<p>When D mentioned registering for next semester, I told her I needed to see her midterm grades first. She claimed she didn't know them. I demanded to get her password and there they were....10 credits of F's, 3 credits of D's, and 3 credits of C's. She immediately apologized, admitting she hasn't worked very hard and had quit going to at least one class. She's having a great time, though, and loves her school. D has an IEP, but has refused to use it at college. Apparently she won't ask for help, either. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Should she withdraw from some of the "F" classes? Will the professors give her guidance in that area?</p></li>
<li><p>Registration begins next week at our local college. It's a much easier school, but more importantly, I'll be able to monitor her much closely. Should we rush to get her in there? Normally, taking some time off is a good idea in this situation, but I really doubt that she could find a job. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>H predicted this, as she's very immature. I was the one who wanted to give her a chance at proving herself. It was a very expensive mistake. We're feeling both anger and sadness.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m very sorry to hear about this outcome.</p>
<p>My recommendation would be to certainly withdraw from all the D and F classes. You don’t want those ever showing on a transcript. And maybe withdraw from ALL classes and just declare this semester a total bust and start over again at a local community college once she has demonstrated sufficient maturity.</p>
<p>Toledo - Don’t rush quite yet. What does she say? Does she want to stay at that school? Why don’t you leave it up to her to go to her professors and get this straightened out. Is it possible she can drop the class that she quit going to and pull up the rest? I would tell her exactly what you expect from her and tell her if she has F’s she will not be going back in January. Maybe if she realizes you are serious she will fix this. Don’t worry about registering her for the local college - she can always do that later.</p>
<p>My freshman year (first semester) was pretty bad. My parents said - either bring up your grades or you will be coming home. I had second semester to prove myself and I did. After that I did well. The important thing is that YOU don’t fix this - it has to be her! Good luck.</p>
<p>As I have stated in my other thread, I was as immature as your DD when I was in her age. The thing fixed me up was the military. If she would go there for few years, she will be a stand up person again and perhaps she will go to college free afterwords.</p>
<p>Withdraw ASAP and sending HUGS and Prayers to you.</p>
<p>She needs to talk to her profs and find out if there is any possibility mathematically of bringing the grades up to something approaching reasonable. If there is a mathematical possibility then you need to determine if she is willing and/or able to do the work to achieve this?</p>
<p>If the Fs and Ds are going to be what she will end up with on her final transcript then I agree she needs to withdraw from those classes or they will haunt her and her GPA forever. The approach of having her attend a CC until she demonstrates a willingness to work is a good one.</p>
<p>I’d not throw in the towel,just yet…Perhaps she can withdraw from the classes with no hope of improving the grades…Turn the C into a B,and D into a C…Tell her if she can do this,she can stay for the 2nd semester,which would then be the deciding factor whether she stays there or comes home and attends a CC…She isn’t the only 1st semester freshmen struggling with new found freedoms and college course/workloads which may be more difficult then she had thought they’d be…</p>
So sorry your D has fallen into this unfortunate group. It’s a nightmare we all pray doesn’t snare our kid as well. You might want to get a few more details about exactly what she has been doing with her time before you make a final decision.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you have to deal with this disappointment. Grades can change a lot before the end of the term. Agree that she should meet with all profs for classes with D/F grades and see what her options are–is it possible that she can bring up those grades, or do they recommend that she drop? Is it LIKELY that she can bring up the grades? Does the threat of having to leave the school motivate her to start working hard? Game not over yet.</p>
<p>She’d love to stay at the school. This semester is costing us $20,000. What’s that…$3,000 per credit hour? I told her she had to bring her grades up to C’s, but that may not even be possible. We’ll see how she handles the situation. It will have to be on a class by class basis. </p>
<p>Maybe I made a mistake when I told her that I had a bad first semester. By bad, I think I got a 1.9 GPA and was put on probation, but got all my credits. It’s a different situation if she has a 1.5 and only 6 credits.</p>
<p>toledo, You shared some of your past with your D and you fought (with H) to give her a chance to prove herself - these were NOT mistakes. What happened at school was of her own making. I don’t know what I would do, but my gut says to put the fear of God in her and then let her finish out the school year knowing full well what the result will be if she messes up- this way she owns the end result.</p>
<p>This could have been my thread (and I expected it would be), but for some unknown reason my S was placed on a study intensive dorm floor with mixed ages and I think it saved him.</p>
<p>It sounds like your daughter needs to enroll in the class Life 101. If you bring her home and she attends a community college I don’t think you should moniter her too closely. Her grades are her responsiblity, in fact her life is her responsibility. You’ve gotten her this far, you’ve done your best, now it’s up to her.</p>
<p>I do think you should pull the plug on the school she is at, it’s too much money for someone who isn’t going to appreciate the opportunity. Although there are enough other posters on this thread who make a good case for letting her finish the year, maybe you should do that.</p>
<p>"She’s having a great time, though, and loves her school. "
No Kidding! Who wouldn’t?
