The BSMD program is your daughter’s dream … not yours. As her parent, it is great for you to support her, but not helpful for you to buy into the angst and the anxiety and make it yours. Fine for you to lend a sympathetic ear, but not helpful for you to take on feelings of anger, frustration, or disappointment. It is what it is.
There are many things that happen in classrooms that are grossly unfair and rightfully should provoke an angry response. This isn’t one of them.
Sure, it seems frustrating for your daughter — but it’s a pretty good bet that there some very smart students in the same class who have 95 or 96 averages. You may be perceiving this as a sliver of a point … but the teacher may very well be looking at a class setting where some students are truly outshining others, and your daughter isn’t one of the shiniest. So A- might really reflect the teacher’s perception. (And from your other posts I have the sense that your daughter attends a competitive high school which probably does have a lot of very smart and capable students).
I’m not saying this to in any way diminish your daughter’s accomplishments - just to add a bit of perspective. You really don’t see what the teacher is seeing, and if your daughter is focused on pre-med, US History might not be her area of greatest enthusiasm. That “participation” grade may be more than just the fact of participation, but the quality – there may be some students who really take a leadership role in class and also elevate the level of discussion. The level of points that the teacher assigns for that – whether it’s a 1 point variance or a 10 point variance, is every bit as arbitrary as the distinction between a 3.7 vs. 4.0. The bottom line is that within the context of that classroom, your daughter may very well be a little bit less perfect than some of her classmates who will finish the year with strong A averages.
Along those lines… you don’t need to encourage or prod your daughter to try harder. This is her problem, not yours – the A- vs. A isn’t going to matter in the long run. It isn’t even relevant to her aspirations - the ad coms for her BSMD programs are going to be a lot more concerned about AP Chem or Bio. Just let your daughter handle things however she decides. If she wants to try to persuade the teacher or find an avenue for extra credit, fine. If she wants just let things shake out however they will… fine. Listen sympathetically at home, but refrain from giving advice on this one.
You also said that you are also “working on keeping expectations low”. Please don’t. I think your daughter already knows that her chances are narrow – she doesn’t need to be reminded of that., and it may only add to her anxiety because when you thinking you are adding a dose of realism, your daughter is thinking that her mom lacks confidence in her abilities. So be your daughter’s cheerleader, not her critic. When it comes time to choose and apply to colleges next year, of course it is important that you encourage her to apply to safeties — but frame that effort in terms of “plan B” (or plan C)-- as well as the importance of assuring a financially viable option. But your daughter also needs to feel that you are on her side- so she also needs to hear that mom has faith in her.
And finally… things are going to be fine. Your daughter is going to get into a good college and she has the qualities to have a successful college experience, followed by a successful career. It may not all happen the way she envisions it at age 17. But that’s cool – in hindsight it is often the twists and turns that turn out to be the things one is most grateful for. And there is a very big downside of a BSMD program of locking a student into a particular path at an age when she really hasn’t had the time to fully grow into the young woman she is destined to be. It may very well be that the best thing that ever happens to her will be not getting what she thinks she wants now. But again, that’s not for you to decide either. Next year she is probably going to have an array of good options to choose from – assuming you are doing your part as a CC-mom and making sure she is headed toward outcomes that you have the ability to fund.
Jill- fast forward a bunch of years. Your D ends up in radiology and not surgery because she got dinged during her last year in medical school for class participation (yes, it’s a thing. The “sorting stick” used to separate the students into specialities is HIGHLY subjective and can be based on one single professor’s comments). Your D ends up in Omaha when she wanted Baltimore, or Miami when she wanted Cleveland because even though her grades, etc. were top notch, she wasn’t as assertive as the committee wanted her to be during her residency interviews. Or she got dropped from the team running a complicated clinical trial because the “pushier” doctors grabbed the spotlight. Or she got third billing on a paper her team published and not second or first because even though she did most of the work, the other doctors showed up at the conference where the findings were presented and she opted not to go because she was on call that weekend.
And guess what- it all ends up working out. This is part of what it means to want to enter a competitive field. The competition doesn’t stop when you get into med school- it accelerates. Nobody is “chilling” during med school-. Nobody is chilling during residency. And for a student who wants one of the uber competitive specialties, it keeps on going until you’re about 40 years old, at which point you have an actual job, some professional credibility, and the ability to have some control over your life.
I know a young oncologist who is still as stressed out as he was during undergrad. And he’s married to a surgeon who can’t figure out when she’s supposed to have kids given the years of training she still has in front of her. And a just starting out radiologist who has terrific work-life balance, two young kids, and only one “on call” weekend per month.
