Sure, have her tested for LD’s. Be proactive about it, because if she has an issue, it takes a while to get everything in place for next school year. But having a couple of C’s doesn’t necessarily mean she has LD’s. Maybe she’s just adjusting. My son does have LD’s, fwiw, and he has needed accommodations, as should any student who needs them. But really, my son just does not want to work as hard as we know he could. He will end up where he ends up.
@PragmaticMom Thanks for your post! Having more than one kid, especially if one strays from the achievement path, also teaches us how much is not in our control. It also shows us (or at least it showed me) that our high achieving kids are less a function of brilliant parenting and more a function of their own personality (assuming equal intellectual ability among the all As kid and the Bs and Cs kid). Striking the right balance between high expectations, gentle pushing to high achievement and nagging can be very difficult.
My first will be going off to college in the fall and 9th grade seems like a million years ago for him. At any rate, we had just moved to a new town and a completely different school system at the start of his 9th grade year. While we waited for our house to be ready, we had to move several times do to unanticipated issues with rental logistics. So we weren’t able to meet people and get established in a house near the school the way we had hoped to until well into the school year. My son is a pretty adaptable kid but this period was rough on him - he went into that school with not one familiar face inside of it. I seem to remember him getting a C or two during that time, as well, as a B or three that would normally have been As for him…it is truly a blur now.
Did those Cs wind up hurting him? I don’t know. Maybe? After that rocky stretch he did much, much better academically. I think the schools like to see an upward trend in grades, as well as, course rigor. Figure out what is tripping her up and help her find the resources to do better (study habits? tutor? Kahn Academy? etc).
Please bear in mind OP said, “third quarter with 2 Cs and not sure she can pull one of them into a B.” I don’t know if she means quarter grades or the year. We don’t know if she’s doing so much better in tougher classes or these are the tough ones. Or these are utterly boring. The implication is she can pull one grade up. My kids wouldn’t have been happy to be sent for LD testing so quickly. There should be some sense this isn’t a free will problem. Some talking. Looking for other signs than 2 C’s. And as a 9th grader, it’s entirely possible her priorities are more social.
I’m one who says, if you want a tippy top, you’d better be prepared for an intense (and savvy) commitment in hs. But not all kids are destined for a top 20. Many don’t want to be groomed. And it’s still more than grades.
Like others have said, she is definitely not “doomed” if she ends up attending a cc or lower tier college. With 4 kids having finished college at this point, we started out with the “supreme under-achiever” and ended up with the high achiever who needed no prodding. Maybe it was easier that way as I had nothing with which to compare our 1st one- although I certainly did a lot of hair pulling out during his high school and early college tenure. He is very bright but felt that high school was a waste of time when he could to do the bare minimum and still graduate with a degree. This gave him more time to spend designing and building things, making connections, working on cars, etc. which were his true loves. He graduated with 1 extra credit and then attended a variety of community colleges part time while working at construction labor and car modification shops. He finally decided to transfer to a state college once he figured out what he wanted to do-after 4 or 5 years- and lo and behold, got straight A’s (in engineering level math and physics courses) and even received the department scholarship his last year. I once asked him why he put me through so much hell during his high school years when he was obviously very capable, and he replied that while that wasn’t his intent, he didn’t need to do any better at that time and had other more important things to do.
In the end, I have no doubt that this kid will be-and already is- very successful in life. He worked for several large construction firms for a few years and then opened his own business. He works very hard and very long hours, but is doing very well. He is still that person that only does exactly what needs to be done to get the end result; he is very efficient but very thorough. He always has a million things going at once. The hands on experience that he gained from all of those lower level jobs has benefited him immensely and he has so many connections through his various jobs that it has really been a plus. He is so different from our other kids, but just chose a different path to get where he is now. It is sometimes very hard not to compare kids- I know I fell into that trap many times. But they each have their strengths and weaknesses and it really helps to figure out their interests and to help them develop those to the max. Best of luck!!!
This is the phrase I would focus on in terms of revising your thinking: “doomed to a low tier school.” As others have pointed out, many many people graduate from such schools and go on to stellar careers and lives. If your daughter is at least mildly unmotivated academically, do you really WANT her going to a “high tier” school where she is competing with 90 percent go-getters? That might not be the best atmosphere for her. High levels of achievement, learning and growth are available at almost any school. However I think that’s more likely if everyone, yourself included, views these “average-tier schools” as being very viable and fantastic options, just as much so as anything in a more impressive tier. That’s how I’d look at it, anyway.
I’d still encourage your daughter to do her best and make the most of her talents, of course. Just not necessarily with “high-tier” being the goal. Personal growth and education should be the goal.
Good luck!
Every day I’m thankful that my first child S1 was the non-academic one, my second child D1 was a breeze when it came to school and nearly everything else. But, $10 says S has a higher IQ, he’s just the type that is ok with being “average”. I know because every time he brought home a “C” I asked him and he was confident that being a “C”/average student was perfect for him. The nagging continued with D but it was to get her to put down the books, not pick one up LOL. In the end, they are who they are and they are both successful and happy on their own paths, which coincidentally seems like it will be the same (Software Engineering), but two totally different avenues to get there, he via the USAF, she in a very good LAC.
