we went to visit some colleges…and he’s still thinking he wants that pie in the sky school…but, he is beginning to acknowledge other schools he could consider. I have started to say to him…well…if a volcano…or a fire demolished your pie-in-the-sky school…so it was no longer available to apply to…where would you want to apply to…it looks like the gears are beginning to turn…
I am moved to check in here for two reasons. First, I had a big spat with my S16 last night because of a pile up of notifications from the online gradebook indicating that he has more and more missing or sub-C-level work. He assures me he gets stuff in and yet the gradebook suggests otherwise. Then, today I helped judge a science fair for 9th & 10th graders. The variation in project quality and depth was pretty eye-opening. I’m clearly holding him to a really high standard – he says he’ll never satisfy us, but he’s trying. When the work does get turned in it is high-level and often well done. I also talked to his counselor and it sounds like we are way ahead of most of his peers in our college planning. And his AP biology teacher says she’s seen a world of difference from 9th grade to now. So I need to take a breath. He’s improving – perhaps not fast enough to bring the overall g.p.a. to 3.0 this year, but I still need to appreciate how far he’s come.
Our school uses the online gradebook with varying degrees of accuracy from teacher to teacher. I’ve tended to check it pretty frequently bc of D16’s learning issues. I’m trying to edge away from it, but it’s hard. At this point when I see something that’s recorded as a zero, I almost always get back “I turned that in!” So all I can do is respond “well, you need to follow up on that.” And mostly she does, when reminded. I just wish she’d get to the point that she’s checking it, instead of me. College is sneaking up fast, and I won’t be checking on her homework then.
@petrichor11 I am having the exact same problem. Although, I am finding that the more I pull away…the better the grades are getting…it’s been really interesting to watch. There were a couple of duds in the begining…but I said “I am not going to be bugging you…you’re going to college in less than two years…and I have to practice not being there…”…
Yes, exactly, @drmom123 It’s not a straight progression, but she’s definitely getting better about it.
I think ROTC has helped her a bit with focus and planning, honestly. She has no intention at all of going in the military, and frankly she’s the last person I could see there (think Private Benjamin)-- but the self-discipline she’s developed has been a nice benefit.
I remember Private Benjamin! Ha! She eventually made it though!!
We’ve pulled away this year. Nothing we do is going to make the slightest difference in his grades, and he’s close enough to college age for it to be on him. His English grades are likely to cost him being a NMF. He’s almost certain to be a semifinalist, and he’s interested in one of the schools that gives big money to NMSF. Younger son, a freshman, is hanging around 3.6. The positive is he’s making A’s in biology when he doesn’t really like science. Bad grades seem to bug him more than they do his brother.
I’m trying to pull away, doing pretty well at not micromanaging homework. I haven’t been able to log in to our online gradebook in months and have avoided calling the school to reset my password. Unfortunately, the automatic notifications I set up last year keep coming and I can’t log in to stop them. I try not to look but when I get seven in one week I get concerned! One was a mistake he’s already corrected (he gets the notifications too). Anyway, good news is that some SAT prep is happening this weekend.
I don’t know how he’d be doing now if he hadn’t had so many 2-hr delays and snow days! In the middle of yet another storm.
I’m pretty bad when it comes to micromanaging my son’s grades. We also have the online gradebook. Last year I was better. However, I know this is his final semester that will determine college admission. I told him that it would be such a shame for all of his hard work over the years to go down the drain because he did not give 100% this semester. I told him that I did not want him to have any regrets at the end. I’m not telling him to get straight A’s. I just want him to do his personal best so that there are not any regrets later. He has always been in the 3.2-3.3 range. I just hope he is there at then end of the year.
I’m pretty bad about the online gradebook with my oldest son too. When he was a freshman in college, I constantly checked the online gradebook. He was struggling in the beginning (time management issues) so I was trying to help him. My husband thinks that I was actually hurting him. I have pulled back with him now. I still check his progress once a month (or something like that). If it is something really awful, I might mention it to him. Otherwise I just let him go. He is a junior in college now so I have to pull back.
Now I’m totally stressed about the SAT. He is not very good with standardized tests. He started prep about a month ago so that should help. I would feel better if he started earlier with prep. All of the snow days have helped him so much. I don’t know how much he would have been able to review without the snow days. Anyway, I hope he is able to get the score that he needs for college.
