Even though we said the words many times, she acknowledged her understanding and claimed she learned from watching the errors of the older siblings… sigh-- alas not so much.
My aspiring nursing or physician assistant student has an unweighted 3.44 GPA at the end of her junior year and a 24 on the ACT. She is starting ACT prep to try and improve that which I have no issues doing for her – sometimes these tests are tricky to take.
I kept telling her she needed to up that GPA, she kept claiming she was trying her hardest (no I don’t actually believe that but it is neither here nor there really) and now here we are paying the piper – well here SHE is not me.
She seems to want to move toward PA, but the direct entry programs are very pricey, her GPA is on the cusp of acceptance to them let alone any merit $$ so most of them are out for our family who will have 3 in college when she goes. And for the competitive programs where you have to apply at the 4th or 5th year I am not clear how 3.4 ‘trying her hardest’ in high school expects to get a spot where 1000 kids are competing for 50 places.
Did I mention I was tired?? 
You might want to discuss studying an Allied Health program at a community college with her.
Hugs toomany. Lots on your plate these days!
Agree with Bouders- there are SO many health care careers that are not PA’s. Kids get locked into a certain job title because it conveys serious/respectable/able to earn a living, and then they can’t see the forest for the trees. And if she can support herself for a few years in radiology tech or phlebotomy or PT assistant or LPN and get serious about knuckling down academically- what’s so bad about that? PA and nursing will still be there!
Has she tried the SAT?
“And for the competitive programs where you have to apply at the 4th or 5th year I am not clear how 3.4 ‘trying her hardest’ in high school expects to get a spot where 1000 kids are competing for 50 places”
By her 4th and 5th year her high school GPA means nothing. If she can’t get in any direct entry programs she can go to a good state university and do her best to get the GPA and prerequisites required to get into a program.
I think the CC option is more appropriate. Can she do an ASN at CC in your state?
She is probably fine to do BSN at Rutgers Camden (and can live at home) – but PA may not be in the cards.
@bhs1978 I don’t mean her HS GPA, what I mean is when she is in year 3 of college, how is her college GPA going to be competitive for the spots if she can only muster 3.4 in high school. I am not sure I want to ‘chance’ that she won’t get into a program to finish the PA – or one we can afford. If she goes BSN direct it will be more sure. I know she could mature and change but to date she is a ‘do what you need to get by and no more’ kid-- though she denies that it is absolutely true.
She was a competitive figure skater for years, and she love skating but still when the going got more tough she tended to do only what she HAD to do - the key to winning was repeating your program man many times – all the way through, and she did that begrudgingly and only when pushed by her coaches – she tends to approach school so far as I can see the same way. It is going to take more than that to succeed in PA school.
@blossom Parenting teenagers is not for the faint of heart! – She did try the SAT and didn’t do great on that either. She got a 1090 – on the ACT she got the best score on the STEM section (25) and the reading section (26) - but only 21 on the English
@toomanyteens I’m going to suggest something out of the box. I know you considered an HBCU for your older D, and I think it might work for your rising senior. Her gpa and ACT score would actually get her some decent merit aid a many of them, the overall cost is lower than most privates and even some public colleges, they welcome white students, but more importantly, they have a history of working closely with students to keep them on track. One school we toured has a freshman counselor in the student’s major with a a required weekly check in. They keep track of the students’ academic progress and dorm life, and are not above calling home. D is on a different career path than yours, so I’m not up on where the best nursing or health majors are, but I know that Fisk has a partnership in nursing with Rush Medical Center in Chicago. They had joint program with Vandy, but I believe that’s no longer happening. I can ask an HBCU college counselor we know for her suggestions if you like. D will be seeing her in the next few days.
@sseamom Thank you for the suggestion, I will look into it – suggestions are welcome!
With that GPA and test score she can attend an instate school and pick a health science type major. She can complete her nursing prerequisites either in college ( this may be hard) or after graduation at a local community college ( still hard, but doable if she works). If she can maintain a GPA around 3.3-3.4 while in college… And completes the nursing prerequisites… There are 15-18 month accelerated BSN programs she can apply to who will accept her with that range of GPA. I know 2 kids so far just like your daughter who went this route.
