<p>hadsed and cpt, thanks for your responses. Good info!</p>
<p>Agree with Monydad that Cornell engineering requires a great deal of time management and zero procrastination. He will need to stay on top of things. </p>
<p>On the other side of it…your son sounds like he has alot on his plate and seems to be doing well. He just may be one of those very bright kids that does not require the same degree of study time as someone else. My two sons know a couple guys that complete their problem sets on Monday for every class and they are done for the week. They are brilliant and as a result they rarely need to open the book other than to do assigned work. That seems to be enough for them. My sons on the other hand need to put in six days a week of solid studying.</p>
<p>Sounds like he is hanging in there with grades and test scores. Is the real problem that he is doing this in a fashion different than you would do? My guys make me crazy with their sloppy rooms and last minutes dashes. </p>
<p>I’m not sure which Washington you are referring to – but I would never advise a student to consider University of Washington as a safety. It is getting more rigorous in admissions every year. </p>
<p>A smart kid should understand statistics a bit – he should be aware that sometimes you roll the dice and come up with zippo. I would insist that he have one Happy College that is truly a safety but also truly nice so he has that in his back pocket. Good luck</p>
<p>S1 was the good student /procrastinator all the way through college.
He had a heavy load…18-19 credit hrs./sem. worked 18-20 hours at p/t job (soph,jr.sr years) and was in NROTC which required getting up for PT at 5 a.m. three times/week plus lots of other out-of-class duties. He couldn’t be on top of everything all the time but evenso, he generally waited until it was crunch time to get it done. He always managed to do it somehow. He was not an eng. major but did have to take Engineering Calc. and Physics classes.</p>
<p>His motto was:
Sleep is overrated</p>
<p>Also, one more thing I’d like to add. High school is really boring, and it’s probably a lot more boring if your son can coast on through like that and have nice stats like he does. That is, he probably doesn’t feel the need to try harder, why should he? He’s doing fine the way he’s doing now. And you probably won’t see anything different, since if he ever does you won’t be around.</p>
<p>I’d expect that he would kick it up a notch since he knows he has to in college. It’s true that a lot of students can’t make the leap, but this almost never happens with top students (unless somehow the stats are rigged and don’t show his true abilities/potential). So I say you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>It sounds like your son really carries a heavy load, especially if he does IB (and the dreaded Extended Essay) along with all of that AP. With all of his ECs on top of it, the procrastinating tendency could make things tough for college applications. He probably won’t want to do it…but encourage him to get through as much essay drafting as he can over the summer.</p>
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<p>This brings up a good point. If he really does have serious procrastination/ time management issues he may not complete all the applications and the question as to whether he should or shouldn’t attend these more rigorous colleges - or is even seriously interested in some of them - may just disappear on its own. This is what happened with my own procrastinating/engineering S, who, fortunately, would have been happy at our state flagship and was accepted/is attending his first choice OOS, both of which are very good second tier schools but nowhere near Ivy caliber. ;)</p>
<p>On the other hand, DS LOST his merit aid when his GPA fell below the required 3.0 GPA due to continued procrastination/time management issues during his first few semesters, so there can be serious repercussions besides completely failing out of school (although most of it was replaced with grant due to finl need). Then again, he has Aspergers so his issues are presumably more sever and not easily or quickly corrected; he definitely puts in much more effort now than he did in hs, when he was able to coast through and still pull off good grades. Now, I’m just glad he is passing all his classes and is at least close to 3.0 even if he does not seem to be reaching his academic potential. And is having a positive college experience…</p>
<p>My husband was very much a top student at his high school which was not at all competitive in academics. No AP courses, only about a third of the kids even went to college, and most of them to local schools. He was one of the very few to “go away” for college, and one of not even a handful to go to an rigorous college.</p>
