Please don’t worry on my behalf. I’m 59 years old, and am a big girl. Peer pressure isn’t a factor in my decisions. And I’m happy to say it’s not a big part of the lives of any of my 3 kids either. They tend to know their minds and act accordingly.
I’m also a big girl at 50 years of age, so peer pressure has not been a factor in my life for quite some time. My son doesn’t worry about other people’s opinions either. He knows what he can handle and what he can’t, and he will do just fine. We are well-versed in handling our finances as well. No worries
@writermom2018 I am sorry you feel it necessary to paint with such a broad brush. It is certainly your prerogative to insist that your own children prove themselves. I do wholeheartedly agree that college is not for everyone. I do think that skilled jobs, the armed forces are fantastic and worthy options.
Funny that many of the people whom I know that failed to graduate from college or failed to graduate in a timely (whatever that is…) manner were actually very bright straight A kids. My HS Sal attended exactly 2 semesters of college before he dropped out never to return. My husband 's (HS Sal) Val started at U of Chicago dropped out after 2 years and eventually returned to school some years later and finished at the University of Buffalo. My brother, a top 10% kid, dropped out of college to run his own auto body business after a year of college. Some of DD2016’s top classmates have returned home after a year to attend Community College, one got pregnant.
I, on the other hand, a solid B/C student, apparently a slacker…graduated college in LESS than 4 years (3 years and 2 quarters If I recall). With no AP or dual credit and a quarter of study abroad. My slacker DD2016 B student is still a slacker B student sophomore at Marquette University and my slacker B/B+ DD2018 is about the head off to Texas A&M University.
I agree, no one should go that far in to debt to obtain a degree…NO ONE! Not even A students. Kids drop out for all sorts of reasons. I am sorry that you feel it necessary to assume that B/C students are slackers with no study skills or discipline with partying as their main objective! That may be true in your household. It is certainly not the case in my own.
There is no reason to not encourage a B/C student to attend college if that student is ready, willing and able to attack the challenge. They do not need to prove themselves any more than the A student. In fact, I sometimes think that parents of B/C students aim too low and settle for far less than what their student may be capable of achieving. As some one up thred points out the B/C students know how to take a punch and keep going! Discipline is independent of gpa. There are plenty of A students that lack discipline and have executive function issues who are just as likely to face pitfalls in college. The choice to attend college should be based on an assessment of the individual students strengths and weaknesses.
I think we also have to recognize that all 2.8’s (or all 3.9’s) are not equal. I’ve seen kids with inflated GPA’s because their school grades things like gym, marching band, health or yearbook, or kids who can earn extra credit by doing an extra assignment, helping a teacher, or joining student government if they want to get better grades. In other words, these are kids who earn B’s and C’s in core courses who still have GPA’s north of a 3.4.
I have to admit I get annoyed when I read posts assuming kids who don’t get straight A’s just aren’t putting in any effort. That may be the case at some schools but it’s certainly not the case at all. In most cases kids who work their butts off to get B’s and C’s in high school can do the same in college. The recommendation for CC is good in some areas, not so good in others. As I’ve written on other threads, our local CC has more courses in auto mechanics than history, French and psychology combined.
Another thing to consider is that many kids are lopsided, such as the brilliant poet with a math disability or the mathematician who struggles to write. This thread is a great resource for parents who want to help their kids find schools at which they can be successful. It’s easy to find quality options for the straight A student. Finding a great school for B/C students is a bit harder.
Anyway…
Driving up to New Hampshire tomorrow to tour Plymouth State. We’ll hit the Tanger Outlet malls at Tilton afterwards, then head home on Friday.
Safe travels and let us know how it goes! @bjkmom
Thanks. They offered her $5000-- I can’t begin to tell you what that did for her ego. Nope, I don’t care if they give it to every kid who walks in the door, it made her feel good about herself. If we combine that with a $5000 loan, it comes in at just about the price of a SUNY. I’m hoping she loves it.
Y’all, I posted a review of Stockton U in NJ – it looks like a great option for B&C students.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21222385/#Comment_21222385
I’m surprised that someone could label such a huge cohort of students as slackers just because they get B’s and C’s.
