<p>I say we do both, JHS. Hug him and help him find his way.</p>
<p>Perhaps Dbate might benefit from reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog. Sullivan’s identity as a Catholic has been in tension with his identity as a homosexual.</p>
<p>While I agree with all who recommend counseling to the OP, I want to comment on the situation he brought up. I don’t think it’s crazy or ridiculous to have second thoughts regarding his choice of Yale and its effect on his gpa. It’s a legitimate concern for a student who is absolutely certain that med school is the goal (though this may not be the case for OP.)</p>
<p>I know a Harvard MD who happily sent a brilliant child to our state school, knowing that this was the surest bet for ending up at a top med school. Weeder classes are no easier at a state school, but a student who qualified for Yale may have a better chance at beating the curve.</p>
<p>Clearly the OP has a lot else going on, and I want to reassure him that he is doing well and all is not lost. But the gpa pressure for pre-meds is intense anywhere, and I understand his reasons for reconsidering his college choice. It appears that the OP has never experienced “failure” until this point (though, obviously, he hasn’t failed at all – only in his own eyes.) In a sense, his success in being admitted to Yale simply delayed his first experience of “failure” – many strong students have their first discouraging academic news when they are rejected from top schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s why I made sure my son was hyperchallenged throughout high school, so that college would be no surprise. I haven’t seen the full admission results yet (he is not applying to Yale), so I don’t know yet if that was an expedient way to go for college admission, but I figured that was the best life preparation for him. </p>
<p>Believe what QuantMech is telling you. You are off to a good start, and you can learn to get better grades. And you can DEFINITELY get into a good medical school still. Just keep up your spirits, and learn from everyone around you.</p>
<p>" You are off to a good start, and you can learn to get better grades."</p>
<p>If you learn to get better grades by taking easy courses and not stretching yourself by trying new things, you will be wasting your experience at Yale. You’ve got excellent grades in a tough first semester curriculum. I hope you’ll take full advantages of the wide range of courses Yale offers, and will try new things and take some tough, inspirational courses.</p>
<p>Every 5 years, my members of my Harvard class survey class members asking a variety of questions about their lives. I remember the results of the 25th reunion survey. A large number of my classmates were doctors and lawyers, and many of them were miserable in their fields. </p>
<p>When it comes to careers, I have picked things that interested me, and in general, haven’t had high prestige jobs nor have I received high pay. However, I’ve loved my work and got a lot of happiness from feeling like I’ve made a difference in others’ lives.</p>
<p>To my surprise, I have found that many of my classmates envy me due to the choices I’ve made.</p>
<p>You can go for the prestige – doctor, lawyer – even though you don’t have a strong interest in either. (The fields are so different, that I highly doubt that most doctors would want to be lawyers. The reverse also is true). Another option would be for you to use your college experience to hone and discover your interests and then look for a field in which you can continue pursuing your interests. </p>
<p>In my opinion, that’s what leads to a fulfilled, happy life.</p>
<p>You seem to have very unrealistic ideas about college and grades. You seem to have this idea that you are entitled to A’s because you worked hard. </p>
<p>Newsflash: YOU ARE AT ONE OF THE VERY TOP SCHOOLS IN THE COUNTRY. EVERYONE AT YALE IS A TOP STUDENT. EVERYONE. THERE. IS. SMART. They aren’t all going to get an A in every class. If that’s what you wanted, you did indeed go to the wrong school. On the other hand, if you wanted to be surrounded by the best and brightest and challenged in ways you never imagined, then you went to the right place. </p>
<p>When I went to college, at the parent orientation the President of the college warned the parents: “The average kid here was in the top 10% of their high school class. That means if your kid was in the top 5% of his/her h.s., you should expect them to be in the top HALF at college. Get rid of the idea that your kid is the brightest one in his/her class. It’s not true here.”</p>
<p>Do you think med schools don’t realize how hard Yale is? Don’t you think they take that into consideration?</p>
<p>If you are serious in thinking that a 3.4 after ONE semester at Yale is the end of your career, you need more than counseling - you need a smack upside the head. A 3.4 at Yale is darned good.</p>
<p>Having OCD tendendencies is not necessarly a serious mental disorder. Many excellent students have OCD tendencies that work for them. Many, many successful people have OCD tendencies that work for them. </p>
<p>Using the “OCD” terms seems to have alarmed people, but if you take out that term, and just see some inflexibility in this student’s thoughts and expectations, perhaps it is more palatable to suggest the kind of specialized therapy that can help loosen things up a little, by challenging the assumptions that underlie the whole structure of his life right now.</p>
<p>Having some rigid thought and emotional patterns, regardless of the cause (religion, high expectations, depression, OCD, whatever) can be helped a lot by cognitive therapy. Just talking with someone is not as helpful, and can even reinforce the patterns when the counselor listens sympathetically without challenging the beliefs. There are other avenues for help too, some of which will take longer than CBT. </p>
<p>Sympathy and hugs are nice, but don’t last long, and don’t last when the person is alone. I think it is the difference between giving someone fish, and teaching them to fish.</p>
<p>The only point I am trying to make is that whatever counselor or therapist DBate finds, I am hoping that they are skilled at dealing with his sorts of issues. Some of these issues are related to normal transition to a high pressure place, some to the difficult issues of “coming out” as a gay man, in the context of his religion especially, some from depression, but some really do seem to stem from rigid thought patterns.</p>
<p>I agree with several posts here - you’re being unrealistic about your college grades. Why did you go to Yale in the first place? didn’t you want to challenge yourself? Weren’t you prepared you’d meet tough competitions? Weren’t you happy you DID meet tough competitions?
yes like one post said, you could take easy classes and get better grades. But then why Yale? Why didn’t you choose a less challenging, less expensive school and go get all As? </p>
<p>The point of going to ivies is to meet the challenge you would if you were at the top. Your grades are NOT bad. Yes some of peers are better. But isn’t that why you wanted to be there in the first place?</p>
<p>Dbate:</p>
<p>While I’m not in the sciences, several of my friends are applying to medical school so I am well versed in “grade panic”. However, as has been stated here multiple times, you are a first semester freshman. To be honest, your grades aren’t a huge deal. To give you some perspective, my first semester freshman year I received a 2.67. Yup. Now I’m set to graduate with honors, writing a thesis, have already been accepted to Harvard Business School - and believe me, when I was staring at those grades over Christmas break of freshman year, such a thing never seemed possible.</p>
<p>Failure, I would say, is one of the most important life lessons and one you haven’t embraced yet. You said earlier in this thread that you were concerned that you worked so hard “for nothing” – that will continue to happen to you throughout your life. There WILL be cases, no matter how much you plan, no matter how much you study or work, that you will not succeed. That is just a fact of life. Embracing this was tough for me since I once really believed that I could do anything I set my mind to – this is not the case.</p>
<p>This does NOT mean you cannot be a doctor. You can be. I understand setting astronomical goals so that you don’t close any doors. But holding yourself to those astronomical goals and believing that anything less is failure, does not make you motivated, it does not make you intelligent or far from mediocre, it just makes you snobbish. You know what they call the kid with the lowest GPA in med school? Doctor.</p>