<p>First time posting here.
BS (beloved son) just finished finals - now has not one, but two F's for first semester grades. One is in English, the other in video production, which is basically digital arts.
First some background - He had ~ 3.5 GPA,has taken 4 AP classes with scores of either 4 or 5, and has a 2190 on SAT (1540 for CR and Math).
He's applied to several UC's - we're in California, as well as RIT, Rose-Hulman, UOP, St. Olaf's , Knox, Earlham and Willamette. He wants to major in Computer Science.
The mid year report will be out next week and when the respective admissions offices see this, I'm sure it won't leave a good impression! But how much does this count in the final analysis? Does this pretty much throw everything into the trash for admission this year? Or is there a shred of hope?</p>
<p>The UC’s don’t count midyear GPA for seniors but they will rescind acceptance at the end of they year if the senior year GPA is too low. They are serious about it.</p>
<p>UC admissions letters have been reported to come with conditions like completing senior year with a 3.0 GPA and no D or F grades (with some variation). Some have reported successfully appealing if the problem was in an elective not needed to meet the a-g requirements, but since you mentioned one of them as English (typically needed for “b”) and one in art (needed for “f” if there is no other art course), an appeal is unlikely to succeed if the F grades would leave him short of the a-g requirements.</p>
<p>He does have another chance: go to community college, take the courses needed to prepare for transfer as a CS major at UCs and CSUs (see [Welcome</a> to ASSIST](<a href=“http://www.assist.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.assist.org) ), do well, and transfer.</p>
<p>if this was my son, i’d be talking to him and asking the reasons for getting two Fs. i would not be worried about the impact to his college application. what’s done is done, there is nothing you could do about it. Do find out why and what can be done to get back on track.</p>
<p>What the heck happened? Sounds like serious senioritis, which is why some colleges request senior grades at mid or end of year. Does your high school provide mid semester grades? Didn’t they send you an email or some type of report to say, this is serious… your student is failing…??? Call his school and inquire what happened and what can be salvaged. Then, say a prayer and make sure he does not blow off the end of the school year. Some kids have no idea that senior year counts.</p>
<p>I think he just got schooled on time management skills. He finished the UC app with 25 minutes to spare on 11/30.Then, using the Common App for the others, he waited till 8:50 PST on 1/15 for those schools with a 1/15 deadline. He’s the ultimate procrastinator.
But why did he procrastinate? That’s the 64k question. We thought he wanted to go to college. He loves programming, at least he said he does, and he was in the Johns Hopkins CTY program and loved it. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that he wanted to go to college.
I can’t tell anyone how many times we told him to hurry and get things done - we took away games/phones, anything that was a distraction, but no luck - he’d just blow it off. We reminded him that all that work he put in the last 3 1/2 years would pretty much go to waste - his reply was " uhhhh, whatever…". We also reminded him we’ve saved over 100k in a 529 plan from the time he was born just for this purpose.
And that leads us to today. So reality hit the fan. He’ll learn, I hope. Don’t know yet - he’s upstairs sleeping.
So maybe CC is his best bet for now.
Can’t even begin to say how disappointing and frustrating this is.</p>
<p>He may not be ready for the rigors of collete. Right how you need to be concerned about the WHY. </p>
<p>I say this as the mom that sent a kids with similar SAT scores off to college too soon. She didn’t have the organizations skills or stamina for engineering courseworks. Sometimes bright kids get along so well in “wing it mode” that they don’t learn time management. </p>
<p>“Can’t even begin to say how disappointing and frustrating this is.” - I have a bucket full of empathy for you. The only encouragement I can add is that your kid flunked some classes. It sounds like he didn’t get arrested, overdose, or crash a car… sadly those things happen to teens too.</p>
<p>I suggest you talk to the school and see if anything can be done, but before that you need to talk to your son to see if he’s willing to do anything extraordinary to make things better. If he doesn’t care, you can’t care for him… It will drive you nuts.
You may also want to look for some schools with later deadlines that may accept him with a lower GPA, and you may want to call a couple of the schools to see if they care about senior grades. At one point during senior year, before May 1st, when my son had to decide which college to pick, it looked like he might get a couple of Cs. One college said they didn’t consider senior year other than making sure he graduated. Another said the worst that would happen was he’d have to go see someone once he was there. So, all is not lost at this point. BTW, don’t settle for the “we can’t answer that until we see the final grades” or "we reserve the right to… " if you work your way up the chain there are people who can answer.
