<p>If I’d had all that in the last 2 months, I’d have missed a lot of work too!</p>
<p>She will still get into college - plenty of colleges. The important thing right now is to find out how she feels about her grades and her situation in general, and what she can do to return her grades to their usual levels by the end of the year. This is a blip, not a disaster, as long as whatever is causing it can be identified and dealt with.</p>
<p>My D has dealt with depression, and it can be rough. A counselor may be a godsend. (Not a school counselor or a college counselor - a therapist.)</p>
<p>Precalculus and honors physics are a big conceptual leap. Math/science types do well. Students who FEEL they can do well do well. Students that do not have the interest to immerse themselves, do not. I failed both algebra and calculus the same time. It takes a long time for me to get new math concepts but once I get them, they’re totally there. Perhaps your daughter is overwhelmed by the unfamiliar material when she missed the conceptual introduction. It’s not just a couple of steps she needs to learn–it’s a way of processing the numbers.</p>
<p>Yes, the grades may be a sign of something else, but not every student can get even a B in physics and pre-calc even if s/he applies her or himself. She probably could do better, though. I’d suggest first and foremost a tutor for the math skills so that she can bring her grades up. Good luck!</p>
<p>Even with that school schedule being just quite something, a drop in grades like that might be a sign that something has been going on that the child is just not willing to speak of. </p>
<p>If the child hasn’t many pals, then play to their strengths and look within the community for clubs to join or what have you. But, if there is more at play than some missed days of school coupled with not having a great many pals, then that is when you are all going to have to sit down with the child and figure out what is going on. </p>
<p>When you folks figure things out, can your child go to summer school or maybe obtain a temporary grade of “Incomplete” or something like that?</p>
<p>Props to Deborah. And again, precalc and AP physics are not classes where you can miss even a single day and make it up in just one day. Every day missed is going to require a lot of make-up to get the concepts, and she’s making up all her other classes as well.</p>
<p>The fact that she missed so much school and was probably not feeling well in between explains a lot. Math and physics are not easy to make up. If you haven’t already, get a tutor for her. My oldest, usually a good student, inexplicably stopped doing his french homework midway through junior year, after the interim reports came out. His teacher was baffled and his grade was horrible.</p>
<p>We got him a tutor and he brought his final marking period grade up to an A, which if I remember correctly, gave him a B overall.</p>
<p>I would visit colleges over spring break. If you give us some more information, I am sure you could get a good list. However, I wouldn’t write off any schools at this point. There is a good explanation for the drop in grades. Schools take things like that into account. If she pulls her grades up, and explains about the bad semester, she may still be a candidate for some very good schools.</p>
<p>Is she interested in a LAC or university?
Big or smalls?
Urban or rural?
What part of the country?</p>
<p>Yes, the injury/illness thing is a big factor. I’ll contact her adviser and see if she can help D come up with a plan to get teachers back on her side. Cpt, I really need to keep your advice in mind–it’s so difficult for me not to point out the damage D is doing to herself. I have to remember that she’s sure to feel terrible about this and that criticizing her is liable to make her feel both guilty and self-righteous. She’s prone to dig in her heels, just because. (Ah, teenagers!)</p>
<p>Tutors and therapists are not in the budget right now. Not to bore you with details, but we’re seriously thinking about downsizing our home (which is none too large) and moving to a less expensive area. If D weren’t coming up to her last year of high school, we’d be out of here tomorrow. School offers lots of extra help, though–math and physics “labs” in the morning before school and/or peer tutoring, and her Latin teacher has volunteered to help her, per the report card. She got two silver medals and a cum laude on the National Latin Exam (8th, 9th, 10th grades). She’s such a bright kid. Well, we have to see how we can help her.</p>
<p>Mom2, we’re in the NYC area and she says she wants to stay in the general vicinity, seems uninterested in anything west of the Mississippi. Boston area or DC/Virginia maybe?</p>
<p>It’s so hard to tell from a message board, but I’m going to suggest that there is a possible undiagnosed learning disability. Girls present differently than boys when it comes to LDs and if your D has succeeded up till now it could be an issue of her gifted verbal abilities masking and compensating for hidden executive function, processing speed or working memory issues. </p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for kids to hold it together academically until middle school and high school when the demands of the higher level classes cause them to fall apart. That happened to my D1 in late middle school. She’s now a successful freshman in college. </p>
<p>Ask D to list the top 3 things that she hates about her life. Often that list drags everything else down. See what can be done to eliminate those 3 things (not tolerate – eliminate). </p>
<p>You need a CSI post mortem on each class. Tell her its not passing judgement on her – it is figuring out where things went off the cliff and avoiding getting her into the same situation again. </p>
<p>I would yank this kid out of the math class. She has enough math to graduate, right? So get her over to something she loves. Believe me, at this point, redeeming the GPA comes first. An A in ceramics is going to help her more than a B- in the math. </p>
<p>We hear, too much, that admissions officers are looking for “the most rigorous coursework possible”. True, but it’s not worth selling one’s soul. </p>
<p>Anything on her “I hate this” top three list needs to get moved to the trash can. She may be surprised to learn that you are in her corner and will her with this trio (she may be depressed because she thinks there is nothing that can be done about that trio). </p>
<p>Sounds like she has missed a whole lot of school – not just the actual absent days, but perhaps also days where she’s been recovering from flu, distracted by toothache, or buzzed on painkillers. </p>
<p>How about talking to her counselor and teacher(s) and see if she can drop or take an incomplete in one of her classes? That would give her some space to bring up the other subjects first. Physics seems a likely candidate. Sure, elite colleges like to see a full load of every subject in every year – but most don’t actually require it. An art or humanities program would likely prefer a better GPA and 3 years of science – especially if accompanied by an explanation of medical/dental issues. (There’s space on the college apps for such explanations.)</p>
