<p>When I was in freshman and sophomore year, my father got a job out of the country. This changed my mother completely - she was incredibly fussy all the time and argued with the littlest things. Oftentimes we would have violent physical scuffles (no "serious" injuries but still terrible). Something happened psychologically that hasn't been the same since. I had okay grades those years, but definitely lower than could be achieved (As and 3 B+s). I'm really afraid that this will affect my admissions. I have A+ scores on junior year and will do so senior year as well. What can I do? Some people say the counselor can talk about this but coming from an Asian household private matters simply CANNOT be shared with outsiders like this. So I never went to the counselor for help...</p>
<p>Tell your dad that mom is taking his absence out on you.
Your mother is on edge.
The least bit of stress or confrontation from life/you sets her off.
Tell her you will no tolerate her physically assaulting you, that you will break the Asian code of silence and report her to dad and other relatives.
Tell her you are under stress because of her erratic behavior.
Your grades are suffering.
Both you and she will count to 100 before hurtful words are said to avoid escalating fights to physical contact.
Be patient and get into college that you have to live away.</p>
<p>Thanks. This summer I left the home for a month and when I got back things seemed to have settled down. My mom treats everyone like this so my dad has experienced it, but I get the worst of it. I’d say bipolar is the best way to say it. Some trivial things just set her off sometimes and it’s intolerable. Mostly I’m worried about getting accepted to the colleges I want to get accepted into because of my weak first two years. Starting from summer after sophomore year my resume is good but before that. It’s average, my mom wouldn’t let me socialize or hang out with friends or do any extracurriculars so I ended up wasting my time playing video games. I even started up an online business but she cancelled it because she said I needed to concentrate on my studies.</p>
<p>Do you have other family members that you can turn to for support? Grandparents? Aunts or uncles? Cousins?</p>
<p>She can’t control anything in her life except you.
Don’t dwell on what you can’t do, just study as hard as you can, do well on your SATs/ACT and get out of Dodge.
Don’t use gaming to escape your reality, put your efforts in test prep and your school work.
You’ll get to go to college soon.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Don’t bait her.
Don’t poke the bear.</p>
<p>asianboy, for some reason you seem to be getting advice on how to get along with your mother when you asked about the effect of lower grades in freshman and sophomore years on your college chances. To be more responsive to your post, I’d say that since you weren’t willing to discuss your family difficulties with your guidance counselor at the time (and I won’t get into what a mistake it was to let some crazy notion of family privacy negatively impact your life this way), it’s really too late to tell a credible tale at this point. There’s really nothing that can be done to explain away your slightly weaker grades in the first two years of high school. However your upward trend will be a positive in your applications. Besides, a record that includes all A’s except for handful of B pluses is way above average and hardly something to be concerned about. There are plenty of fine colleges that will admit you.</p>