuating circumstances – many freshman are just unprepared for the amount of freedom that they face away at school. Some schools are better than others at nipping problems in the bud. Others are uninterested because of the sheer number of students they have. I hope that we are fortunate and in May are flying our S home from school for the summer only! </p>

<p>IMO, they really do need a lot of help and advice the first year. Obviously not to the point where we remove every challenge or fix every problem, but support them so that they can make the transition from living at home where life is so easy to living on their own which can be overwhelming. </p>

<p>Anyway, great thread and I am grateful for all your stories which helps me put our problems in perspective</p>

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<p>I’m not sure if this will be helpful or not.</p>

<p>Something my S did after being encouraged by a professor who realized he was struggling just because he was an average bright disorganized immature freshman boy, was schedule his studying just like a class.</p>

<p>She had him literally draw her a calendar of his week–7 days–showing his commitments for class and some of his out of class activities. She then had him pull out his syllabi (?) for all of his classes and figure out what was due when. On the calendar, he wrote down what he was going to study and when, for example, on Monday he had no classes between 12:30 and 4–so he planned to study economics from 1:30-3:30; after dinner, he would review Arabic from 7-8, and read geopolitics from 8-10.</p>

<p>He didn’t over schedule the studying–he just planned it into his day. He knew what he was supposed to be doing so he didn’t just “lose” the time. When something fun came up when he was supposed to be studying–he would look at his calendar to see if he could fit the studying in elsewhere–if yes, he could do the fun thing; if not, he knew he had to say no.</p>

<p>He tried to get most of his “work” time in 9-5 during the week and Sunday afternoons & evenings, with just one or two things on weeknights so he could have fun after studying til 9 or 10.</p>

<p>It really, really helped him and he has passed this technique down to his brothers. I think it is time for S3 to seriously implement it–he says he will this semester.</p>

<p>Can you tell this professor had teenage sons of her own?</p>

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<p>^^^^
Since my daughter returned home from her first year of school I have learned so much about how really unprepared she was. I too have helped my daughter with this exact organizational method and it is helping. The one thing that I notice, is that it takes her so long to complete any assignment that she loses the ability to stay on the task to completion. </p>

<p>Has your son been checked for ADDH?</p>

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<p>That is a great method to get organized for studying.</p>

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<p>One of the best teachers my son ever had was his 3rd grade teacher. Rather than constantly whining and complaining about how disruptive some of the boys in the class could be, she used that energy for good. For example, one time when my son was talking and cutting up, she invited him to the front of the class to read out loud to the class. My son adored her. She set firm boundaries and was very matter-of-fact about it (she was British - that might have helped).</p>

<p>At our parent-teacher conference, she never mentioned anything negative about our son. My husband and I couldn’t stand it any longer and asked her 'what about his behavior? Is he talking too much or disrupting the class? (a common complaint we had heard form previous teachers). </p>

<p>She laughed and said, 'They’re boys. That’s how boys act. I raised two boys myself. It’s perfectly normal for boys to act that way."</p>

<p>We could have kissed her. She made a HUGE impact on my son’s life. From that point forward, he blossomed, knowing someone ‘got’ him and didn’t just view him negatively.</p>

<p>Those type of teachers/professors are few and far between but they are worth their weight in gold. I hope they appreciate how much of a positive impact they have on their student’s lives. Something so minor as sitting a young man down and showing him how to schedule out his study time will probably make a big difference in his ability to succeed in life. Having it come from his professor rather than his parents probably made an even greater impression on him.</p>

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<p>Our S was tested for ADHD. I wish there were a blood test. Of course he answered positive to the open-ended questions that determined this diagnosis. He’s a boy! He could always finish a worksheet, a book, etc. In fourth grade, aren’t all boys ADHD to some degree?</p>

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<p>Prosser and BCEagle, thanks for posting about the “police interventions” and the toll they take. This should be another thread! I fail to understand why some colleges invite local police into their dorms and others don’t. S1 is involved in exactly that situation right now; in NH… When police were called by this university, S was not in his room, but the roommate was. When the room was searched, some (2-3) beers were found in the fridge, no substances. S is 21 and allowed to have beer in the dorm. Roommate is not yet of legal age. S is being charged with providing alcohol to a minor–“prohibited sales.” We have hired an attorney. S, silly kid, thought it would be better to pay the fine since the charge is a misdemeanor and less costly than the attorney.
As S2, a HS senior, makes his college plans, I am researching recorded arrests on the campuses of the schools he may attend–including 2 CTCL’s.
S1’s lesson from this situation will not turn out to be the one intended by the authorities. It will be that he may as well do illegal things if he’s going to be blamed anyway.</p>