Your D can go to med school with an A- in a HS class. But YOU need to get comfortable with the amount of competition your D is going to face at each stage of this journey if she decides she wants medicine. Because you will drive yourself crazy if you don’t. And you will become one of those parents who just can’t let it go.
I agree completely ^. Let your daughter handle this and don’t take this on as your issue. You don’t see what the teacher sees… there is a big difference between a student who raises his hand to answer a question… versus a student who always leads the discussion and brings this discussion to a very high level through the comments they make and the types of questions asked. These students exist, and I am sure they exist in your daughter’s HS.
I would be supportive, but I would also sit tight and let your daughter handle it ( and she may prefer it that way). There comes a point where we as parents are not always in control.
An A- is not going to derail her chances. Class ranking is more important. Typically, applications of kids from the same school are read together by the same regional AOs. With the nearly half of students in US graduating with an A average GPA doesn’t quite differentiates kids anymore.
Your daughter is going to need outstanding letters of recommendation… this will be one of the things that helps distinguish her. Is she a leader? Does she help other students? Does she elevate the level of discussion? What qualities does she bring to the classroom ? Etc
If she really wants this… she needs to drive the process.
In many aspects the 4.0 scale can be much more forgiving. If a student hits the 93 threshold they get the same A/4.0 as a student with a 100. On a 100 point scale students with 93s are not in the same ballpark as students with 100s, especially when class ranks are calculated.
Good or bad, participation points continue into college.
Nowadays, more than half the apps top colleges get are from schools that don’t rank.
Yes, they will look at the trascript. An A- is still an A.
Rather than any move that might be taken by the teacher as disputing the grade, I’d be thinking which humanities teracher will provide a LoR. I’d be looking at the CA and supps, getting an idea of how she’s going to stack up in her actual presentation, then taking any opp now to fine tune.
It is an issue to bring to your high school, not colleges. Some high schools do not convert to 4.0 scales. My son’s did not. On any pull-down menus from colleges that I recall, there was one option to report out of 4.0, one optiom to report out of 100, and I think one option for something else. Certainly we never had to do any conversions. He reported his GPA out of 100.
Some posters on this site have said that college admissions officers recalculate your courses/GPA on their own for consistency. I have no idea if that is the case everywhere or not.
Not everywhere. Mostly some public universities and a few privates. Holistic just doesn’t need a recalc. They aren’t admitting based on that (after you reach their bar) or rack and stack. They look at the transcript.
D needs to figure out things on her own. That’s how she’ll grow and succeed in life. My parents interfered zilch in my school life and it turned out fine. If they had interfered I would have become dependent on that and then clueless when on my own.
A few things. First of all, I think its OK for me to have some emotions. I know there are worse things in life. Trust me, we have experienced them. I’m allowed to be annoyed and to feel bad for her. And, I’m venting here instead of in real life.
I know its my daughter’s process. I assure you I am not pushing her about this, I am not running to complain to the school, I am not doing any crazy mom things. She will go in and speak with the teacher. If it results in a grade change, great. If it results in her learning something important to bring to her futures classes, great and if it just results in more frustration, so be it.
I do appreciate the reality check about how the grades will be looked at.
I am absolutely not prodding her to do anything differently. (Well maybe keep her room a little cleaner but thats another story). She has had nothing but excellent participation grades in every class. If she learns something new from this teacher, she can choose to incorporate it, but I am not asking her to do anything differently.
I’m not going to comment on how shiny my daughter may or may not be and whether other kids are shinier. I think kids get graded down for many reasons, some fair other not so fair. I have great respect for teachers, but it would be naive to believe that none of them ever play favorites or make mistakes. In a subjective area like class participation, you may never really know. That’s a part of life too, but its OK to feel frustrated by it.
Anyway, this thread has been good for me. I appreciate the space to vent.
Now that I am adult being forced to take really stupid continuing education classes I have figured out that class participation is the only way to ensure that I actually learn something in these classes. I know I did not speak up nearly as much when I was younger. (Although according to people at my high school reunion I was more of a gadfly than I remember being, so maybe I just lost the knack when I was in college.) In any event I think it’s a skill worth learning.
Yes, that’s true, but in this case there is no evidence or reason to suspect bias or a “mistake.” Again, you haven’t been in the classroom, and it may very well be that your daughter has more often been the beneficiary of teachers’ biases while somebody else’s kid was the one who got graded down because of various teachers’ attitudes toward them.