You’re paying a lot of money for this student’s entertainment.
Personally, I’d have a great time losing weight if I didn’t have to exercise and diet.</p>
<p>One thing I’d recommend:
Make your expectations clear. Whether student drops all classes, attends locally, or tries to improve some grades, or quits to get a job- whatever possible scenario, make your expectations clear. Does student need a 1.5? 2.5? 3.5? On which classes? All classes? Need to get a job? Need to attend locally? Pay for her own school until she proves herself? Please don’t just say- “This must improve”. You decide- she abides- if you’re paying the bill. If she is an independent self-supporting adult, then she can make her own choices.
Set specific rewards or consequences depending on outcomes. Don’t make the young person guess. For example- If you expect a 2.0 average, then 1.5 but “trying hard” as a kid might say, isn’t enough. 2.0 is enough. Please don’t just say: “Try harder and then we’ll see.”
Remember too that student can attend any school that will accept her, but there is no rule that says parents must pay. Often a student tries harder when they have more invested, and more to risk if they fail. A lesson I learned after I was goofing off my first yr.
Unless we believe the student truly had no idea about her grades, then this youngster has not only wasted your money, but she has also deliberately lied and misrepresented it(grades) the whole time. Yes I know that can be a child’s nature and doesn’t make them a bad adult. I bring that up not as a judgment about student or parents, but to bring another point to light. Now that you know the lengths the kid will go to to withhold the truth, the adults need to be smarter and better prepared to put themself in a better position not to be taken advantage of.
My advice is not specific on what to do, but rather is general on whatever you decide to do: specific expectations, specific rewards, specific consequences.</p>
<p>Maybe if you gave us some clues as to what courses these are, posters would have some thoughts on whether pulling up grades at this point is even possible. For example, if it’s Calculus, chemistry, or physics - no real hope. English 101, philosophy 101, etc. - maybe, depends on how many grading opportunities remain. Just telling her she has to improve her grades without a sense of what that would involve is kind of unrealistic.</p>
<p>I totally agree with this advice. I would find out if she can drop without penalty (W’s and not WU or WF’s). She would have to finish up the second half of the term and possibly the final exam with an A just to get C’s. This risk is not worth it especially when she has already told you she is not going to class or seekign help. She can indicate that she withdrew for personal reasons. </p>
<p>While right now she may be very immature adnd not ready for college, she may be in the future. She doesn’t want the mistakes of her youth to forever be part of her academic life in terms of academic probation and possibly academic dismissal which is very likely with current grades.</p>
<p>Get her back home. There are two issues here. One is her immaturity but the greater one is your part in setting her up for failure. This is not to blame or scold. This is to understand that, yes, she did not handle herself correctly and did make some very bad choices. However, the greater issue here is that she was sent away when one of the parents knew she was not ready and could not handle the situation thereby enabling and assisting her in failing. That is not HER fault</p>
<p>With that being said, you gave her a chance. It didn’t work and if she expects you to continue to fund her education then she needs to abide by your ground rules and that means being at home until she can prove she can make good grades and succeed in college. At that point you can start talking to her about how she can move out and you foot the bill for her education. Until then, she’s home.</p>
<p>FWIW, I know people who have or are about to make this same mistake. Tuning out advice from guidance counselors or others who have been through it. It’s a costly gamble and the financial aspect is hopefully the least costly consequence of the situation. </p>
<p>The pressure to send kids away is enormous. Especially when the more mature kids and good students get scholarships and offers to go to wonderful places and those who did not are happy to go off with friends and other classmates to state schools. No one wants to be left behind. But experience tells us that many of those kids are not ready and should not be allowed to go away to school.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t send her back to the same school next semester unless you have money to throw away. She’s either not prepared academically to handle the work load at her current college or she’s not prepared emotionally to take on the responsibilities of independent living. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two.</p>
