@lebegg “D’16 just got a letter with some financial aid from Ohio U offering $8,964, renewable for 8 semesters”
“Thank you…her “merit” was because I am an OU graduate, lol. Glad that degree paid in the end, lol”
I suspect (especially if you were instate) that that would have covered at least a years tuition when you went to OU:)
@BeeDAre I guess it’s really important to determine why someone is a C student before deciding which school is most appropriate place for them post high school. If they truly are underachievers maybe. If it’s a lack of maturity or executive functioning skills throwing them
Into a sink or swim environment at a four year institution may not be the best decision . I believe that there are many options available , it’s important to choose wisely. There seems to be this pervasive belief in society that everyone needs a four year degree to be successful or gainfully employed. There has been a huge void left in highly technical trades because of this. My husband sees it everyday.
Sooo much of these recent posts sounds familiar! D is one who need a TON of sleep. Luckily she goes to a HS that is project-based and doesn’t rely on a ton of homework for grades, because if she was at one of those all-AP, all the time HS she would be perpetually exhausted. She is devotes a lot of time to her leadership and EC’s which can get in the way of higher grades at times. But I think that for her, it works just right. She’s already done more and traveled to more places than I have at my age, let alone her age!
We too hear the “But she could go to…” and “But she so smart, so why…” and my personal most irritating, “WHY does she JUST want to be a teacher?” We’ve learned to just let it roll off our backs.
The thing that I think gets lost on CC, even on the “B” forums, is that there ARE colleges that take “C” students, and many have programs to help them raise themselves up with mentoring and extra assistance. For some jobs, only a college degree will do, and I’m glad such programs exist. And there’s the reverse-top students who start at CC’s for financial or family obligation reasons, then transfer. The end degree with be from that 4-year college. That’s a common solution for many low-income kids from D’s HS.
Then there are kids like my son. A brilliant (tested and verified) kid who was so bored with school he gave up, got his GED and went into the military, followed with a CC certificate. He’s 30 now and owns his own successful company, doing a skilled trade job. He was actually always interested in such work, but his high-pressure east coast HS (he lived with dad) wouldn’t allow him to take vocational classes.
D’s HS requires a post-HS plan and helps all the kids take steps to reach the goals in those plans-vocational, apprenticeships, CC, 4-year, “top tier” acceptance, etc. So far, it’s been very successful. Otoh, it also encourages kids who want to just drop out and get married or get a minimum wage job to stay in school and even apply to college. They’ve been successful there too. I’d like to see that model in place everywhere.
Oh, I completely agree.
We need more students to get vocational degrees/careers and we need to take the stigma away from that (one needs to be bright to study at a 2 year school, too, so I don’t get the stigma, anyway… )
But, before, I was mainly speaking of those whose goal is a four-year degree, but are using CC as a stepping stone to that.
@sseamom Our school system also requires a "graduation plan " to help HS students become aware of the many options available after HS. My DH went right into the military after HS and received his AA degree while enlisted. He made a wise choice knowing his strengths and weaknesses. He’s a very intelligent , successful man without a four year degree.
I normally post in the other forum, since my DD 16 is a typical high stats student, but as we all know kids come in all shapes and sizes, and my DS 06 was a C student in HS. He straggled in HS, so he went to community college route after 10th grade. After 3 years he transferred to our state university. He graduated with a very employable degree, but decided to join a startup company doing something completely different. He has been working for this company for over 3 years now. He holds an executive position at the age of 26 and makes more than I do. The moral of the story- HS grades do not determine success in life.
Thought for today while waiting to hear on another admission decision…Wouldn’t it be nice if the schools used the Common App site to track the application status, ie, transcripts, scores received and then posted the accept/denial there instead of having to keep track of all the school individual portals?
D’16 is batting 3 for 3. She just got accepted at Purdue!
Our D16 just finished all her applications. She also applied to Purdue And was accepted to OU as an Exercise Physiology major. D13 attends Purdue as a ChemE major and loves it. OU is still D16 first choice. It has the dance minor she likes, she loves the campus and the fact that they have a DPT school. She has always enjoyed visiting her sister at Purdue but it will likely be too expensive. She has also applied to Miami of Ohio and Ohio State. She considered Pitt but decided not apply there.