If your son really busts seconds semester, is it possible for him to get Cs in these classes for the year? Good luck. I know this process can be more stressful for some of us parents than it is for the kids.</p>
<p>If he’s the procrastinator type he will last about a semester in computer science, especially in a good school. An F in video production is a bad sign (did not do the work?)</p>
<p>See if he can repeat the 1s semester of the two failed classes online while taking 2nd semester. With this attitude, sorry to be blunt, college away from home would be highly questionable if it was me making the decision.</p>
<p>On the bright side, the $100,000 in the 529 account should easily cover junior and senior year at UC or CSU (after transferring from CC), even if he ends up needing an extra semester or quarter there.</p>
<p>However, the procrastination issue could be a significant barrier to success in college, particularly in CS, where assignments and projects can take a considerable amount of time. Even if he likes CS so much that he does not procrastinate in CS courses, the issue could still apply to non-CS courses like breadth requirement courses.</p>
<p>A 3.5 GPA with high SAT who fails 2 classes senior year and it is explained by saying he is a procrastinator? Has his procrastination ever resulted in F’s before? Seems unlikely with a 3.5 GPA. Maybe he is self-sabatouging because he has a fear of going away to school. Have you considered the possibility that he is partaking of some illegal substances which are affecting his motivation? Going away to school next year should be off the table while more important issues like “What is going on???” are addressed.</p>
<p>^^ In your post #7 were you talking about his procrastination with the application process, or did that happen with these 2 courses he now has Fs in also?</p>
<p>Here’s a kid who procrastinates, but must have been getting quite decent grades to have a 3.5, then flunks two courses the same semester? I’d first think about depression. </p>
<p>And then whether you’ve got a kid that really does not want to go to college right away, and this is his way of telling you and admitting it to himself.</p>
<p>Ugh, we all feel for you. </p>
<p>If after one of the many heart-to-hearts that you will be having with him, you feel like he still wants to go to college next year, has learned that giant lesson, and just screwed up royally, I’d look into what can possibly be done at school to salvage those grades. Maybe even ask his high school to hold off sending out midyear grades to the colleges he’s applied to, to see what if anything can be done to bring them up. Not ALL colleges require midyear grades. Maybe find out exactly which ones even want them? </p>
<p>I have no idea if those Fs, so current, would be a death blow to all the college apps you listed, but they may well be for some. Good luck, there but for the grace of God go many of us with procrastinating students.</p>
<p>Despite what happens to his admissions hopes, I would think long and hard before I financed an education for a student who has the “whatever” attitude. Like others have said, he may not be ready. Has he ever considered the military as an option?</p>
<p>First, I"ve been avoiding opening this thread because the word catastrophe scared me that something really catastrophic had happened to one of our kids. So, I’m relieved this is not the case.</p>
<p>Other than that, good luck. I’m sure this feels dismal right now, to you and to him.</p>
<p>His 2 F’s are sending a message but you don’t have enough information to decode it now. You don’t know if this is a one-time acting out deal by a kid who is sick of jumping through hoops, versus something deeper, such as depression, substance abuse, or a serious ambivalence about leaving home, as others have mentioned. </p>
<p>Hopefully he will pull it together, but you need to begin to make a Plan B if he doesn’t. I would start by making an appointment with the guidance counselor and work from there. You have to get the communication going. Hugs and best wishes to you.</p>
<p>First off, thanks for all the replies. I contacted the teacher in question, and there is 0% chance he can make it up, so at least 1 F is guaranteed, now for the possibly more important one, his English teacher. I’m not at all optimistic.
If I knew the root cause I should get a Noble prize! We knew his grades were slipping a month or two ago, but he’s always recovered.But this is serious because we thought hy now he’d get the message.
In a way, this could be a huge blessing in disguise in that he finally learns some self responsibility and pursues his goals, whatever they are. Right now, we are even thinking he may never go to college, it just might not be in his future. We’ll always love him, but there’s a point past where only he can go, and we can only try to show him what we think is best.But if he wants to drop out of school and work at Mickey D’s, fine, he’ll have to pay rent, car insurance, food, utilities, etc.etc…
And 4 years from now when one of his high school classmates pulls up to the drive up window at McD’s in his nice car , having just graduated from college, and sees our son asking him if he wants to supersize his order, well bully for him.
I think we’ve done our part, he can take it from here.</p>
<p>I was thinking more on this. Since the Fs were in English and Video, it may be that he is not good at project work or not good at getting over “writer’s block” to get started. Hopefully you can find a way to set up a teacher conference and get some hints. </p>
<p>Good luck. Ah, when the kids were little we parents thought those were the tough years. But teen years can be very hard / mysterious.</p>
<p>dudeyes, that’s the attitude we’re taking with our second son. We tried everything - pleading, rewarding, taking away privileges, etc. Nothing worked, so we finally said, “School is YOUR job - we’ve already graduated! If you don’t study, you’ll have to deal with the consequences.” At this point, we’re just hoping he graduates. He knows we’re not going to let him live with us if he’s not attending a local school. I think reality is about to smack him in the face. It will be hard to watch, but we’ve done everything we could.</p>