<p>His midterm grades were horrendous that first term. He had two C’s and two D’s, taking only 4 courses. In his case, he sat down and dropped everything except studying and getting help. He visited the TA’s regularly, asked for help from those who were doing well, and worked his tail off for the first time in his life. The shock of doing poorly jolted him into getting good study habits and putting his nose to the grindstone, things he did not need to do with the slow pace and easier courses he had at high school. He managed to get a 2.5 average that first term, but at that school, first semester grades are only reported on a P/F basis. Apparently, he was not the only one to get hit by the rigor of the curriculum, so the college gave the students a semester’s grace.</p>
<p>He graduated with honors. By his fourth year, he was taking the most difficult courses, including graduate level ones, and acing them. But there were those who were no longer at the school after a bad first year. They just could get their acts together. For some kids, it is a wake up call to pull out the mental reserves. FOr others. it’s just too much work and not worth it. To be accepted to these schools, the students ALL can make it. It’s a matter of priorities.</p>
<p>Colorado, He has been working on his long and short common app essays daily, with his older sister (BC’12) as his mentor, but his IB extended essay? Oh heavens, the first draft isn’t due until mid-October. A true procrastinator would never begin it this early! Thanks for the heads-up…</p>
<p>cpt, great story and lesson to be learned…</p>
<p>Interesting about U of W (Seattle). He does have Cal Poly SLO and Santa Clara as safeties also.</p>
<p>Scans, thanks for your feedback. I DO feel he is too heavy on top tier schools and hopefully he will see that as well.</p>
<p>Thank you, hadsed.</p>
<p>I remember reading one of Perri Klass’s books - I think the one about her first year of med school and how she thought she’d finally have to be cured of her procrastinating ways (she made it through Harvard just fine), but alas, it turned out that even med school exams can be crammed for. Sometimes if you are really, really smart you can get away with it.</p>
<p>My son was not exactly a procrastinator, but he wasn’t a really hard worker either. He’s bright and in High School he could get by without working real hard. We were definately nervous when he went off to college. Part of our clever plan was to steer him towards schools with a reputation for students working hard, anti-party schools if you will. We were thrilled when he applied and was accepted ED at Swarthmore! We don’t really know how hard he worked or when he got his work done (he was up until 3 am finishing a paper the night before we picked him up for summer vacation) but he got through the year with all As and Bs. My guess is your son will be fine.</p>
<p>Many kids who do super well in high school and are quick learners, very smart, lots of good background learning from family do not have to work very hard or study much to do well in high school. That is a problem for some of these kids because some really don’t know how to work. I feel that my 4th child, is better prepared for college, than his siblings because he has always had to work hard, study, take notes, be organized, not get behind. He is not a quick study and cannot do things at the last minute and do them well. He is truly the tortoise, plodding his way through the course, but he does learn the material very well, and his notes can be archived for future students, they are so thorough and organized. He knows he has to review the material and knows when to ask for help because it happens enough time.</p>
<p>Go Dawgs! :D</p>
<p>D1 was not as much of a procrastinator as your son, but she did often do “just enough” in high school. She definitely stepped up her game when she went to college, and has posted a 3.96 GPA through her sophomore year. In my opinion there were three things that contributed:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Fewer ECs her first year of college. That long list of high school ECs take a lot of time! She picked up more by her sophomore year, but by then she had established good study habits.</p></li>
<li><p>She knew she had to take responsibility. In her case, she did.</p></li>
<li><p>She met a boyfriend who is a very diligent student :D</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Interesting about U of W (Seattle)</p>
<p>UW is very, very much a safety. Out-of-state students who can pay full freight are in very high demand here, and many in-state students can no longer afford the tuition, even if they do get in. He is well above the 75th percentage in both GPA and SATs. </p>
<p>He’s a shoo-in.</p>
<p>Having said that, it is getting more and more difficult for UW students to complete in four years. Classes are really full, and the cutbacks are very real. If this is a concern, Santa Clara is definitely a better bet.</p>
<p>As for his work habits, he sounds like he is in college now.</p>
<p>Don’t you just love it when parents brag about their kids “decent” (meaning amazing) stats on CC?</p>