Smart slacker kid not accepted thread

Parents Forum
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<p>For what it’s worth, h.s. slacker younger son has been flourishing at the second tier LAC where he landed.</p>

<p>Older h.s. slacker son (an Ivy reject) at age 26 is on track – working very hard and flourishing at a company despite flunking out of college.</p>

<p>I was sorry that my sons’ laziness restricted their post high school options. However, at the same time, I knew that many people --particularly guys – are late bloomers who eventually have happy, fulfilling lives and outshine many who were high school stars. There also are many people for whom the peak of their success is getting into a top school.</p>

<p>I’d rather have my kids be disappointed at having restricted post college options due to their laziness than to have them somehow luck into stellar, unearned post h.s. opportunities that lead them to believe that they won’t need to work hard to have the world be their oyster.</p>

<p>I’d rather have them have that pain at age 17 or 18 – when the stakes are relatively low – than to have them learning tough lessons about hard work at 25 or 35.</p>

<p>If your kid is feeling pain now at rejections, that may be exactly what he needs for him to start working up to his potential.</p>

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<p>agree that the OP was not whining or complaining. She just wanted a thread where parents in the same boat could talk about their kids admissions decisions and avoid raining on the parades in the other threads dominated by senior parents whose kids were receiving rosier news.</p>

<p>It was a thoughtful thing to do and CardinalFang and ihs76 I am sure the OP appreciates your willingness to hold her hand through the rest of March. </p>

<p>It was not an invitation for posters with an axe to grind and/or a soapbox to stand on to get into arguments and become generally unpleasant.</p>

<p>This thread was intended as a supportive haven so if you can’t play nicely…well you know the rest.</p>

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<p>From my humble vantage point, it seems there are two reasons for being on CC. Information for the most part, but the second reason, emotional support and companionship through the college process is the other, and keeps many of us coming back. The OP was asking for the latter, not the former, though received negative opinions that I’d think added to, rather than helped the process. Is it necessary to have nerves of steel to post your reality? </p>

<p>I had a D who applied for very reachy schools a few years back, despite my advice that she might want to lower her sights a bit. Last year she ‘finally’ announced that she had done her college selection all wrong, and should have reached less. Regardless, she’s ended up at school that is giving her an amazing college experience, and is very happy and engaged with her academics.</p>

<p>It does work out, but oh, those small flat envelopes can hurt. </p>

<p>oh, cross posted with history…</p>

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<p>Hi all… I will be posting a bunch of disjointed answers because I have to read, post , read, post and catch up!</p>

<p>IlH76 … DS heard from HMudd because he applied ED there. He did everything possible (after senior year of course) to get in there. So if I hadn’t already KNOWN he was in trouble with his dream, I sure did then. And 2 UC’s rejected between Caltech and MIT! ouch</p>

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<p>I see that again (post 90), Marite and and I are of like mind. :)</p>

<p>As to the understandable questions regarding the quasi-combative tone of the thread, the OP is not responsible for that. Her opening post was not aggressive yet asked for sympathy, but there have been some contributors with provocative and hostile remarks early on, that naturally made some of us think, “Whoa, there.” </p>

<p>You see, I said several years ago on CC what those whose children have not engaged in lifelong individual competitions have difficulty seeing: it’s not about potential; it’s about performance. The question that needs answering, when you submit those college applications is, centrally, How have you performed? Have, past tense. Not future tense.</p>

<p>So when you stand up there on the stage in a performing arts competition or audition, and when you “do your stuff” in individual performance (not team) in sports (track, what have you), it doesn’t matter what your potential is. It does matter how you have worked your muscles ahead of time. (That will have an impact on your performance.) And it does matter how well trained you are for this performance (if you’ve practiced the same thing over & over, and gotten better & better at it). And it very much matters what your competition is: how well he, she, they have trained. If they’ve out-trained you, it is most likely that they will beat you in that “ultimate” competition. </p>

<p>Now you can acquire later training: that’s what transferring is about; that’s what community college is about, but that also is what thousands of great, supposedly “second-best” (but in fact maybe ideal-fit) colleges are about. Opportunity abounds.</p>