@lvvcsf Your D and my D have very similar lists, lol. Best of luck deciding!
Did your Purdue D13 find the freshmen/sophomore Chem/Biology 101 type classes difficult ie. “weeders” and have many of her classes been TA taught?
D got her first acceptance today. It’s not a selective school, but it IS one where everyone from the tour guide to the president spent time really explaining everything we wanted to know about the school. We don’t know about merit money from them yet, but it’s “real” now that D will be going to college.
What a great lead-in to her birthday tomorrow. She turns 16 and I just finished making and decorating a monster cake. Everything hurts, but I’m a happy camper.
@sseamom: Congratulation to your D!
D went to a presentation at school yesterday by one of the colleges she applied to.
She said it is now her top choice.
She’s applied, but not heard back yet - AdCom told her it takes them 6 to 8 weeks (she applied three weeks ago) and they have lots of applications this year. D said info given at the presentation indicates she should be accepted.
I think she will be, too, but I guess you never know… Just have to wait until the letter comes…
This one is closer to home than the others, so that would be nice, too…
@labegg I can’t answer that for you. The series is Che 115/116. She was one of the high stat kids and got a 5 on her AP Chem test (sophomore year of HS). She actually got credit for both courses but had to take Che 116 because she needed to pass the chemistry course and the lab with at least a B to be able to become a ChemE major. For her it was mostly a review class and she got what she considered an easy A.
I believe all of her classes are taught by professors with weekly recitations run by TAs. One of the things she has learned is to read the material before going into class. She doesn’t always understand what she’s reading but it exposes her to the concepts before she hears the lecture.
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@labegg I totally agree with your post!
Remember when a C was average and a B above average? There are so many who look down on average to above average students.
My son is in the GPA range of this thread. He’s applied at his dream school, two safeties, a match and two reaches.
I give him gentle reminders, but try not to drive him crazy. The reason being I read his Common Essay and he talked about how music helped him, especially last year when he suffered from depression. FIRST I HEARD OF THIS. He’s not a talker and doesn’t convey his feelings to me. He said he felt a lot of pressure doing Robotics and school.
In the end, he will go to college. I don’t want him to be depressed, anxious or worried. He has to find the balance and I need to be his support.
At D’s birthday party today one of her relatives said that D had told her she had “4 first choices”, and that was odd. “How can a person have 4 FIRST choices?” they asked. I explained that we’d told D that she had to apply only to schools where she’d be willing to go, and those 4 were the top choices out of the many she’d looked at, that she feels she’d be happy with any of those 4. Her safeties are also places she’d not just be willing but happy to attend. She swears they are. We’re hoping this heads off her being crushed because a “dream school” or “top choice” doesn’t work out. We’ll see if our tactic works as the year progresses.
S could “submit” application…but he seems not to want to. He also hasn’t shown me his essay. I wish I could read it. Should I force him to show it to me…like say “I’m not giving you my credit card unless I see it?!”
I didn’t ask my two if I could see their essays. But I did tell them they needed to have one person they trusted look at them before I’d hand over the credit card. S had planned to have his APUSH teacher edit for him, but had a hard time connecting since he’s not in any classes with that teacher this year. In the end he asked me to look them over.
D was easy, and asked me to edit in the first place.
“Did your Purdue D13 find the freshmen/sophomore Chem/Biology 101 type classes difficult ie. “weeders”.”
D13 was home this weekend to celebrate D16’s 18th bday. I asked her about the weeder courses. She didn’t take 115 as I mentioned but said she heard the first part was essentially a review of basic HS chemistry, the 2nd half and 116 deals with what gets covered in AP chem. She did indicate that since the labs are better some of the experiments are different. On the whole she didn’t consider them weed out courses because they form the basis of so many majors from science, health, to engineering. For engineering majors the weedout course seemed to be engineering physics. Many of her fellow engineering student called it the course where GPAs went to die. She felt since it was calculus based, those that did not have have a good grasp of the math used were behind in physics from the get go. Those in the health fields are usually only required to take an algebra based physics.
@lvvcsf. Thank you. “The course where GPAs go to die”…that made me chuckle.