Two kids, two very different paths, same outcome…
Well…I’ll just add that there are a few top colleges that don’t even look at 9th grade grades. And almost all weigh them far less than those in later grades. So, if it’s a temporary problem, don’t worry too much. It’s more important to figure out what the issue is and get it resolved–if you can. Sometimes, it’s just not possible.
There is a thread for “3.0 - 3.4 GPA” and from what I have seen there, the kids get into good schools.
It’s probably just the freshman year learning curve. Sometimes it takes a good academic butt-kicking to finally get it together. She’ll realize that grades have nothing to do with smarts. It’s about work. Once she grasps that concept, she’ll do great, and possibly outflank her sister 
There’s plenty of time to worry about college. For now, let them be teenagers.
Four examples of high school grades and where and how the people ended up: 1) All As in high school, attended highly ranked university and did well, dropped out of Ph.D. program, fired from only two multiyear jobs. 2) All As in high school, attended well-ranked state flagship and eventually did well after the first year, did very well in law school, employed with same employer for almost 30 years. 3) Several Bs and a few Cs in high school, attended and thrived in private university that most people haven’t heard of, self-employed and self-supporting in a major metropolitan area. 4) All As in high school, attended highly ranked LAC and did well, enrolled in highly ranked Ph.D. program and doing well.
Moral of the story: there are many paths to a successful and satisfying life.
@melb004 I wouldn’t worry too much about it! You daughter could go to a “lower tier” school and then transfer after freshman year. I’ve seen so many kids do that!
In the meantime, I would advise getting a tutor to help with homework. She may just need a little bit of a confident boost and someone to coach her along the way. I’ve seen 180 transformations in the past, so let me know if you want a name or two.
HS Freshman year grades are not used for admissions at some schools- Stanford being one. Improving grades matter. Others have suggestion for finding out the “why” of the grades. Could be a number of things. Do look at her study habits. Time spent “studying” may not be what it should be. There could be other reasons. Importantly- how does your D feel about things? Get a handle on her views.
re post #30. Could add anecdotes to the above. Some gifted kids are bored in HS, no need to get all A’s and do not feel the need for the prestige of advanced grad degrees. Gifted twins- only A, B… grades given at their HS. Their mother told me her son would do A- work while her D would do A++ work for the same A. My gifted son got his worst grades senior year of HS- 100% on AP Stats tests but zeros on homework yielded a B while AP Calc did not grade homework so an A (5’s on the AP exams). Looking back at a college friend and son I see that having greater intelligence does not mean needing to be an always A student or get the most advanced degree. I am less gifted and worked a lot harder than they did.
But- we are talking about a HS freshman. Good idea, OP, to explore reasons for her grades at this point. Too soon to predict her college future (at that age I was vehement about talking the minimum HS science, all round A student, and I ended up with a chemistry degree for undergrad). Proactive parent- great.
I like to know who is working hard in my house and then don’t focus on grades. It is important to realize success in life doesn’t always correlate with success in high school. Kids with middling grades often find schools to thrive in and move on to good jobs .
It’s not fair to your daughter that you have to be talked down from the ledge because she’s not her sister. She’s her own person.
Plenty of kids have survived C’s, “lower tier schools” and even… gasp… community college.
She’s capable and smart according to you. She’ll find her way.
I had a smart but v lazy student. He’d get C’s on all his progress reports - we’d go through the same “you have to do your work” and he’d do well enough to bring final grades up to B’s. Rinse and repeat. We pulled him out after 6 weeks freshman year when his grades were just as dismal as they were in middle school. Put him in a private school. In a week he was a changed student. There is no place to hide when your classes have 10 kids or less.
He ended up at a top 20 LAC, graduated in 4 years and launched successfully.
I am 100% convinced he would have ended up with no other choice but CC if we had left him in public school.
You might take her to see s couple of colleges that are the types she could attend if her GPA is sub-3.0. A directional and maybe a lower tier LAC. We did a local visit like that for my D1 (who had a slightly better, but not stellar start to HS) in 10th grade. She liked the visit, but told me later she said to herself, “This is fine, but I think I can do better.” She stepped up her game. Of course, you can lead a horse to water… so your D may be perfectly content with those options, and that is fine. But I do think an early visit or two can help them see what they are working towards.
Not true. He might not have gotten accepted to a top 20 LAC, but there are plenty of four year colleges where he would have gotten accepted.
“Not true. He might not have gotten accepted to a top 20 LAC, but there are plenty of four year colleges where he would have gotten accepted.”
I honestly don’t think so. We will have to agree to disagree.
Oh my goodness…doomed?! Important to determine why the grades have dropped. But no one is doomed by a few Cs on their transcript.