<p>@SlackerMomMD – they probably end up in the regular thread, and feel a bit overwhelmed. </p>
<p>My daughter is in this group, GPA wise. I checked her Naviance the other day and I was horrified, but I was assured that her low grade in American Studies was due to a teacher who was behind in entering assignments (I was assured this by the teacher). </p>
<p>@Irishmomof2 – that happens to my kids all of the time. Last semester D15 had a “D” in English – she tried half a dozen times to get the teacher to put the grades in, and finally I told her to email the teacher, and visibly copy me on it, and low and behold the teacher finally updated the grades – giving my D15 a 103% in the class. That’s a big jump from a D to an A+ just because she didn’t do her job timely. That’s part of the reason why I don’t pay a lot of attention to Powerschool. I have the kids trained to check regularly, so they know if there is an error they can follow up right away. </p>
<p>@Irishmomof2, that is exactly the reason why I loathe checking on the system. Heart attacks all over the place. Whenever the teacher is late entering grades, the default grade is an F or 0; grades plummet, and alerts are sent. I set the alerts to D’s email address so <em>she</em> can suffer the anxiety attacks every time a warning email is sent. </p>
<p>At least you get to see grades–our school believes in the student steering the process ( parents still get to pay the tuition :>) we see them at mid quarter end of quarter and semester. Quarter grades are ( map of it is going) but still count 40% and finals are 20%.
So if you have a child who doesn’t like to share how it is going, you are clueless–I guess at least we are getting prepared on how it will happen in college. #-o </p>
<p>I wish we could see the grades of our ADHD - inattentive son. We only get emails whenever he scores a D or F on an exam or when a major paper is over 1 week late…which happens more than infrequently. I envy the parents of the other school kids who can check out all of their kid’s assignment due dates, whether they turned them in, and what grades they are getting.</p>
<p>The problem is, these online grade portals don’t give much assignment info, and frequently show that something wasn’t turned in, when in fact it was. If the teachers updated daily, then it would work great – but many of them don’t, and some only update a couple of times during a semester. It can cause a lot of unnecessary turmoil at home, because parents think their kids are not doing their work. </p>
<p>I have a friend who is an elementary school teacher, the e-school program our system uses is atrociously difficult to use. With the previous system, she could line up the kids according to their grades, and then enter the grades straight down the line. Now she has to open up each child’s line, enter the grade, comment, and then she has to go back out before she can do the next kid. She said it’s a built in disincentive to actually use the system. </p>
<p>Hi everyone, I’m in need of guidance! I have a junior and I’m doing some research (because, like many of you here, he isn’t quite motivated enough to do it himself : ) He goes to a math\science magnet, good school that sends kids to top schools, Ivys, etc. yearly. He is doing an indepedent research project with a goal of entering the Intel competition. His test scores are good: PSAT of 210. But grades? Not great, especially this year. His unweighted GPA right now is about a 3.2, with most of the C’s from junior year. Freshman and sophomore grades were A’s and B’s. He’s taking all APs this year and has not had a great year academically. But he is bright and motivated. </p>
<p>He is very unsure what he’d like to do and would like engineering to be an option, with his strongest interests in the sciences, particularly chemistry. OTOH, he’s most drawn to LACs and ITA with him that a smaller school where he will be known is best. I’ve got a list of probable schools, and I’m encouraging him to narrow it to less than 8. But I’d love to hear input from any of you, particularly on mid-range schools for a kid like him. </p>
<p>Thanks so much in advance!</p>
<p>Does he have a preference on locale for college. What does he feel is small?<br>
Some feel less than 3,000 or is it more on the 1,000 in size?
The Midwest especially Ohio is great when looking for LACs.
You might also look at the CTCL list they also have a website.
Calling BunHeadmom on this one she is full of information especially data.</p>
<p>@CatherineL, what state are you in? You may have very good choices among in state public schools, depending on your state. Has he taken the SAT yet? The SAT is different from the PSAT; while he’ll probably get a score similar to his PSAT sometimes it can be very different (up or down or just the subscores). </p>
<p>The main problem with LACs is that they often don’t include engineering schools although there are a few with engineering departments. So the question is how small is smaller?</p>
<p>He would prefer a school of less than 7,000 undergrads. So that is not really THAT small, though his ideal is less than 2,000. He prefers East Coast or mid-Atlantic. </p>
<p>As a parent of a senior this year, in addition to a junior, I have to say that the roller coaster ride is in full swing. D14 is doing really well, and has a few great options to choose from, but if you haven’t been following the current decisions threads I would suggest at least skimming them for schools your student is considering. There have been a lot of surprises for students and families about what schools they are, and are not getting into. In spite of being a bit under prepared for D14’s college search, she did a good job of selecting schools. I’m feeling really bad for many students who didn’t get accepted at many of their schools. GPA seemed to be a big factor, so definitely work with your students so that they can finish this year with the best possible grades. </p>
<p>@catherineL
The link below shows colleges where previous 3.0 - 3.3 kids were accepted to college.
