<p>Thrilled to report that dd got into her highly competitive ED school. But now my straight A dd seems to be holed up in her room on facebook with her soon-to-be classmates, not studying (getting B and C for first time ever). She doesn't seem to have any use for us at all (except to cook dinner and do laundry). We're all excited that she's done with college apps and the pressure of the process, but don't want her to get her acceptance recinded for bad grades and don't want to live with this attitude. Anyone have any advice??</p>
<p>Use the holiday time to best possible advantage. Take each other out to restaurants as affordable, movies, ice skating, surfing, whatever. Come up with some really great things to do together, so she can hardly resist saying “no.”</p>
<p>Have some fun.</p>
<p>At the END of this vacation, when she’s rested and more clock-hours have elapsed since she heard the great news, send her back to school with an article or two about the importance of keeping up grades to not be rescinded.</p>
<p>The news is still very new for her, and in her mind she worked for 12 years nonstop, and is just savoring it still.</p>
<p>I think she’ll come full circle and show her face again at your table. </p>
<p>My solution for these kinds of transitions is to get each other OUT of the house and into a new environment together as a family. Ask her what she’d like to do, now that she is enjoying her accomplishment. Take an overnight in the next town over, just to sleep in a motel and see some second-rate museum together. Anything for a bonding day.</p>
<p>She needs to look at you and not expect the next words she’ll hear is about schoolwork. It’s December 23. Everybody needs to take a break. </p>
<p>EDIT: If travel isn’t an option, maybe you can ask her what fancy food she’s always wanted to taste; then work up the recipe online, shop it together with her, cook all day, put up with her music piped into the kitchen,invite over her friends for dinner or the amazing dessert produced.</p>
<p>Home can be just as much fun as travel. It’s just about having one good day to change the mood. Don’t expect anything from it, just do it to get back into feeling great about your D as a person, not just a college applicant.</p>
<p>Thanks for putting some perspective on this…</p>
<p>Firstly, stop with the straight A highly competitive college stuff- that can inflate the ego to no end and she thinks she is “done”</p>
<p>give her a reality check, that she is the same kid she was before she got accepted </p>
<p>and if she has this kind of attitude, I could almost bet you she isn’t very aware of how she is treating her friends, etc, who may not have had such good news</p>
<p>she needs to learn graciousness and class in “winning” otherwise she won’t be a very pleasant person to be around and I would tell her exactly that</p>
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<p>You’re so welcome! It’s always easier on someone else’s issues :)</p>
<p>Your daughter needs to remember to be extremely sensitive to her friends’ feelings at this time – not just the feelings of friends who applied ED and didn’t get accepted, but also the feelings of those who could not apply ED for financial reasons. ED is a privilege offered only to the relatively affluent. Those who must compare financial aid packages in April cannot take advantage of it.</p>
<p>As for schoolwork, she needs to realize that she is more vulnerable to having bad things happen because of a drop in academic performance than her friends who did not get accepted ED would be.</p>
<p>If her grades drop far enough, the college that just accepted her can rescind her admission. If this happens, she has no fallback position. Unlike her friends who did not get accepted ED, she can’t assume that even with lower grades, she would get into her safety school. She no longer has a safety school. Getting rescinded would mean spending a year flipping hamburgers while going through the whole application process over again.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted ED last year, and of course she withdrew all her other applications immediately. She was in an IB diploma program, taking IB music – which has a large performance component – as one of her diploma subjects. In order for her to get her IB Diploma, it was essential for her to complete the required performances. During the spring, she had to have surgery on her hand, which made it impossible for her to play her instrument for several weeks while her hand healed. We had to delay the surgery as long as possible and make special arrangements for her to complete her required performances early so that she would be certain of getting her IB Diploma. We went through all this rigamarole because we were afraid that her ED school might rescind her admission if she failed to earn her IB Diploma. If she had applied ED, we might have just let the IB Diploma fall by the wayside because she would obviously have been admitted to her safety school, and perhaps several others, even without it. But since she no longer had these “fallback” schools, we couldn’t take the risk.</p>
<p>The point here is that ED students, more than any others, cannot take chances with their academic performance (or, for that matter, with their disciplinary record). They are in a uniquely vulnerable situation.</p>
<p>Don’t show your daughter this e-mail until after Christmas Day. Everybody needs a holiday every now and then.</p>
<p>Edited to add: And yes, as P3T says, it’s lots easier to address other people’s issues than your own.</p>
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<p>Boy, am I illiterate this morning.</p>
<p>That was supposed to be “If she had NOT applied ED,…”</p>
<p>(Also – Marian and p3t have a great line, but for your own peace of mind you should recognize that it’s very, very hard to get an ED admission rescinded, precisely because the college will recognize that the student doesn’t have other options. It will take a lot more than a few Bs or Cs on tests. I posted this on another thread, but among the situations where I have seen an early admission NOT rescinded are (1) a student who went from all As to mostly Cs for the entire second semester, and (2) a student who got caught with drugs on a school trip. Realistically, your daughter has a lot of leeway, and she knows it.)</p>
