<p>Hi there, </p>
<p>Were you (or anyone you know) an all star student in high school who somehow turned first year college into an "academic disaster"? </p>
<p>Please share your stories. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>John</p>
<p>I knew someone from my school who was a Morehead Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill, and hated it so much. He lost an insane amount of weight, made no friends, and went back to LA and took a semester off. He's now at UCLA </p>
<p>(Any reason you're asking this?? It's not really a type of thing that warrants a :-), really sad if you ask me)</p>
<p>lol... i just abuse emoticons.</p>
<p>and no, just random discussion.</p>
<p>I was salutatorian of my high school class with pretty much straight As. Then I went to college and sucked it up...got my share of Cs and B-s...nothing overly tragic, but still. Now it's time to work insanely hard to bring up the crappy GPA.</p>
<p>I'll 'fess up personally then: yeah I was the damn near perfect kid in high school and my first year was kind of one big screw up. But sophomore year will be better. I hope.</p>
<p>Not really what you asked, but one of my teachers got into college on a diving scholarship and then broke his foot 2 weeks before the season started and had to go to a state school.</p>
<p>ouch......:s. Sorry to hear that....</p>
<p>Off topic as well, but on what Boor said... </p>
<p>A basketball coach at my hs school was very likely to get drafted into the NBA (and was expected to go pretty quickly) but hurt his knee really badly near the end of the season his Senior year of college. </p>
<p>Everyone just sort of forgot about him and he ended up back in East Texas coaching 3A basketball. He an awesome guy (affectionately referred to as the "Jolly Black Giant")...I've always felt bad for him, though.</p>
<p>poor guy.........he has my sympathies.....</p>
<p>I flew through first year in all colors, but the second year was a disaster. Any of my employers who had ever asked me for a transcript always inquired "Err... and what happened these two quarters??" to which I'd reply "My cat died". And if they didn't laugh, I knew they had no sense of humor and I didn't work for them. See how you can turn a disadvantage into an advantage for yourself?</p>
<p>I have to admit, the "My cat died" test is hilarous. I'll have to remember that one.</p>
<p>Agreed! :)</p>
<p>well, not exactly, but One of my friends was kind of the all-american kid in HS (amazing football and lax player, really nice, hot, not all A's in HS, but a respectable 3.0 from a tough prep school), and went to a good college, basically drank every single night and got a 1.8. He took a semester off, went back, and didn't do a whole lot better, so he dropped out, moved back home and went to a Community College, then tried to get a job and move out and still go to cc, then dropped out of the cc, got in a sh itton of credit card debt, and moved to las vegas. Got into more debt, and has now moved back home with his parents.</p>
<p>He had everything going for him that a person could possibly have going. Came from a well to do family, good looking guy, nice, charming, he just really screwed up. It was kind of like watching a really nice car crash in slow motion.</p>
<p>Thats what happens when you got no motivation to push yourself anywhere. Quite a few rich boys end up like this, no surprise.</p>
<p>Some people just aren't ready for the move to college, no matter how smart. I left the first time around and left scholarships behind (not at the scale of todays dollars) and went to work. Looking at the old guys everynight at work for a year became a greater motivator to get a degree. I when back, fixed my previous problems and it took a bit longer, but I did it. For me, a very young 18 college student was not as ready to do it as an older 19 year old.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Quite a few rich boys end up like this, no surprise.
[/QUOTE]
He's not rich, just from a very nice family who is comfortably middle class.</p>
<p>That's really sad. </p>
<p>I know several stories like that from people at my mom's work. They're all nice kids from nice upper-middle families, but they just didn't put half as much effort into class as they did partying.</p>
<p>I was an A/B student in high school, but I tanked in the hardest entry level classes (basically designed to kill off potential majors) and my GPA sucked. I lost my scholarship (thankfully not worth THAT much) but I need to work super hard now to save myself. It's a huge bummer.</p>
<p>I was a pretty steady A student in high school and had many wonderful friends. I also was affectionately known as "the mayor" because all the teachers and administrators loved me. Even the custodians all knew me. I did a ton of volunteer work for the school, always bust my butt off in the classroom, and was voted "most likely to be rich" by my fellow seniors.</p>
<p>My first semester was filled with lofty expectations. I had recieved a music scholarship (after an outstanding high school band career where I never got below first chair in an audition), had gotten one for my academic achievements, and everyone said that I'd be fine at college.</p>
<p>Academically, I tanked. It took me four weeks and about eight assignments until I got an A on something. I clashed with every professor up there, was disliked by most of the students, and no matter how hard I worked I just could not perform well in the classroom. I lost 20 pounds of weight, lost self confidence, and lost a ton of sleep. Averaging about an hour and a half each night, I spent most of the time in my dorm and wasn't even strong enough to walk down to the cafeteria. Any energy I got was purely adrenaline. I even had to cancel my gym outings that I had done for months, probably burning more weight than I should have.</p>
<p>My three month trip to hell ended abruptly when a campus doctor ordered that I get sent home. Being the "Iron Man" at my high school and going seven years in a row without missing any school, I knew that it was for the best. My Ripken-like streak no longer mattered because it only counted through high school anyway.</p>
<p>The road to recovery was not good. I had lost a lot of mental capability, or so it seemed. I found myself driving on the wrong side of the road one day. When I visited some friends, they commented that I didn't seem right. My pants were all falling off me as well. Christmas was also horrible, since it was stressful.</p>
<p>In January, I went to the new school I had transferred to for the first time. After a horrible 2.98 GPA in my first semester (it seems horrible after you have a high school average of 3.76 and got 4.07 as a junior) I went in knowing that if I flubbed this semester I would have to go find another career (other than teaching, which unfortunately requires a degree).</p>
<p>I took my first test and got an A. Thinking it was a fluke I decided to wait for my second one. Keep in mind I got 32 A+ grades on tests as a senior and 60 A+'s as a junior (yes, I kept track). Now I was doubting any A. Well, I got a few more. Then I realized maybe it was the horrid noisy and party-friendly environment in which students nearly killed me at Mount Union (I didn't even go to any parties--they were outside my door trying to kick it down and were threatening me). The professors all liked me and saw my work ethic, unlike those at Mount Union, who passed me off as a lunatic.</p>
<p>I finished with a 4.0 for the semester. I was also much sharper by the end, staying on my side of the road at all times. Having two friends from high school at my college definitely helped me with the transition. The only thing I'm missing now is as good of a social and extracurricular life as I had at my high school--a school I still show up at quite a bit. I was there twice this week and actually was there during the school day twice to get my car worked on (they used me as a messenger of sorts during that time, as I had to run passes and whatnot to people in classes...but every teacher had to stop class to ask me how I was :-) The students really liked that since it paused class for them).</p>
<p>Now for the sad part. I knew a ton of good people at my high school. Some of them were very close friends of mine, others were not. My close friends have all been fine--they've come back home this summer just like they left, except maybe a bit smarter and they've met a few new people (but are still closest with all of us folks who went to HS together). However, some of the people I didn't know as well who were all great folks in HS have come back as trash--they party all the time and don't even look attractive anymore. There's this one girl who made the drunk decision to dye her hair and now she looks terrible. Another guy got a tattoo drunk. These folks will be sorry in the long run.</p>
<p>I still like high school better, probably because I had an awesome four years (and awesome three in middle school). Nothing will ever come close to that, but I'm hoping that what I saw last semester was just the beginning of a solid three and a half years at my school.</p>