<p>In my experience, strong students tend to overestimate how well prepared they are for college. If they're used to intuiting the right answer in math, for example, being in a setting with several hundred other kids who "get it" without having to slog away means that the bar is significantly higher. Your son's college didn't accept him because they thought he could coast for four years; they accepted him because they knew he could learn and contribute (and yes, suffer through problem sets) along with the best of them!</p>
<p>If it were my kid... I'd do nothing but offer love and support and remind him that he can do the work. If he asks, I'd gently suggest that he avail himself of the abundant resources.... peer counseling, academic deans, TA's for the large classes, study skills seminars, etc. and then I'd sit back. The money is neither here nor there.... you made a decision to spend the $ on private university with no guarantees that he'd be getting all A's, so one semester of transition should in no way suggest that you should yank your support and save some $, as tempting as that might be. Do you want the message to your son to be that you support him fully as long as he's the trophy kid, but that as soon as he encounters a challenge or two you're packing him off to a cheaper alternative????</p>
<p>And make no mistake.... there are hundreds of kids at U. Mich and Rutgers and U. Illinois getting C's for the first time in their lives in rigorous science and math classes, and their parents are no less upset about it than you, even though the sticker price might be less.</p>
<p>Wow! I did not realize how good it would make me feel to read these replies to my post. Thank you all so much for your support and advice that came from various perspectives. I did not tell my son that I posted our quandry, but I will share some of the responses with him. Wisteria, I am sure that he will be glad to hear that an upward trajectory at a tough school is looked on very realistically by ad coms at grad school. I am sure that he can do it, and I am so not a fan of guilt or threats. I am more fortified now that we are not being 'soft' on him by showing him encouragement rather than anger. He does rely on peers rather than TAs or profs so it is good to know that it is not a totally bad thing, but I think he has to realize too that the profs are a good resource. He has decided to re-take the math class along with taking differential equations next semester and I am currrently stressing time management skills and setting priorities. We'll see. He is having such a great experience at Cornell. He is very much at home there and is meeting bright and interesting people and I am so happy for him to have this experience. Thanks for the support!</p>
<p>My son's school had available on the web a "class profile" of their grade distributions for the first semester. It was interesting.</p>
<p>Maybe your son's school has that too. It allowed our son and us to see where his GPA "fit" in with his class. What we thought seemed like a pretty average GPA looked pretty darn good when compared with everyone else.</p>
<p>Glad you're feeling better now. I agree the softer, understanding approach is best...he is completely aware his grades need to come up.</p>
<p>just one thought...even though your son is finished the semester he may want to meet with the profs of his C courses, esp if he's re-taking one of them, to see where he may have gone wrong, esp on the final exams. One difference between hs and college is often the high weight assigned to the final. Your son may have underestimated this.</p>
<p>Frandg ... I basically agree with the majority of advice of be supportive of your son as he responds to this "setback". From one view point I might consider this good news ... I know I want my kids to go to a school that seriously challenges them (without being over their head). If my kids get straight As their first semester (especially kid #2 who needs to develop better work habits) I might think they aimed too low. Getting a few lower grades may help some kids mature in their approach to school (and life) and figure out how to perform among a group of very high achievers. </p>
<p>(Then again I'm a little biased ... I went to an Ivy and got my lunch handed to me for almost 2 years until I matured and figured out how to succeed academically (and that I wanted to instead of having even more fun) ... and then finished very strong my last 2 years. This experience matured me tremendously and I'm convinced the experience would only have been this strong at a place where there was no place to hide from my maturity (or lack there of) as a student)</p>
<p>Amen to the above posters about major changes. Even for me as a sophomore transfer to a more rigorous academic LAC from another LAC that was "supposed" to be academically rigorous, my first semester was a huge shock. When I saw my final grades, two of them did not appear as high as I thought so I e-mailed those professors to see what happened. One of them told me that I had failed the final- I immediately shut up and stopped crying. That B- is fine, thanks (I calculated the numerical value and I was happy anyway).</p>
<p>But I wouldn't change my first semester for ANYTHING because like your S, I had no social life in high school and in my first LAC (because I didn't fit in) so I had good grades. Then when I came to Colgate, suddenly, everything that I wished for for a long time came to me: warm, caring friends who provide me with many social opportunities. I took advantage of everything, knowing that I was sacrificing some studying time. I suppose a good analogy would be for someone who hasn't had good chocolate in a long time and then receive a pound of chocolate and ate it all at once in a sitting, and then she gets very sick. Then she resolves no more chocolate for a month (or very little of it at least). Okay, that was a true story for me :)</p>
<p>But in other words, my parents were slightly upset but actually relieved because they thought my grades would be more of in the C range than in the Bs. They know that I'm very upset by these grades and will resolve to change my life next semester to make things work so I can get on the Dean's List again. So they're not saying anything. My dad was definitely aware that my GPA would drop because he had gone there also and remembered the academic experience being "hard." He even warned me of this while I was making my decision to transfer. Now I got what I wanted: more challenging academics and grades to prove it.</p>