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<p>Momma-three, </p>

<p>I don’t think my S had ADHD–he just had too much free time (or so he thought) and the desire to say yes to everything and everybody.</p>

<p>He had the best intentions of studying “later” and then “later” something new and enticing would come up too. He figured he was in class only 16 hours instead of 40–he couldn’t believe how much unstructured time he had. S1 needed to learn how to focus and plan and impose a little bit of self-discipline–to plan his life, and plan fun into it.</p>

<p>S1 ended up graduating from Emory with highest honors. </p>

<p>He was lucky to have had that conversation with his professor before him immaturity snowballed into what is facing a lot of our children. His younger brothers are lucky because they witnessed his wake up call and he has given them the advice on scheduling and planning that the compassionate professor gave him.</p>

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<p>Momlive,
you just brought back a great memory!</p>

<p>For some odd reason, S3’s grade was very boy-heavy in first grade–something like 8 girls to 42 boys (I am NOT kidding). The school put 4 girls into each of two classrooms so there would be some sort of critical mass, with about a dozen boys as well–and created an all-boys class of 16 with a male teacher. What a year my son had…the teacher put all that eager boy energy to good use. He kept the boys moving while they were learning…they learned to count by 2’s doing jumping jacks. When the boys were going through a burping phase, he turned lemons into lemonade by helping the boys learn about how and why people burp …and had contests for loudest burp, and who had the longest burp, and the funniest burp, and who could burp the most times in a row…and they graphed everything. and each boy wrote a report. I saved that report.</p>

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<p>There is an interesting article in today’s Washington Post<a href=“1/25/10”>/u</a> by education writer Jay Mathews entitled "[Five</a> Areas Where Higher Education Needs Schooling](<a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/01/five_college_blind_spots.html]Five"&gt;http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2010/01/five_college_blind_spots.html)." Mathews’ first point is “college privacy rules are a mess,” a point which has been addressed repeatedly in this particular thread.</p>

<p>Mathews writes “I have heard many stories about students getting into trouble and their parents being among the last to know. University officials will sometimes take pity on a frantic dad and reveal important things in the kid’s personal file. But why can’t we have more reasonable procedures?”</p>

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<p>boysx3, what a great teacher. How lucky your son was. My S3 is going through school with a hugely predominant ‘boy’ class and very,very few girls. Some teachers have done well understanding just how boys learn and develop…others not so much. I remember in middle school a woman teacher that was just overwhelmed, she’d have the mis-behaving boys put their “names” up on the naughty board and spend 15 minutes talking to the entire class about “appropriate behavior”…the male teacher put the mis-behaving boys on the floor to do push-ups in the back of the room while he continued on with the rest of the class. I don’t care how old or how young boys are, they need “actionable” discipline as opposed to “quiet introspection” or “talking it out.” When my boys were little and bad, we didn’t do “time out” we sent them out to clean up dog poop, or something like that and when they came back from the chore we asked them what they learned. I can see why it worked for the poster whose teacher made the young man physically write out a schedule. That prof had something actionable as opposed to just verbal or contemplative. YMMV</p>

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<p>12rmh18,</p>

<p>Thanks for your excellent link to the WaPo article and your synopsis of its leading issue:</p>

<p>“Mathews’ first point is “college privacy rules are a mess,” a point which has been addressed repeatedly in this particular thread.”</p>

<p>One of the most distressing parts of our foolish son’s dismissal for misconduct from college last year was to extent to which the police part of the issue became TANGLED with the college’s internal inquiry. </p>

<p>Because of this tangle, his legal right to privacy has been shredded.</p>

<p>To recap, our son was dismissed from college last year after a v. small amount of cannabis was found by college staff in his 4-man dorm room after a midnight search. The college called in the local police to deal with the illegal substance found. He was arrested, and charged.</p>

<p>Like most of us, probably, with no prior police dealings of this sort, our son had only a vague notion from the tv that you should not make any possibly incriminating statements to the police unless you have a lawyer present.</p>

<p>But he had no idea whether what he said to the college staff who searched his dorm room (he knew them well) in the confused hour BEFORE the police were called might be used against him in any criminal prosecution.</p>