<p>The above is mostly not directed to the OP, because she probably gets it, but for anyone on or off this thread that somehow finds it “unfair” that colleges demand evidence of consistent h.s. performance and somehow think that boys shouldn’t have to do that. (Why, I wonder?)</p>

<p>As to hand-holding & sympathy, part of me is very sympathetic, because I see this every week on my job when it comes to boys. But more of me is probably exasperated, and exasperated especially because suddenly all the men seem to have left the room. Dads, where are you? What exactly do you tell your sons, about h.s. performance? That it’s fine that they not do assignments they don’t like, because you also feel that such assignments are “beneath” them? I ask this, because in my job it’s the Dads who have disappeared from the responsibility and it’s the Moms who are trying, unconvincingly, to deliver the message that you don’t get to repeat h.s. so you can equalize your competition on stage or on the field. The problem is that my male students tune out from listening to females beginning around 5th grade. </p>

<p>So Moms, if Dad is absent, is “hands-off” in his parenting style, or worse, is a silent or voiced enabler, expect a slacker son to continue slacking. Where I see boys turned around in h.s. is to have some male role model (hopefully also Dad) be direct, relentless, and detailed about son’s performance. “How was school today?” doesn’t cut it. I promise you, the son will answer, “fine.”</p>

<p>Look, my boss asks me to do stupid, petty stuff sometimes. And because I’m an adult I do have some age-equality in letting him know diplomatically that he’s asking for time-wasting stuff. Nevertheless, if I don’t do it because it truly is “beneath me,” there will be consequences to pay, both near and far. So I include the stupid stuff with the important stuff, because it’s part of my job. School is a young person’s job. They go to it at least 5 days/week, just like adults go to their jobs. Don’t do our jobs? Don’t expect a promotion, or a good reference to a more pleasing, more challenging position elsewhere. Yes, I’m preaching to the choir. But that’s what Dads should be saying to sons; maybe they are, but I wonder. (When I ask Dads directly, most of them admit that they don’t say that.)</p>

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<p>poetgrl . post #72 … you called it exactly! very perceptive</p>

<p>mathmom … we tried and tried to aim DS at CMU, too. (DH did a year post grad there), but as I said stubborn kid, wouldn’t do another application. grrr, but we only try to save him from himself, he has to paddle some, too.</p>

<p>TheDad post # 89 D was defer Yale -> reject. She is a soph now and I wouldn’t say she hasn’t looked back although she realizes that there wasn’t much she could have done. She said her Y essay being the first was the worst. I certainly came to think she had a lucky escape. LOL</p>

<p>calmom #91 I agree that college can be what you (or a kid) brings to the campus not what the campus brings to the kid! I am hoping that mine steps up his game. If he doesn’t, then he’ll get out of it what HE wanted which might not be what <em>I</em> wanted or what <em>I</em> wanted FOR him. But unless he is doing drugs or lying, cheating … lots of worse things than not reaching the heights of his potential, it is his life that I let him live (more or less… he’d better cut the grass today OR ELSE!)</p>

<p>Northstarmom #94 … ah … I was going to answer but #9 CFang did it for me (Thanks). I’ve often seen and agreed with some of your posts NSMom on taking responsibility. I hope my posts werent contrary to that and I indeed hope this is a wakeup call, but I don’t expect a leopard to change his spots completely. DS WOULD be happy up in the attic for 10 years proving the theorum… that is what he does now anyway.</p>

<p>history … thanks!</p>

<p>GLmom … thanks, too. I am … um well maybe not as stubborn as my boy!! but I am able to look at advice that I don’t want to take and shrug it off pretty well LOL where did he get it after all. The open forum is … really interesting so long as people are not just flaming each other. I liken it to the baby books I read. I read a ton and tossed a bunch and took the ones that agreed with me or my philosophy anyway.</p>

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<p>epiphany … good questions for Where are the Dad’s? DS’s dad was right there and he is a perfectionist to the max … DD took after him, DS took after me, more. Sometimes I worried that DS gave up because he couldn’t achieve perfection anyway. Although DS didn’t give up in ALL areas so I won’t want to indicate he does NOTHING. he does enough to get by in the areas that are boring to him, and does all sorts of things when it catches his mind.</p>