<p>Your S will definitely bounce back if he cares a lot about his grades, he'll do whatever it takes (without sacrificing his life entirely).</p>
<p>A drop in GPA and greater social life in kids like your S and me means one thing: We both absolutely love our schools and have never been more happy in our lives. Isn't that the most important thing for a parent- this kind of bliss? My parents acknolwedge this but they also said, party's over, now get back to the books :)</p>
<p>Do they grade on a curve at Cornell? I just wondered because you said your son thought he was doing better than the grades he ultimately got. I'm guessing his adjustment process is not unusual when smart kids go from being the smartest in their high school to just one of very many smart kids at a top college. </p>
<p>Anyway, it's only first semester of his first year, and maybe the grades are disappointing by your (and his) high standards, but it's not like he flunked anything or is on academic probation. Sounds like his own personal disappointment will be the only motivation he needs going forward.</p>
<p>I'm a freshman at an ivy league school too. And calc and chemistry gave me a run for my money, let me tell you. And I had two years of chemistry in high school (and my dad is a chemistry teacher, talk about parental stress!) But so far, Cangel (my mom) and Mr. Cangel haven't said much about my grades. </p>
<p>I took those classes with a high school mindset. "Get them out of the way" If I had put in a class in a subject I had never seen or with an interesting topic, I might not have had "science burnout" I think that is the biggest thing I have to get over. I should be taking classes that truly interest me and are engaging. Sure, you have to take a few intros, but an entire semester of basics leaves you feeling bored, and therefore less likely to put in the required effort.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to Princeton and she is a sophomore. Princeton does grade on a curve so you can imagine what that does to a group of perfectionist bright kids with a competitive edge. My daughter is in the bottom half of her class and not a happy camper. But I would never dream of pulling her out of an Ivy, because the value of those schools is not that of a "feeder for the best jobs". The value is that of the experience itself, and that includes classmates, extra curriculars, the faculty, midnight discussions about the meaning of the world, etc., etc. She wrote me an e-mail saying she wasted too much time "pondering" about certain aspects of her subject matter and missed "nailing down" other aspects. As if that was a problem! I told her that, on the contrary, It was good she was "pondering". I feel that money would truly be wasted if she spent her time time chasing a grade at the expense of curiosity in such a rich intellectual and social envyronment, as good grades can be had at any number of respectable institutions. I would gladly spend my last cent to make sure my daughter learns to follow her own intellectual curiosity with passion and diligence. That will be a better guide to success and happiness than the "better grad school" or the "prime job".</p>
<p>This is why MIT gives first-semester freshlings P/F grades. </p>
<p>Your son was swimming in a different pool in high school. This one is deeper and has lots of good swimmers, and lifeguards with higher standards (to stretch an analogy too far).</p>
<p>Leave him alone. At the most, brainstorm solutions WITH him; don't TELL him what to do. He'll learn from the experience. Freshman grades don't matter (really) and his are fine in any case.</p>
<p>Frandg, I hope you take the suggestions of most responders and nnot lay a guilt trip on your son. It is his life now and you need to begin backing off and allow him to find his own way. Your proper roll now is to encourage and offer sage advice. Also, frosh year in engineering is very difficult and academics can be expected to improve soph year,</p>
<p>Also do not assume that your son will go directly to grad school after receiving his undergrad degree. Few engineering students do because many are anxious to begin designing something and making money for it!!</p>
<p>I also note that your son took soph level calc his first semester. I offer this advice to all parents and students. Be careful about that first semester schedule. I suggest erroring on the conservative side in taking course credits for PA coursework, particularly in a cumulative subject such as math. One never knows how good the hs instruction was and of course many students in the class will have had a semester or two to acclimate themselves to college life and college level work. Your son would probably been better off taking calc 2 if for no other reason than to reinforce his competencies in clac.</p>
<p>So, do not panic, a 2.5 gpa is not bad and he seems committed to doing better next semester.</p>
<p>Hehehe. How many of us guessed that the school in question was Cornell?</p>
<p>For the record, the general feeling at Caltech (with its unkind curves) is that Cornell engineering is one of the not-so-many places that is on the same level of honest grading. In this respect, ambient stereotypes can make all the difference -- an "Ivy C" might seem bad until you realize it's a "Cornell C" -- at which point it's just average or a little below.</p>
<p>Anyway, I guess it's funny that I (a student and generally an advocate of gentler approaches) was strictly the only advocate of any "threat" whatsoever. I'll tell you why so you don't think I'm a beast. Every trimester (the day after tomorrow for this coming one) I sit in a room for at least two hours and talk with professors about applications of kids who couldn't pass a standard academic load and are asking for reinstatement. Contrition, shock, and (really very earnest) promises to get things fixed are always the norm -- and I really don't think these kids are lying -- but the Academic Standards Committee's advice tends to be more effective when we add a sentence to the effect that we will look less kindly upon further petitions, etc.</p>
<p>My point is that being emotionally shaken by bad grades and finding the long-term motivation to fix them are different things, even if it's hard sometimes to see the difference. By no means do I think that attaching consequences is the only way to make sure the "shaken" mode turns into the "long term motivation" mode. There are quite a few people who transition naturally. So maybe the gentler form of my advice is to be aware of the difference and to continually make sure that his initial reaction is being channelled productively.</p>
