One of my kids is in 10th grade, first semester in HS and he is going through tough time mentally since late summer and it has big effect on his grades. So I am considering to drop him out of HS for a year before his grades are recorded on his transcript in which case it will look like he skipped a whole year between 9th and 10th of HS. Will this affect negatively on his admissions to college.
If your kid has issues severe enough to remove him from school, I wouldnât be worried about college admissions right now.
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Unless there is a really clear explanation from a guidance counselor of why the student was withdrawn from school, yes, thatâs going to raise a red flag. Has he been diagnosed by a health care professional? That seems to be a basic step you need to take.
Have you talked to the school? Can he take classes pass/fail, drop the hardest ones, get mental health care, work with teachers, counselors and the school psychologist to find a good solution? Iâm pretty sure that he wonât just have nothing on his transcript for that year. He will have Incompletes, or Withdrawal or something else on his transcript. You canât just take a kid out of school for a year then put him back in school as though nothing has happened.
You need to make appointments with the guidance counselor and school psychologist. You all (including him) need to work out a plan so that your child can get the help he needs and complete school. Many districts will provide free tutoring at home when kids are suffering chronic health problems. Yours probably does too, but if you donât ask about it, you wonât know.
The last thing your son needs to worry about right now is grades. He needs to be well. Work on that first and the rest will follow. College will still be there.
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I am inclined to agree with @Eeyore123 and @Lindagaf. At this point your primary concern should be to help your son to get well.
Depression is very common in high school students in the US. We put an insane amount of stress on our high school students.
Fortunately modern medicine has gotten a lot better at dealing with depression and stress. It often however takes a while to get this right. For one thing finding an appointment with a psychologist or psychiatrist can take a while. Medications take effect slowly (which in some ways is a good thing).
Life is not a race. Retaking 10th grade is not a large concern.
I do know someone who had to drop out in 9th grade, took some time off, and then switched to a lower stress high school. They then went to a very good university (but not a tippy top US famous university) and aced everything with great grades and great research experience. I have heard of similar cases of students going through the same thing and then ending up doing very well at some well known very good Liberal Arts Colleges. Taking a few months or even a year off to get your son back on the right track will not prevent him from doing well in life or in later years of his education.
Eventually you might want to think about or look at either Montessori or Waldorf high schools. These are very good and are significantly less stressful compared to normal suburban US public high schools. However, your son will need to get well first before you and he are ready to think about this.
For now, provide a safe home, look for appropriate medical treatment, and help your son to get better. I expect that you will need to talk to your sonâs school about withdrawing and taking time off for health reasons.
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Of course, your first and primary concern has to be getting your son mental health treatment (screening for depression and all its accompanying risks by an MD, preferably your pediatrician), counseling, and perhaps medication, if recommended. If your pediatrician finds itâs much worse than what youâre aware of (and you must understand that the teen often tells the pediatrician what they just wonât tell the parent), please believe the pediatrician if he says that your son needs inpatient treatment, and agree to hospitalization. If pediatrician says that all is well, and you agree, then probably just better to take the bad grades semester hit, get tutoring for him through the next semester, and if he does well going forward, he can explain the one semester bump in the road, blame it on Covid fatigue.
I donât think that you can erase all record of this bad semester, since youâll need that HS transcript from 9th grade, which would include his bad fall semester from 10th grade (unless they havenât finished the semester, and you can just get this past semester to be recorded as medical withdrawal, in which case youâve still got some âsplaininâ to do).
Colleges are going to want to see the records from all 4 years of high school. Iâm assuming that your son wasnât a year or two ahead in school. If he had been two years ahead in school, no older than 15 in September 2022, you could consider starting him in a private school in 9th grade in September, assuming heâs stable, and then heâd have the chance of compiling a good 4 yr record. 19 is not too old to be a freshman at college - itâs very common, what with fall b-day boys being held back, and people choosing to take gap years. But if heâs now 15, you really cannot do this, have a 16 year old start in 9th grade in September.
So yes, I think youâre going to have to deal with the consequences down the road. Another option if he is not too old is to have him transfer to a private school and have him start in 10th grade in September there, if heâs better by then. Youâd have to explain what happened in fall of 10th grade, but the fact is that SO many kids have been adversely affected by the pandemic (although less so this past fall when school was fairly normal), that the colleges are kind of inured to this. And if he takes off this semester to get better, maybe does some other activities that he loves, and restarts 10th in a new school in the fall, when it is very likely that Covid will have devolved into a cold virus, he could wind up having two solid years (10+11) on his record, plus his, I assume, okay 9th grade year, and by then it will be ancient history, and matter much less to the colleges. Heâll have to explain it in one of the essays, but with the two solid years in high school after the withdrawal, it will be much less likely to matter.
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What is considered to be a âbig effectâ on his grades?
There is so much missing here.
Iâm sorry your son is struggling. How does he feel about dropping out of high school? Or taking some time off? Removing someone from their social environment might be beneficial but also catastrophic. I would be cautious.
I just finished reading âA Cure for Darknessâ by Alex Riley. Itâs a history of our efforts to deal with depression. Iâm not sure if this would be of any relevance for your situation but I found the book informative and thought provoking. I wish your son well.
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