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<p>Amazing how many really really unkind people there are on this thread. My position stands. Ivy League is really not a necessity, nor is top 20. There are a lot of kids who under the best of circumstances, will not attend Ivy. Many of those kids are the kids who have been priced out. Their parents make too much money or have saved too much money…in our case, because my husband has a lifelong health problem that means we have to be prepared for the catastrophic at all times. The schools will tell my son that he can afford 50k a year. Reality says, no way. He wasn’t going even if he had done a nicer job on his note checks or had decided that he would try to woo the Spanish teacher to earn the extra “bravo points”. The high end schools know that they have a problem here. Many mid to high affluence families in this recession have rethought the ROI on a $200,000 college experience. Smarter and smarter kids are attending State U on scholarship. And good grades from State U, where there is a vast curriculum and amazing facilities willl get you into a quality graduate experience. The prestigious schools know that they have this problem…why else would they be upping and upping the salary levels that qualify for financial assistance? It is because they are losing smart US kids…and are dependinng more and more on international students to keep their quality of student high. Many parents are looking at the flagging salary levels of graduates, and the high unemployment levels and are telling their smart kids…go to State U and graduate debt free and we’ll pay for your graduate school. Doctors, certainly are telling this to their kids more frequently, because their own salaries are less and less secure. I sat at a table of docs at my husband’s Christmas party and every one of them with a college aged kid said that they were reflecting heavily on that scenario…acceptance with no aid at the exclusive school, or scholarship honors programs at IU or Purdue. I admit. We are very lucky in our state. Our State U’s are unusually outstanding and well-respected.</p>

<p>The problem with smart boys is beginning to concern colleges. We need men to stay in the job market, because women ultimately do not work as many hours as men. As our medical school classes are filling up with women, we are getting a lower ROI on their contributions because women who marry ultimately will not work the same number of hours. Colleges are giving more consideration to the boys trying to boost their numbers.</p>

<p>Boys are notoriously, particularly at younger ages, less likely to stay on task. It’s a fact. They often come into their own much later…when they see a clear line of sight between effort and end goal. Many boys learn this from sports, which is what makes sports for boys so important. And in the interest of “fairness” toward the girls, we have taken away the opportunities from boys. If you are the mother of a girl (and I am) this might be offensive to you. Sorry. Statistics are bearing me out. Our high school is working hard to conquer this with club sports…volleyball, lacrosse, hockey. The school cannot sponsor them or it would throw the Title IX numbers out of whack. But there is something about the self-worth of many boys that is directly correlated to activities outside of the classroom that place requirements on participation earned in the classroom. </p>

<p>So OP, don’t worry. These situations…where the end goal gets thwarted, are JUST the kind of circumstances that start to ignite the performance. Or sometimes, it’s a girl who ignites the performance. My daughter has a male friend who would like to be a boyfriend. His dad is an engineer who went to law school, graduated summa cum laude and had a son who was interested in the mechanics of bikes and skateboards. He has become very well known on the bike racing circuits for his handiness. People seek him out. But he has figured out that unless he attains the piece of paper, he will never have a job that supports a family. My daughter has told him that unless he starts to work on that piece of paper, she won’t consider him. The line of sight for the goal has now become very clear. He has enrolled in a progrm that will lead to a MET degree.</p>

<p>I grew up with a guy who is a prime example. His dad was a prominent internist. The kid was handsome and charming and very very bright. He flunked out of State U. He was too busy charming the girls. He was later readmitted after he came to the discovery that the world rewards the product not that potential. He went back to State U, made a 4.0, got accepted to med school…and he now is head of one of the Mayo Clinic orthopedic units. When he finally applied his ability, his charm and aptitude allowed him to be enormously successful. Fortunately, admissions committees are forgiving. You may not achieve the goal at 18. Maybe it will be 21, or 25…with some humbling job experiences along the way. It’s all good.</p>

<p>I am finding it humorous that some people really don’t understand that a lot of us out here have less infatuation with the Ivies than they do…that they say we “covet” them. As a 25 year HR manager, I know something about goal setting. Goals, to be motivating, have to be desireable and attainable. If you take away the attainability, it ceases to be a motivating goal. $200,000 for undergrad, and another $100,000 starts to sound unattainable for many families with more than one kid when they have to pay the whole bill…especially in times where in recent memory, we saw our stocks drop 30%.</p>