I don’t think you are doing your daughter any favors by playing into that thought process. In the end, it’s usually self-defeating for the person who sees themselves as a “victim” of lack of favoritism— bad as a lifelong habit, especially for a career like medicine where so much is going to depend on perceptions and reports of others which may or may not be fair. (I think the post by @blossom is excellent in outlining numerous examples).
Yes, it is ok to have feelings. But its now June and your daughter probably has had plenty of feedback over the school year to get a sense of where she stands with this particular teacher. And her frustration (and yours) seems to be closely tied to a number (92.3) rather than a learning outcome. (I.e., what does the teacher view as the participation shortcoming? How could that have been addressed before now? etc. - and it doesn’t really matter whether the teacher is right or wrong, because the teacher is an authority figure. And life will be full of authority figures who manifest different priorities and different points of view.) And I think that the people who become most successful in their lives and careers are those who can take criticism in stride and who keep a broader perspective. Because an A- doesn’t matter much at all.
I hear your frustration. My D19 had a similar frustrating grade situation this quarter where a + might have helped her grade. One of her AP teachers was miffed in January when one student complained about the daily homework. The teacher said, fine, no homework, your grades will be solely on your test. The first semester my dd gets 100 on homework and in the high 80’s on tests. The homework pulled her grade to an “A” So now the highest grade this spring in the class currently is a 91.5 or A-. Some of her A friends will end up with a C. She said she is going to end up with a B+ because her test grade averages 89. Her school grades don’t calculate + and -, so in her case her grade will calculate the same if she got a B-. The first “B” of her life. It is like falling off a cliff. She came home very upset and I realized when she looked at me in a split second that I had an important decision of how to react. I just said I was really sorry, that it doesn’t seem fair, but in the big picture it won’t have a big effect and that I knew she tried her best. Everyone has that one or two teachers in their life who’s system doesn’t seem fair. I said if she felt strong about it she could go talk to the teacher and make a case but she could also chalk it up to bad luck.
As she was growing up I would regularly check her grades on line. When I saw something irregular I would ask, “did you forget that assignment?” or what happened in that class. I realized it was making me stressed and definitely wasn’t helping her stress level. When she entered high school I told myself to just say no. I knew she was a perfectionist and didn’t need me questioning her grades. I have never checked them once. It has been so much better for her and me!
This is a long winded way of saying what everyone else is saying, step back, all kids have some bumps on the way that seem unfair. I think as parents we can do more to make sure our kids take it in stride and just letting them know that this is all part of the process and it
True, I haven’t. All I said is that it sometimes happens and that she will learn something by asking.
I don’t see why you state this. I have explained in at least two posts, that she will be speaking to him and hopefully she learns something about how she has been presenting herself or what she can improve. I don’t know what more you think she should be doing?
Right. Again, that is why she will be talking to him and hopefully learning from the experience. I don’t know how many times I need to say this. I’m willing to bet that even successful people get annoyed when they believe that they are treated unfairly even though the boss/teacher/coach/director is an authority figure. They get annoyed, they vent to family and friends and then they adapt and move on. In my case, there is no other adult in our home. I don’t have anyone to vent to about this and so I came here. Most people have been great.
You haven’t been in the classroom either. In this case, you have no" evidence or reason to suspect" that she has had feedback to indicate where she stands in the class.
@19parent I hear what you are saying. Basically, what you said to your daughter is what I said. She was upset with the grade. I told her that she could talk to the teacher to see if he had any helpful information. All of the venting, I’m doing here, not at home.
With all due respect to those responders who suggest OP stay out of it and let her D handle the situation as she sees fit, none of you really know what’s best. I see no reason not to let OP decide on her own what parenting style is justified in this case. Helping our kids work through what life brings is what we do. Being there as a sounding board, or to offer suggestions in how to navigate a situation, may continue well beyond HS - if that’s the kind of mutually beneficial relationship that works for them.
While many have offered potentially valuable points for OP to consider, all of us should remember not to project too much of ourselves on others. For what it’s worth, it certainly seems like a good idea for D to ask her teacher what she can do to raise her participation grade before the end of the year. One, that makes the teacher aware of the student’s concern with her own performance. Two, it might trigger a discussion between the student and teacher that provides some insights into the teacher’s perception of the student or her class participation. Learning more about oneself or how we are perceived by others could easily provide greater long term benefit than the prospect of turning a single A- into an A.