<p>smythic – I agree that the absences and subpar health status could totally explain the drop in grades. My D missed less than a week of school (returned sick a couple days to catch a couple of classes she was afraid to miss) and has been really struggling ever since. In addition to making up the missed assignments, it is difficult for her to understand what is happening in class because she missed the foundation, so it is even hard to do the current stuff. And if it is in subjects where she lacks that intuitive sense and are all around difficult for her – like precalculus – it is really an uphill battle. One can see why kids who miss a lot of school end up dropping out. I have no solution on how to get your DD on track. After this last go-around of being sick and the schoolwork nightmare that ensued, upon the advice of a regular teacher and her voice teacher, my DD decided she would try using a neti pot to stave off illness. Not very appetizing, but with getting sick semi-monthly illness, she needed some type of intervention. Jury is still out. . .</p>
<p>I think it’s definitely the missed school. I missed two days of school last week for a college visit, and it seemed as if I’d missed months’ worth of material. It was really weird. In one class, my teacher loaded us on tests and quizzes and I’m fairly sure I didn’t do well on any of them when I made them up(if I wasn’t a 2nd semester senior I’d probably have tried a little harder but you get what my point is).</p>
<p>I second Olymom’s suggestion to get D out of the math class and into an art class for success and a better grade.</p>
<p>I made my D slough through horrible Calculus because we were told that a particular college would not accept a student without it. </p>
<p>Of course, two of D’s friends who skipped Calculus and had no AP math whatsoever got in to that same school. So, really, if I could do it over again, I would encourage D to take classes that played to her strengths once she fulfilled the graduation requirement for math or science.</p>
<p>And I hope your D is feeling better about things.</p>
<p>We did get her moved down a level in math about 2 weeks ago, but it didn’t stave off the D, which is a holdover from the harder level. I’d get her out of math altogether if I could, but her school requires 4 years of it. Hoping it will be easier now, since the new class will be repeating things she’s already worked on but more slowly. She’s on spring break, away on a trip at the moment, but we have a second week of no school once she gets home tomorrow–time to sort things out. I so appreciate everyone’s suggestions. Thanks to all of your support and good advice, I’m feeling far less hopeless.</p>
<p>Our kids’ private school has this great thing called PowerSchool, where you can see your kids grades assignment by assignment online. It is only as good as the teachers are about posting them, but most are pretty good. D (sophomore) usually takes care of everything herself this year, but the wheels fell off the wagon about three weeks ago. She got sick with a horrible cold, and it dragged on for 10 days and into finals week. She missed 6 days of school. Doctor didn’t prescribe anything on the first visit (day 6), so I had to take her back again during finals week (between finals). Turned out to be a bad sinus infection.</p>
<p>So… that PowerSchool thing saved the day. She and I sat down (while she was sick) and we made a list of all the missing assignments that showed up there and her upcoming final exams. We worked out where she would ask for extensions over spring break, what I had to pick up at school for her, etc. She managed to finish all the important work – I don’t think her grades will go up from where they were when she got sick, but I doubt they will go down either.</p>
<p>Too bad all schools don’t have something like PowerSchool, it seems ridiculous in this age that they don’t. Avoids these nasty midterm surprises.</p>
<p>Missing school is a big deal with hard courses. It’s even worse if the kid (like one of mine) relies on memory and does most planning by listening in class (without noting everying in the planner).</p>
<p>It’s very hard for a bright kid who is not a math/science kid. For some reason, people think that math/science people are smarter than writing/social sciences people and that’s not necessarily true. I suffered at Bronx Science because I hated math and grew to hate science there but my parents didn’t care. Nobody paid any attention to the 100 I got in 9th grade social studies (the only one in the school) but I got reamed about my 90 in algebra… </p>
<p>When my DD began to struggle in honors pre-calc, I pulled the plug and dropped her in to regular pre-calc. In 12th grade, she took college algebra. I also pulled her out of physics in 11th grade and she took non-regents physics in 12th grade, earning a B+. </p>
<p>She is at a SUNY school and is very happy, making honor roll and having a great experience.</p>
<p>For your daughter, there are plenty of schools in NY that would take her. Are SUNYs out of the question? Must it be a private college? Have you thought about Hartwick or Ithaca? I mention those because you said she’s artistic and takes voice lessons. For SUNY’s for music, Potsdam is an excellent choice. If that’s not what she wants to study, look for other schools.</p>
<p>But above all, make sure that it’s only her health issues that are causing this downturn.</p>
<p>Didn’t read the whole thing, but got the gist. </p>
<p>One thing that I saw affecting my child early in her HS career was sleep deprivation in an effort to keep the grades up. This is very serious in a teen and can cause permanent cognitive damage. I showed her an article about it, and she took it to heart and usually made sleep a priority, though there were a few special case exceptions. </p>
<p>If she got behind because of health issues and absences, it’s explainable with a supportive guidance counselor. Increasing the pressure to the point where it causes sleep deprivation is actually counterproductive and unsustainable. Sleep should be the first priority not the last. Given enough sleep, all of the work takes less time, allowing time to catch up over a decent amount of time. Without the sleep it all takes longer, further compounding the pressure. It’s a vicious feedback cycle. Leaving the work undone and getting the sleep is counterintuitive.</p>
<p>I think dropping her down to a reasonable pace where she can handle the work while making sure that she gets a good night’s sleep is wise. Tutoring is also wise as long as she knows that you love and support her no matter what. Under no circumstance cause her to feel like she let you down. </p>
<p>Your D will no doubt go to college, but stop being so concerned about which college she goes to and worry about the physical and mental well being of your D. She will be ok.</p>
but you get what my point is).</p>