<p>What good is it for her to finish out the semester? The likely scenario is that her grades will not improve from now until then. Her current “C’s” and “D’s” may end up as “F’s”. Maybe withdrawing from the school now is a good option.</p>
<p>So sorry- this is a tough situation. If it makes you feel better (it probably doesn’t) this is not an uncommon occurrence among college freshmen.In general, the posters on College Conf. are not typical of the norm; they tend to be much higher achieving than most kids, so you don’t read about situations like this much here. </p>
<p>First,I would go ahead and register her for your college (is it a CC?) so that you have that option. She can always withdraw and get most of your money back. Then, I would sit down with her and set up guidelines for your expectations. Keep your expectations for this semester simple. She may have to drop the class that she has stopped going to as it is probably unrealistic to try to make up the work. Have her check to see if there is a chance of bringing her F’s and D’s up to C’s. It looks like she currently has 16 units- maybe for this semester have her drop down to 12 which is the minimum for insurance. Some kids just need to start off really slowly when going away to school. It is such a huge transition and it is so hard to learn to balance activities for a lot of kids. Tell her that you need access to all of her records for school and explain that even though she is an “adult” you are paying for school and need to check her grades in order to keep paying. For future semesters, set down in writing what you expect of her. Explain very clearly that the consequences for not meeting those expectations is that she will have to move back home and go to a CC. Set up deadlines by which time she has to meet with each of her instructors to try to get back on track, and make her give you the feedback from each. Depending on her situation, maybe insist that she get help thru her IEP. Obviously you can’t force her to do any of this, however make sure she knows clearly that the consequence is that she will have to come home. I would have her go ahead and register for classes for next semester once she understands all of this. Set up a schedule to check with her each week to see her progress- it may have to be a lot at first! Tell her you want to know each test grade and assignment. It may help to have her e-mail daily with an agenda and to-do list; that way you can check to see that see that she is tracking everything. This may seem like an over-kill, but tell her it is only until she can get back on track. At this point, I would be happy with C’s, but make sure she understands that in the future, that won’t be good enough. </p>
<p>This is so hard for you and I can understand you feel like you are wasting your money. But don’t give up quite yet; give her a chance to get up to C’s this semester, and if she can pull it off, let her finish up the year with some new expectations and monitoring from you. If she can’t finish up with C’s in at least 12 units this semester, I would pull her out. Best of luck to you!!!</p>
<p>You really aren’t alone. I know as a 17 year old freshman, I had a very hard time adjusting that 1st year, but once I got the hang of it I went on to do fine. Our oldest son dropped down to just taking a few classes here and there at a CC ( with totally unexceptional grades) before he finally decided to buckle down. He ended up with with a BS in engineering with departmental awards when he finally graduated at 24. I might add that he moved from a definite party atmosphere (San Diego) inland to a less “fun” school and found that made it much easier for him!</p>
<p>I have been where you are now, and I feel your pain. I actually paid for 2 semesters before I got a clue. S also has a learning disability which seems to result in overly optimistic thinking about grades and extremely poor planning as far as getting work done. If it gives you any hope, let me tell you that S returned to college full time in his mid 20s and graduated last year. It was a struggle for both of us. The reason he finally succeeded, I think, is because he had had a taste of the real world and he had a specific goal to become a teacher. Good luck!</p>
<p>I’m so sorry to hear this . . . Those grades are not something any parent wants to see (especially when they’re paying so much)!</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you should take her home immediately or give another semester a shot. It depends a lot on the kid, if you think she’s going to buckle down now, and your own financial situation.</p>
<p>Maybe let her register, then see what her final grades are for this semester, then decide?</p>