<a href=“Where did your 3.0-3.3 GPA child get in? - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/767966-where-did-your-3-0-3-3-gpa-child-get-in.html</a></p>
<p>Also, if you look at the links for the class of 2013 3.0-3.3 kids you can see where they were accepted and how they are doing. There are a few of them in engineering majors which is pretty impressive, and so you could consider those schools.</p>
<p>As for techy types of schools, you could consider RPI, WPI, etc. (opposite of LACs, but I thought I’d throw it out there.)</p>
<p>Well we are closing in on the end of Junior year—3 quarter grades were great and she seems to be heading into the home stretch much better than she did the first two years.
Hope that everyone ends this year on a solid calm note, because this time next year we may be stressing on the decisions that a wait our group of kids.</p>
<p>Hello from a Hoosier Newbie. Just joined CC today and found this wonderful Board. My son goes to a large public high school. He has ADHD-inattentive…always knew he struggled too hard and finally had him tested in the 7th grade. He works hard, is motivated…but he is limited academically. He has a 3.1 or 3.2 right now, I forget…keeps going down. He is taking Chemistry and Algebra 2 and is struggling to maintain a C. Thankfully no D’s yet…he really wants that Honors Diploma. Has only taken 1 AP course. We will find out his SAT next week, but his PSATs were awful. I’ve had him with a tutor since summer…just to try to get him to “average”. We would be thrilled if he were at 500 each section. </p>
<p>He is a good natured teen, and i try to keep his spirits up. It seems he is surrounded by these incredibly gifted kids in our neighborhood…nice boys…but I think it really has sunken in this year that he is just not as smart academically. You know he knows it and probably hits his self esteem.</p>
<p>He wants to go to IU, but I’ve shown him the stats and the average GPA out of our H.S. admitted to IU last year was 4.0. I told him of course to apply, but he needs to be realistic. He will apply to all of the state public universities, but I think the best thing for him really would be to go to IU regional campus, if he is accepted. After 12 hours and a 2.0, he can transfer to Bloomington. However…that is not “cool”, when everyone else is going away, and you are still staying home with Mom and Dad. My older son was in the same situation, and refused to do it…when to another state university and is not happy. He can’t transfer because the GPA to transfer from a different university is higher and he doesn’t have it. Why don’t they listen to us?</p>
<p>Anyway, just wanted to introduce us and all of our issues. It’s good to find some kindred spirits in that our kids are the genuises that everyone elses’s seem to be. However, ours do know humility and perseverence…qualities that do last a lifetime. </p>
<p>@conmama your son can still have options—if you get a chance join the other 2015 group. I just wrote a review about Purdue.
IU has become a hot school for OOS especially the Long Island kids.
Hanover might be a reach for your son but a great school with alot of alumi support!!!
If he wants big ISU is now over 15000.
BSU not to far behind.
If SAT is not strong you might want to have him try the ACT.
Again hello and glad you can join the roller coaster with us!</p>
<p>@conmama,
My son has ADHD-inattentive and found that the ACT was easier for him than the SAT. The benefits of ACT:
- the 4 sections: Eng, math, Read, Sci (then Writing) as always in the same order on every test every time
- You do the 1 section for 45 min - 1 hr, then you are done and can switch mind gears for the next section
In contrast, the SAT has 10 sections. Writing is always 1st and then the other 9 come in different order every time; 1 of the 9 sections is not scored and is used to calculate curves for when it’s implemented in the future, so the test is different each time (the order of sections, the number of CR, M, W sections). Have him take an ACT under timed conditions at home. He will probably like it better and do better.</p>
<p>@conmama, welcome to the board. There is a pretty good variety of situations here. If your junior can narrow down his majors to 2-3 possibilities, that will help your search. Also, check out the Midwest Student Exchange Program if you are trying to save $$$. There are some decent options there. For example, he may qualify to go to U of Nebraska, another Big Ten school. He just needs a 3.0 and a 24 ACT to get sizeable discount off of OOS tuition there. Might be an option. Other schools in that “range” are U of Kansas and Kansas State. </p>
<p>One of our boys is likely going to choose Bowling Green State University, just over the border into Ohio. Pretty nice school - pretty comparable to Ball State, with some attractive OOS discounts starting at 3.0 GPA and 20 ACT. We visited there in November and it was a very positive experience. Good luck.</p>
<p>@conmama-My S2 also struggled in Alg 2 and Chem last year. He did not finish the year with a strong grade in either of these courses despite private tutoring and an extended time for math testing. Even though they were honors level and weighted at our HS but they did bring down his overall unweighted GPA. I am also trying hard to keep him positive and hopeful with all the peer pressure from his HS. </p>
<p>@yohoyoho -Interesting points about the ACT vs. SAT. We were horrified with S2’s SAT scores from the Jan test and I wondered if ACT would be a better option for him. Did your son take both ACT and SAT? My concerns for ACT are the timing issue and difficulty level of the test but I do see its benefits of no vocab like SATs and no penalty for wrong answers.</p>
<p>Midwest Student Exchange Program sounds like a great option for those who qualify. Is there a minimum GPA requirement for maintaining the tuition discount? I noticed that Univ of Kansas has a minimum GPA 3.4 requirement to maintain their OOS scholarships. That seems high to me. </p>