I have mentioned my D09 previously. She had an unweighted GPA of 2.8, primarily because she was more interested in drama club than studying. She refused to take any AP or honors classes. She was more than capable. She attended a gifted program when we lived in NYC and a private school for gifted kids when we moved to the suburbs. That was actually a total mistake for her, she was so miserable I didn’t send her back for a second year and she just began to hate school. People asked me why I was going to waste money sending her to college but I felt that college would be good for her. She attended a SUNY school, which I could afford without going into debt. Guess what - she realized at college that learning more about things she was interested in was fun. She wound up graduating magna cum laude. Ironically, the thing that pulled her down from summa were the B’s and B+'s she got in cello performance, something she pursued because she loves music.
I wouldn’t send ANY kid to a full pay $50 or $60K school but that’s not because my kid is a slacker, it’s because I don’t think that type of money is a worthwhile investment for an UG education.
I do agree that more attention should be paid to things like trade schools, apprenticeships, community college, going straight into the work force and the like, but I don’t think that those should be the only choices for people just because they are B or C students. They should be choices for everyone, just as college should be.
It sounds punitive to tell a child that they HAVE to go to a community college to prove themselves. CC is the right choice for some kids, but it should be a choice, not a punishment. It can be a consequence for failure to do well enough to gain admission to a 4 year school, but there are plenty of schools where a solid B student would be welcomed. I would think a little harder about why a C student is a C student (is math or science or FL pulling them down and they want to major in history, do they struggle with an LD, are they not interested or mature or ready) but if I came to the conclusion (as i did with my D) that college can be a fresh start, I would encourage a 4 year school. It also depends on the kid, too. Not all kids want to go to college, but those who do should get a chance.
While I am not one of those parents who thinks kids should get a trophy just for breathing, I am one of those parents who thinks that it’s my parental duty to help support my kids emotionally. I know how a child whose parent tells them they are a slacker because they get B’s might feel. When I attended Bronx HS of Science, my dad routinely berated me for my relatively low math grades. I felt like a loser and resolved never to do that to my kids. It’s a horrible feeling to think that your parents don’t believe in you. On top of that, I developed a hatred of math that resulted in my not really pushing my own kids to excel in it.
Don’t get me wrong - maybe your kid IS a slacker and if you want to go ahead and call them one, that’s fine, but don’t presume that any other kid who earns B’s and C’s is one as well.
Let’s start by saying how impressed I am with the casual mention of Bronx Science!
I guess we can all parent the way we choose.
Yesterday I saw a neighbor call her 5 year old a “bad friend” because she chose not to make small talk with a classmate she encountered. How sad… 5 years old and already not measuring up to mom’s expectations.
I’m a big believer in being my kids’ biggest advocate. There are enough people willing to take them down a peg… it’s not coming from their mom. I have wonderful, happy, healthy, independent, charitable, hard working, empathetic kids. If they don’t get the highest grades in their class, I can absolutely live with that.
@bjkmom Congrats on the scholarship! And II’m totally with you on “who cares if lots of kids get them at this school, it’s a huge confidence booster”. My DS also received academic scholarships at 2 colleges, worth roughly $8,000/year. He was on Cloud 9. It really helped with his self-confidence and self-esteem. He also got a merit scholarship for his art work at yet another school. Let us know how the trip goes this weekend!
@techmom99 I’m with you on not spending $50+ annually for an UG degree. We wrestle with it sometimes because DS was accepted to a good art school that costs about that much, but I’m just not convinced that the extra tuition money will set him up for a more lucrative future. I’m starting believe that a traditional four-year college with a strong Graphic Design program will prepare him just as well, but maybe that’s my wallet talking :
The mindset of some of the people on CC really bothers me. That is all.
@bjkmom -
I generally don’t talk about it, but I couldn’t convey the way I felt about being considered a slacker by my own dad without putting it into context.
Congrats on the scholarship. Your D now has some amazing choices. My D was offered a scholarship at a private school. The difference the first year was about $8K but while the tuition and costs go up each year, the scholarships don’t. She opted for SUNY, but it was nice for her to have a choice. Hers were Plattsburgh, Oneonta, Cortland and U Hartford. She also got into CUNY Queens and Hunter.