<p>As it turned out, we got a very able lawyer, our son entered a not guilty plea, no evidence by the college was offered, and the charge of misdemeanor possession was dismissed. All the police records have been destroyed & his arrest record is sealed – because that law acknowledges that an “arrest” on your record looks bad.</p>

<p>Therefore, if a charge resulting from an arrest was dismissed, the law protects your privacy. </p>

<p>As his lawyer told us, he was very lucky that he knew to be quiet in front of the police, as soon as he was arrested. (It was the shock of the officers arriving that silenced him – more than anything else).</p>

<p>Staying silent was the absolute opposite of how he was expected to conduct himself to the college, from the moment of the dorm search and right through the internal discipline proceedings. The college emphasized the importance of total transparency, urging him to make no excuses about what “other” students were doing, to tell them everything and to hope that the discipline panel might be merciful. (Sadly, not the case.) He was permanently dismissed.</p>

<p>Fortunately – as it is now turning out –because the internal hearing itself was such a procedural shambles our son appealed his permanent dismissal. The college itself couldn’t ignore the obvious mess it had made of the hearing – and the terms of the dismissal were modified to allow him to stay at the college in his dorm, complete the full semester “as normal”, and thus retain that term’s credits.</p>

<p>(He was still pressed very hard by the college to admit wrongdoing in everything, and was made to feel awkward & asking for “more” trouble when he said he was going to appeal).</p>

<p>Now we find that the fact he appealed (just that he DID appeal) is a point in his favor – a small point, perhaps – but it’s something, now that he is trying to salvage what is left of his academic future.</p>

<p>The other stressful problem for us – as parents – was trying to get any solid information from the college while the internal inquiry and the court procedures were running simultaneously. We were told – and this despite our son signing every release form he could find – that certain information “is properly a matter for the courts, so we can’t comment.”</p>

<p>But when we tried to get the references to the police action (his arrest) removed from his student conduct record, the college argued that their system “is distinct and separate from the criminal court system” and therefore the arrest details will stay. As will the "permanent” term of his dismissal.</p>

<p>Yes, we KNOW his future employers will never see his student conduct record. It is only available to other official college admissions staff. However, right NOW his whole life, it seems to him, is in the hands of college admissions staff.</p>

<p>Because he was permanently dismissed, he is not eligible to even apply to many colleges as a transfer student (despite outstanding grades and letters of recommendation from the CC he has attended fulltime since his disgrace.) </p>

<p>He had an interview last week with one reputable 4-year-college, which was flexible enough to actually consider reviewing their eligibility policy – because of his CC success.</p>

<p>They haven’t made a decision yet (about his eligibility for transfer).
But a dismayingly large part of the interview was about his arrest - as described in his conduct record. Did he, for example, know in advance it was college policy to invite the police into dorm rooms in these circumstances? How often had this happened to others?
Was he just incredibly reckless – or did he feel unlucky?
(He found some of these questions very tricky, because he feels both that he was unlucky – but also asking for trouble.)</p>

<p>Now I am having to fax all the court documents proving his police records have been destroyed – and his court arrest record sealed to his latest college admissions office. So much for the intended privacy.</p>

<p>A long comment (and I’ve repeated info I put earlier in this same thread, to give some context.)
But maybe I’m just trying to express the only two certainties we have.

  1. Remind your kids – if you feel it could be helpful – never to make statements without a lawyer if the police become involved in a non-emergency college matter.
  2. Appealing a college misconduct penalty - whatever the outcome -appears to be regarded favorably by other colleges.</p>
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<p>this is one of those non-negotiables we have drilled into our kids. It is not to be rude or anything else, in fact, say up front that your intention is to be helpful but we have a very clear rule in our family to make no statement to the police without an attorney present. It is right up there with don’t drink and drive. You will be better off in saying nothing – even if that means sitting in a jail cell – than opening up your mouth and not being able to take back any of the words that came spilling out of it. If nothing else, we say, blame us and ask for even a public defender so you can help them resolve whatever it is that got you there. And if you ARE in the wrong? It’s even more imperative that you say absolutely nothing. You can do this while also being fully respectful to the officer.</p>

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<p>Wow, sounds like a discussion I need to have with my kids!</p>

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<p>Prosser, what a nightmare! Thanks for posting the hard lessons learned.</p>