<p>I’m curious how she could be “getting Bs and Cs for the first time ever” already? Most E.D. acceptances just came out within the past ten days or so which would have meant she’d only have had a week of school left, even if she received it early, and she has graded work back since then? In any case, if you’re projecting concerns, I wouldn’t tell her that it’s impossible to have the acceptance rescinded. I know two kids who have had it happen due to a drastic drop in academic performance, and one of my Ds knew a few kids at NYU who started as a freshman on academic probation because of bouts of senioritis. Trust me, that’s not how you want your kid to start her college career.</p>
<p>I think Paying3 nailed it. Nice job!</p>
<p>Its not just about the grades, etc., its about how she is treating other people while reveling in her victory</p>
<p>she needs to be reminded, that while she should be happy, others may be sad</p>
<p>The good news is that she seems to be treating only her family as lepers. While many of her friends are away now she’s been active with them on the phone/computer. From what I can tell she’s been a great support for her friends that had bad ED/EA news, and seems to be a go-to for advice, last minute proofreading of essays, a chocolate fix etc. The bad news is is that from my and dh perspective we can’t do anything right. I tried P3T’s great advice - we live not too far from NYC and asked if she’d go in with me over break - her reply is that she’s “too old to go to the clity with mommy”…I know kids lash out at their parents because it’s safe, and that she views her ED as the culmination of 12 years of hard work. But she seems to have lost all momentum. I hope that if she crashes for a week after new years ( and with a week’s sleep) she’s over it. (re: grades, yes, she had three AP class tests the week that ED came out, and they came back graded…lack of interest definately shows up)</p>
<p>I think she is having a rush from letting down her hair a bit and now being the expert. If she is using her position to help others, I wouldn’t worry. Things will calm down a bit. </p>
<p>Tell her that her record doesn’t have to be perfect, but to earn her own self-respect.</p>
<p>If she was my kid (and I had one last year), I made it quite clear that C’s were just plain unacceptable, and that kid had a responsible duty to perform well in the two classes where teachers wrote glowing recs. That left room for a B or two.</p>
<p>Getting B’s isn’t a problem. Getting C’s may be risky, but even then she probably won’t be rescinded for having a C or two.</p>
<p>The real danger is that she will fall into this lazy senioritis mode, and she will get to her competitive college in the Fall and have to develop the study habits all over again, in addition to adjusting to college life. It’ll be easier on her if she keeps up studying and working at least at 70% of the rate at which she was before she got in, so she doesn’t have to get back in the zone in the fall.</p>
<p>I’d have a talk with her about my expectations regarding her behavior and attitude towards mom and dad!!!</p>
<p>I won’t repeat what’s been said, but if your daughter is behaving this way perhaps it’s because she was so nervous and unsure of her ED acceptance. In that case, I’d remind her that she wouldn’t want others to flaunt things in her face, and to be sensitive to others people’s feelings. Asd for grades, I assumed you meant on single tests and reports. Remind her that her continued academic excellence is a must for her enrollment in dream school. And congratulations to you and her for a great achievement! Celebrate over the holiday if you didn’t last week.
The senioritis thing- I told my D (also accepted ED to a top school) to act as if she’s already in college so that college will be easier once she starts.</p>
<p>I think post-ED senioritis is very common and the blessing is that it happens early enough in the senior year that kids can re-coup…Especially for kids who have always been conscientious students, it is probably healthy to have a quick swoop of trying out being otherwise just for the life experience–and they are very likely to right themselves without a lot of parental pressure. Teachers will let them know the hazards and their disappointment too, remember…While you need to speak up when the attitude problem is way out of line–I also think that some of it is driven by a regression/panic kids may feel when they realize "I am going to college!. Suddenly they feel compelled to not “need” us in any visible way. So a lot of the rejecting is driven my the immature wish to appear completely “mature” and “beyond” the homey aspects of being a “kid”. And brace yourself–a lot of that may go one for the next year. I am endeared by how my (now sophomore son) has become grateful, gracious, mature and asks for family time when he is home. (Does still leave balled up socks lying about…) He was a complete pill for some time after the ED relief but outgrew it with time. </p>
<p>Maybe you have some duct tape left over from the waiting period? I used up the rest of mine in the follow-up period…</p>
<p>hi.
we experienced this same sequence of events when our d was accepted ed.
the hardest part was the shift from being on her team to feeling as though we were almost in the enemy camp.
there was no squabble issue; she just wanted to be on her own with her online discussions.
it’s a hard time.
it does get better, but it can get worse before it gets better.</p>
<p>I got accepted to a selective ED school as well, and had my senioritis moment myself. Now though semester exams are here and I’m back at (almost) full speed, and though I don’t work as hard as I did before ED, I’m at about 70-80%, still pulling all A’s, and in fact with even better grades than before (go figure). </p>
<p>At my school if you slack off it snowballs and within a week you will be FUBAR, no joke… so yeah I’m still working hard till summer comes along.</p>