<p>OP, your son will be fine. He may have to do a couple of years at the safety school. If he excels, there, he can reach a little higher and transfer, if that is what he still wants. Or he can reach a little higher for grad school. Life is not defined by the envelope you receive when you’re 17. I did my master’s degree at 48. My grandmother lived to be 105. For most of us, life is long and there are LOTS of new opportunities.</p>

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<p>There has been research that having parents who achieved at high levels is likely to depress (not increase!) students’ performance because the students give up because they fear that they won’t be able to live up to what their parents have done. Having slacker parents can lead to having highly achieving students.</p>

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<p>Epiphany, great post. Just to jump on the bash Dad bandwagon, sorry, but from my observation, the focus is on sports, not academics. I really agree with the “son stops listening to females in 5th grade” comment.</p>

<p>Fortunately, a lot of things happened in the summer between end of sophomore year and first half of junior year in hs for my son. He is 10 for 11 admissions, and that last one is a waitlist. </p>

<p>Who knows what combination worked for my son: part-time job with immigrants who work 80 hours a week and live 8-10 in an apartment, Dad laid off, drivers license, new mix of non-sports friends, and one friend in particular (who did a different sport) with great work ethic. I wonder if any one of these had been missing, would the result have been the same?</p>

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<p>“OP, your son will be fine. He may have to do a couple of years at the safety school. If he excels, there, he can reach a little higher and transfer, if that is what he still wants. Or he can reach a little higher for grad school. Life is not defined by the envelope you receive when you’re 17. I did my master’s degree at 48. My grandmother lived to be 105. For most of us, life is long and there are LOTS of new opportunities.”</p>

<p>I agree. My younger S – who slacked in high school - found himself at a LAC that if his gpa had equalled his score – would have been a safety. He has flourished there including by surrounding himself with high achieving, talented, bright students, and by taking full advantage of the coursework and productive ECs.</p>

<p>I think that he has learned more and flourished more in that LAC than he would have at an Ivy, and I’m saying this as an Ivy grad. In fact, he has had class assignments that were harder than what I did at Harvard undergrad and in my doctoral program. He also has gotten to do ECs that would have been hard for him to do at an Ivy because there would have been much more competition for those positions, and it would have been difficult to get the mentoring that he got from professors.</p>

<p>He also had the guts to try new academics and ECs at his LAC that he may not have had the guts to try at a more competitive college because more students would have been highly skilled in those areas. When he tried those new things, he learned that he had talents in some areas that he hadn’t explored before.</p>

<p>What one accomplishes in college is far more important than where one goes to college.</p>

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<p>^ ^To BerneseMtnMom: Fabulous. Congratulations.</p>

<p>As to Dads and sports, what a great opportunity for sports analogies. They don’t see academics as performance? Hmmm. Here’s the goal. Here’s the clock. Here’s the point spread. </p>

<p>???</p>

<p>Go figure.</p>

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<p>BerneseMtnMom…congratulations!!</p>

<p>Northstar…you are so right. My daughter is planning to work in a high affluence school when she graduates and works her way through grad school for psychology. She is very concerned about what she sees happening in our community. We are one of the highest affluence communities in the country. Parents are largely college and grad school educated. The smart kids aren’t stupid. They see what congress is doing with taxes and overspending, making their futures very uncertain…in terms of having the ability to duplicate their parents’ lifestyles…which they see as an (in many cases, unrealistic) expectation. My daughter has been through a lot. She was molested in HS, developed an eating disorder because of her extreme perfectionism. She is not an isolated case. Some of the “best” universities in the nation are reporting 40% of their female students suffering from varying levels of disordered eating. Girls have their OWN problems. For sure.</p>

<p>Even (and especially) those girls who went to expensive private schools and prestigious colleges.</p>

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<p>Epiphany, I agree with part of what you are saying. But absent dads are not always absent because they don’t care…many of them are working all the time. Especially if they are self-employed…including the professions of law and medicine. Which is another reason I have valued sports for my son so much. The dads who volunteer unselfishly to work with young boys in sports are more valuable to a community than anyone can express.</p>