@sbgal2011 - Every family’s rationales are different. My main thing is that nobody should feel badly about the choices they make on financial reasons. I attended a CUNY. I got into BU and Syracuse but couldn’t afford them. Even with attending a CUNY and a law school where i essentially got a free ride, I graduated with almost $30K in debt. That debt, which I finished paying 25 years ago, impacted every aspect of my life and still does. I delayed having children until I was in my 30’s, I couldn’t contribute as much as I would have liked to my retirement accounts at the beginning or to my children’s college funds because after I finished the loans, I had to help with H’s, I couldn’t travel, vacation or have a decent car and I delayed buying a home. I didn’t want that for my children. Especially when considering a career that may not be high paying, the choice of whether or not to pay big bucks for UG is one which can redound throughout one’s entire life.
@lvvcsf BGSU is where i got my BA, and 30 years later, people who went to all the “fancy schools” work for me in my office;)
My oldest is typical CC guy with high stats. My youngest is…well, not. He does not care about grades at all. Taking a zero for not turning something in is “perfectly acceptable” he says. (Arghhhhh. Just turn in something to get 60 or 70 silly!)
At any rate, he applied to a number of schools that we considered safeties, two of which were CTCLs. He is solidly a B. A high B, but that is due to one or 2 very high As he will get now and then. So when you look at his transcript, you are seeing about an 84-85. However, his SAT was good at 1330. For reference, here is the $ offered to him:
Juniata: $25k/yr
Ursinus: $25k/yr
Seton Hall: $25k/yr
Farleigh Dickenson: $25k/yr
Ithaca: $14k/year
Ohio U: $10k/year
SUNYs: zero
I don’t know about FA from these school as we are full pay. And the would not pay for more than 1/2 cost at any of these schools. But the tuition discounts are not just for elite students. You just need to look a little harder is all!
Ohio has some great schools that are not well known that give money. (Full disclosure, born and raised but have not lived there for 30 years:).
Ohio Northern University
Ohio Wesleyan
Bluffton College
Findlay College
Defiance College
On and on…
I should mention that my D, with her 2.8 GPA, was given $1K a year merit money at plattsburgh, while S17 (3.4 GPA) was put into the honors program and given $2K a year in merit at his SUNY school.
@HRSMom -
I had to laugh at your comment about people from better schools working for you. When I began my first real law job, the office “bully” asked me, at an office meeting, where I had gone to school. I said CUNY UG and a brand new law school. He said, oh, I went to (Ivy) UG and (2nd tier) law school." I looked at him and said: “Wow, that’s great. And, just imagine, we both work here together now at the same job.” Fast forward 30 years and this man became my professional mentor and is one of my best friends.
@HRSMom, Our sons almost sound like the same kid. Ours has a couple of semester D’s that came purely from not turning things in. SATs are almost identical to your son. Ours got $15000 from Ithaca, but the grant aid came in 5k under what the NPC had predicted. He got into the Park School of Communication there, which we believe would be a competitive/stressful environment for him. He was in a competitive magnet program when he started HS, but he was miserable and we convinced him to drop out. He seems to like getting into prestigious programs, but hates doing the required work. We hope he’ll decide to go to McDaniel (a CTCL that offered enough money for it to be a little less than a state school), but his status-conscious grandfather is making noises about paying more than had originally been agreed upon for him to go. Why would a kid who has never liked school enter a more competitive program with a GPA requirement to keep the scholarship? This has my wife and I pulling our hair out. Add to that our S16, another B student (albeit with stratospheric test scores) who only passed 3 classes in college and decided it wasn’t for him.
The 3.0 to keep the $ is a big factor for us too.
I have a friend whose daughter got a very generous Ithaca College Park Scholarship. They turned it down because the required GPA is 3.5. There was no way they could afford the school without the scholarship and it just seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.
Made it up to NH…to a series of signs every 4minites warning of an impending winter storm. Tomorrow’s ride home may be slow and steady. It’s snowing now, though not much is sticking yet. At least the tour will give my daughter a real idea of school in Nee Hampshire.
My sons Ithaca letter did not give a minimum GPA. I wonder if there is one?