<p>Anyway, it does make me happy that the parents who are elsewhere caricatured as evil and grade-obsessed are all banding together to oppose this</a> kind of approach.</p>
<p>I am an econ student at an Ivy League university and know many engineers at this school. Getting a C is definetly not out of line for engineers. They notoriously have the lowest GPA's on campus because they have some of the most difficult and complex coursework. Overall, while he may not be used to getting C's it is not that uncommon and he is not alone. Especially during the first semester you can imagine the difference in expectations from a fluff high school class to a serious hardcore college level engineering class...its quite a difference and adjustment can be tough.</p>
<p>At my school, they publish Median Grade Reports for each semester, which are available on the registrar's website. He might want to check here to see how he did in relation to the rest of the students in that class. If he goes to Cornell I would be happy to provide you with the link.</p>
<p>On a side note, if he finds that engineering is not for him, he should consider another major. I know plenty of engineers who transfered to different majors and are doing excellent now.</p>
<p>My son gets no grades at all until prelims later this year, then no grades until the final exam, which solely determines the final grade for the entire course. He said that he mildly misses grades as a barometer of how he's doing. The tutors, in general, don't give you direct feedback on how well or badly you're doing - they critique the essays and problem sets and then move on to the next topic. You can only surmise that you are doing well if the comments on your essays are primarily usage or stylistic in nature versus substantive comments on the arguments you missed or did not explicate well. The only subject in which he can compare his progress to others is in logic, since that is taught in a small class with nine other students, and he is feeling confident because he is one of those rare birds that truly enjoys proofs ["Yuck!" - yulsie]. </p>
<p>Personally, I think a little insecurity is a good experience for all of these bright kids - it was a revelation for me in freshman year when I had to learn Attic Greek - it required WORK to translate well, and showed me clearly how inadequate my study skills were. In addition, at any quality college, a student soon finds out how broad and deep their academic subjects are, and that no matter how quick they may be, really mastering the material requires significant effort. No real shortcuts to scholarship.</p>
<p>I'm glad the points were made about engineering gpas and also about the advising that led him to jump into sophomore level classes. I'd add that he might consider whether he got enough out of the classes to go on to the next level, so that he doesn't start the next semester behind the eightball in those subjects. A "C" doesn't mean he didn't get the material -- it might just mean he did only an average job on the final exam.</p>
<p>Having courses in which the total grade is based on one or two exams is a real shock -- especially if the problem sets that a prof assigns do not accurately reflect what is on the exams. He may not be having such a wild social life. He may just have been lulled by his ability to do the homework. I'd start with "I know you were disappointed..." and lead him into a discussion of how college courses differed from high school, and what skills HE thinks might have helped. It might be note-taking, it might be how to study and take a final, how to make use of help rooms or TAs, how to find a study group, how to ask for or find practice exams, etc. He's a smart kid, obviously. I think that he will make the correct diagnosis and that you can rely on his own drive to do well. (My own kid has glided into a final or two with confidence based on his midterms, only to discover that students who did poorly on the midterms REALLY cranked up their studying for the finals and changed the curve. Some of his finals count for 60-70%. Some profs will even give As to anyone who gets an A on the final, meaning a kid who gets an A on the midterm and a B on the final is in worse shape than a kid who got a C- on the midterm and an A- on the final.)</p>
<p>It occurs to me that if he was in sophomore level classes, most of the other students on the curve would have already had two semesters of experience studying for and taking college finals. </p>
<p>If the problem is his performance on exams, having the extra pressure placed on each test that getting below a B might mean he'll have to transfer could backfire, in my opinion. If he has another semester in which he gets Cs in his major courses, that's a different discussion. Then, he might think about whether he'd rather be in a major where he could do better, or whether it is worth it to him to stick with the one where he is performing around average. I suspect that average at Cornell in engineering is still pretty darn good, but that would be his call to make.</p>
<p>Just wanted to reiterate sac's point questioning whether to repeat the class where he earned a "C." I felt too tentative about the question to post it myself, but since it's now on the table: it's certainly possible that he learned the material and doesn't need to repeat. The disappointing (but absolutely accepable) grade doesn't necessarily mean he failed to grasp the material. If he's certain he needs more and better mastery, then certainly repeat. But I, too, wouldn't automatically assume it's necessary.</p>
<p>I would start by saying congratulations on having a son that was able to get into a challenging school and who has passed his first quarter. Sure he could have gone to a school where he could have easily gotten better grades, but those of us who have been through competitive schools know that passing the first quarter is an achievement. Grades slip, and it is the determination of the student to change things that will cause grades to rise. If this was my child, I would remind them how proud I am of their successes, how I understand their disappointment but that I have much faith I have in their ability to succeed. Sled dogs pull harder when they know the rest of the pack is with them. Its hard being a parent, its hard being a kid.</p>
<p>Personally, I got 3 C's and a B my first semester at MIT (although it was pass/no record and isn't recorded in my GPA), but as a senior I now have a 3.5 average. :) Sometimes it just takes a little adjusting to college work, especially when it's college work at a notoriously difficult school.</p>