Checking in rather than bugging my boys about schoolwork 
SAT earlier this month seemed to go well. The last minute prep was a bit depressing, but then the actual test wasn’t as hard as the practices. We have a family tendency to do well on standardized tests, which helps compensate for the difficulty getting the day-to-day assignments in. I’ve more or less given up on my son doing well enough to reach a GPA where he has a chance at OOS merit scholarships. So unless he pulls off NMF (and like @mstomper I think too many low grades will cost him) we’re likely looking at some difficult financial decisions.
This article made the rounds among my Facebook friends and there is much wisdom here: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/03/16/guest-opinion-keep-calm-and-parent-on
@crowlady, I hope your son can make NMSF. That can open some doors depending on where he’s willing to go. Our son has really liked what he’s seen about Ole Miss, and they give a lot of dough to Semifinalists. Good luck! He’s waiting on SAT scores, but they probably won’t mean as much as the PSAT did since he’s almost certainly going to be a semifinalist.
@crowlady what a wonderful article! I know my son is under a lot of pressure and I try not to add to it. It is difficult at times. I find that sons do not talk as much as daughters. It has taken some getting used to. I often wonder how will I know if something is wrong if he doesn’t open up?
We are going on college tours starting this Friday. Five in state schools in a week. SATs in May and a retake of the ACT in June, which he got a 28 on w/out using the calculator.
D16 has decided to do two years at the junior college before going off to a residential school. A couple of things factored in: money (she won’t be eligible for much in the way of merit aid), the fact that her art teacher doesn’t believe her portfolio is quite there yet for the schools she wants, and most importantly, she’s a very young and rather immature junior and just isn’t ready to go off on her own yet. Good news is she’s eligible for a scholarship that will pay her entire first year at the junior college, which will help tremendously, and she should have enough transferrable AP/dual enrollment credits to make up almost another entire year-- meaning she’ll just have to pay for one semester of school there.
It’s not what we had been talking about even a year ago, but I think it’s realistic and a good option for her. She’s a little envious of her brother’s choices (he’s looking at some überreaches), but she doesn’t want to work as hard as he does to have them, either.
@threeredheads Yeah, my husband and I tend to ramp up the stress. We’ve clawed our way to where we are and have very high expectations. We see so much potential in our kids and sometimes forget they are still maturing. And that the landscape in high school and college admissions has really changed since we went through it. @threeredheads I don’t have a daughter, and my sons are pretty chatty with us (when we can get them one-on-one), but I think I know what you mean. When we are especially worried about our S16 we let him know we are worried and care deeply, and tell him we struggle to give him the space he needs to succeed or fail on his own. I think he knows we are human 
We haven’t succeeded in making them sleep, or rather, making them sleep on any sort of reasonable schedule.
@mstomper We have several college tours next week and we hope that will bring some clarity. We have less expense for S14 than expected, so we could pay more for S16. The question is whether we should. I’ve always wanted to support going to the best school one gets into, which I’ll now say is really the best fit. But @petrichor11 strikes a chord with “doesn’t want to work as hard.” It doesn’t seem fair to pay huge amounts of money unless there’s a commitment to work hard and take advantage of the opportunity.
Well, got the SAT scores this morning. While CR was fantastic, Math was lower than S16 had hoped for. Solid all around, but we were all hoping for stellar to offset the grades. One college tour down, one to go on this Spring Break trip. S16 can see himself at the hyper-urban campus, let’s see what he think about bucolic.
@crowlady - we’re in the same boat with the SAT. Perfect (!) CR score, less than stellar math score. The total is in the range we were aiming for, but it’s only because of the CR score. I want him to take again, but I think he’s going to resist.
I don’t know if S16 had time to check his scores before he left this morning. I’m sure I’ll hear when I get home. I had to ask him about his PSAT (and he scored a 224, so it’s not just low scores he doesn’t necessarily announce).
The roller coaster continues. We cut our college visits short – too much homework assigned over spring break and my S16 really doesn’t enjoy the stress of travel anyway. He says he liked both colleges we visited – polar opposites. He says he’d be happy applying only to the three we have visited so far. Came home to anxiety about his grades, his own disappointment at his SAT scores (which were above the middle 50% for all the schools we are looking at) and the work yet to do in fourth quarter. Never has a self-described slacker worked so hard and still felt like a failure. So hard to parent this one.
S16 did pretty well on the SAT. The writing was lower because of the essay, but he did extremely well on math and CR. We’re planning on visiting Ole Miss in July; there are classes he’s interested in session then. He’ll probably find out first hand how bad the heat can be. Drexel is his reach school; he would probably be accepted, but unless he somehow makes NMF it’s not going to be possible.
S got his SAT scores overall, Math was the best, and a bit better than the PSAT score, CR was higher than PSAT but not as high as he wanted and he really still needs to work on the writing section.