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<p>…but debrockman, they’re doing half of their parenting job, then. Only the tiny percentage of athletic recruits get into college on their athletics. I would not deny them their pleasure & community-value in their sports’ roles, but the term “parent” applies to both genders, and a Dad’s role in academics is as essential as Mom’s. (And for a son, it may be more essential.) Dads are not just sperm donors; then it’s OK if they disappear to professions & have Mom “worry” about school. Almost all of my Dads on my job have professions, and they don’t get a pass from me, or from my male colleague, who tells them in no uncertain terms to step up to the (academic) plate, immediately, if they expect success in high school from their sons. Now, if they don’t expect that, or don’t care, then no one should be surprised about college admisisons results. And I agree with you, the particular college does not matter, as long as that’s where the student is going to thrive. I don’t have sons. If I did, though, I would know, based on my experience (including with brothers :)), to sit down with hubby and come to a meeting of the minds as to what our goals and expectations are for beloved son, then discuss that also in a 3-way with son, and discuss strategies for arriving there, updated realistically from time to time. If that doesn’t happen, then, again, there should be no surprises at disappointments during spring of graduation year. No surprises from Mom. No surprises from Dad. No surprises from son.</p>

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<p>esobay, I haven’t been on much and so am just looking at this thread, but I see it turned nasty by the end of the first page. Because of that I won’t read the whole thing and instead will send you a big ol’ (((HUG))), from one '10er to another. On the '10 thread I wrote of our major disappointment with Questbridge – so close and yet so far. That was a crappy way to start the college season, so I know how disappointing it is when things don’t go your way.</p>

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<p>The point of athletics is not about getting into college based on athletics. My son will not play college sports unless he goes to a REALLY small school. But through sports, he has learned that daily effort brings goal attainment. He has also learned a lot about handling defeat with grace. </p>

<p>I think it is a bit unfair to say that a dad who has an overwhelming encompassing profession, in the case of my husband, small town physician, has to be a 50% parent. Nor does he not care. If anything, what he has modeled has been that under the most extreme conditions, you must give a 100% effort. He is exhausted, has wrecked his health, but has always been the guy who has done the “right” thing. He’s the doctor you want to have. My son sees that as having translated into “Wow. Look what 100% commitment does for you.” I think I want more balance. I’m lucky. My son does have balance. He’s a “pretty good” student, a “pretty good” athlete, a really good friend. Maybe he’s smarter than I have given him credit for. My daughter is the overworker, like her dad. She’s sick, exhausted and miserable. But I’m not going to bash the people in helping professions who have given “too much”. But I have allowed other people in our community…in particular, coaches, to help my son shape his character. And he won’t get into the best schools…we can’t afford them, anyway. But he’ll get into good schools. And he’ll achieve what he wants to achieve. And if he messes up somewhere along the way, hopefully, he will stand up, dust off, and keep walking forward.</p>

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<p>I was what you might call a “semi-slacker” in high school . . . I skated along without much effort getting grades ranging from A’s to C’s, but mostly B’s. Not terrible, but I can tell you I wasn’t a dedicated student (except in my favorite subject, English. And even then I pounded out every essay at 2 AM the night before.)</p>

<p>This didn’t cut it in college and I ended up flunking out, only to return years later–this time giving it my all. Having been on both ends of the spectrum, I can say you get a lot more out of school when you put in the effort–not merely in terms of grades, but in terms of comprehension and depth of knowledge.</p>

<p>That said, do I regret slumping my way through high school? Not really. But then, I was never aiming for the Very Elite College of Prestige. There’s a saying, “Take what you want and pay for it, says God.” You can glide through on Cs, but you’ll pay for it. Or you can buckle down and study, study, study and (hopefully) get A’s. But you’ll pay for that, too–just in different ways.</p>

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<p>Epiphany said </p>

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<p>This is so important. It seems that, every few months, a thread goes in this direction and we hear about brilliant kids who are too smart to do the work required of them. They are hurting no one but themselves and are greatly helping the worker bees who will pass them by. What amazes me is when the parents enable these kids, encouraging the lazy/slacker behavior or making excuses for them. I do not see the OP doing this, BTW, but I think it is something that is easy to start doing.</p>

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<p>Naturally…well spoken. You pay the price for overachievement, as well. As my husband awaits the results of his renal function tests, do I ever know it.</p>