She can also apply to some of the nursing programs, X-Ray tech etc at your community college. Some of these programs are hard to get into and may have wait lists.
PA programs are not realistic right now.
@twogirls I think she can do the 3+1 program at our community college and get there as an option for sure. I agree about the PA – it is so hard when you try and try to tell them and they just.don’t.get.it
That said, it looks like a fair number of people get their degree (4 year) and work in healthcare and then go to do the PA (can be 18 months up to 2 years depending). That is always a possibility too if she really figures out she has to buckle down.
Toomany- you don’t need to tell her. She’s got a guidance counselor, no? Encourage her interest in health careers (or anything else she might decide she’s excited about) and let the “market” do its thing. In my state, since so many kids who decide they don’t want to become physicians after all (mainly due to debt and years of training) are going the PA/NP route, for sure a much more “academic” (for lack of a better word) type of kid is applying to nursing and PA programs. Some of these kids would have likely ended up in DO, Dental or Optometry school a generation ago before PA was the profession it is today… so I think it’s not just getting IN to one of the programs-- it’s keeping up!
So maybe de-emphasize the talk about the GPA. It’s not about the GPA-- it’s whether or not she’s interested enough in the topic to really work hard and apply herself. The grades come later.
Also… Keep in mind that all of these 15-18 month accelerated nursing programs are different in terms of prerequisites, ease of admission, etc. It is very important to look closely at each one and decide which ones are the most realistic in terms of admissions requirements and completing the necessary prerequisites.
That GPA should be fine for many schools and her background of figure skating will really impress colleges. Whether you agree or not, competitive skating would appear to others to suggest a work ethic and dedication that colleges would admire. How did she manage to do well in school while practicing skating and competing?
There may be reasons for what you consider a low GPA beyond work ethic. Could she have ADHD for instance? You might want to buy the book “The Myth of Laziness.” Her test scores suggest a problem with test-taking at any rate.
You might want to look at this list of test-optional colleges (that don’t require or emphasize standardized tests):
http://fairtest.org/university/optional Granted, some may want scores for merit aid applications. But some great schools are on there. Another great site is Colleges that Change Lives.
You cannot judge future prospects from high school performance. My brother bombed high school and is an executive vice president of a well-known corporation. Many high school stars don’t end up doing as well as expected.
Is the health care field your idea or hers? She can get into a variety of colleges, public or private, and enter as undecided if she wants. If she does well, she can try for a PA program but it is not the end of the world if she cannot be a PA.
If she really wants to be in the health care field NOW, I suggest that she get a nurses’ assistant certification and work in the field, then apply to a two year program. But there are so many other options.
Try to believe in your child, as she is, who she is, and if you can’t, I think it would be good to seek counseling. Her G{A sounds okay to me and her future is ahead of her, and promising. If you sense something is wrong, then try to pursue answers. To be honest, I found your post a little dismaying and wondered briefly if it was real.
Wait, you have some other threads right now. Is this the 18 year-old you are stressing about because of her sister and the one whose ACT prep was cancelled? I repeat that I think you could benefit from talking to someone…many of us have at one time or another.
This. Make sure she is in touch with advisor and make sure she has a robust set of safeties. That is it.
my son learned the same lesson regarding GPA in high school. Hard to bring up a mediocre freshman gpa. Needless to say he took it to heart and did great his first year in college. Really proud of how he learned that lesson.
@compmom very dramatic reaction to a simple post about the facts of the situation and my own child. I know her and I know her MO - I am a realist and I don’t need counseling over it at all. I believe in her and I also believe she thought she could take short cuts and it would be all good. She is in the midst of natural consequences of her own lack of motivation to do her best. 8-|
SHE is the one who wants nursing or PA - she is actually right now at a robust Drexel summer camp program she had to apply to for future medical professionals - was in the operating room and everything. She is also a volunteer on the local ambulance.
Even if she impresses the colleges, we need to be able to afford it - and the GPA is not going to help that. And NO this is yet another kid-- the last one. ACT was for her – the other one (the 18 year old) is about to leave for college.
Sorry, I just don’t understand the problem I guess. She sounds very motivated. I think you are fortunate and it sounds like things will work out.
@compmom I don’t recall calling it a “problem” at any point in this thread - it is a fact that she is now coming to grips with