<p>I have to agree with the earlier poster who said the boy’s PSAT scores (at 170) are not high. Maybe his mom doesn’t realize that a perfect score is 240. I’m sure he could get into a college that will fit his needs, his ability, and be happy there IF he will work. </p>
<p>With that PSAT, his low GPA, and his lazy, apathetic work ethic, he needs to change his attitude fast. He needs a reality check, LadyArwyn. He won’t like you when you give it to him, but you will be doing him a huge favor in the long run. My parents have given me and my sisters healthy doses of “reality checks” and we didn’t like them, but they have helped us SO much!!!
Good luck helping him understand that work is what gets us where we want to go.</p>
<p>Folks, take it easy on the rhetoric. The lady is just trying to help her son…no need to be harsh.</p>
<p>Is it possible for him to take summer school to pass the English classes he failed (I made my daughter do this twice and it was a great motivator)? Or sign him up for dual enrollment in CC classes to keep him motivated.</p>
<p>And since he is only 16, why not have him retake those classes in the regular school year to replace the grades…you can do that in Virginia. He’ll have time to recover some grades, and still graduate at 18.</p>
<p>Slacker or not, the big question is whether he is ready to be on his own in college where he will have to be responsible for his own time management and academic work. If he’s mature enough for that then he may thrive. If he’s not, he will fail. And being an extra year younger than everyone else is not an advantage if you are living away from home.</p>
<p>All that being said, I believe there are colleges for student’s with lower grades. Some schools rely more on SATs so make him take the SAT, and take it over if necessary.</p>
<p>Talk to your son and find out what he thinks is the best outcome for him…does he want to go away to school? What does he want to study? What are his goals?</p>
<p>Check out the Parent Forum…there are several similar threads and lots of help from Parents who have been there and done that. And don’t stress too much…it will work out.</p>
<p>Although he might be “smart”…he lacks motivation. In the real world, you need both smartness and the right attitude in order to succeed in Engineering and Law or whatever he needs to do.</p>
<p>Attitude is just important as intelligence. There are a crap load of people smarter than he is, honestly, but they choose to work hard as well.</p>
<p>Sorry but your son needs to wake up. Sorry about the injury by the way, that definitely doesn’t help the recovery at all.</p>
<p>It may surprise you to know that some of the same instructors teach at both CC & flagship U–same curriculum just smaller classes with more individual attention at the CCs & lower price tags. That was the experience with our D who attended CC for 3 semesters & was able to transfer to a great competitve private U where she is THRIVING! She’s also taking summer school at flagship U this summer (because CC doesn’t offer German). </p>
<p>CCs are greatly underrated and really gems–you get a lot for the low price and it allows the student to make important choices and decisions while getting a transcript that will get the attention of the Us the student is interested in attending. That’s the path that has worked for us. Our D was singled out by one of her CC teachers as the brightest & most inspirational student she’s EVER taught in her decades of teaching. She didn’t meet many like-minded peers while she was attending CC (tho she did try–including attempts at joining ECs but they didn’t have many). She found CC a fascinating experience & it saved us a LOT of $, since she got a lot of general requirements out of the way & they were mostly accepted when she transferred.</p>
<p>Oh yea, D had a lot of reasons she got low grades, including documented chronic health conditions for which she was heavlily penalized in HS, but it still didn’t leave her with a lot of attractive options for college until after she went to CC & proved she could do excellent work (she got a 3.8 her 1st semester there). She continued to do well at CC & is now doing great at the private U & flagship U. We can be understanding of our kids as they overcome adversity but we do them no favors if we don’t remain realistic about their options.</p>
<p>It seems like you are just giving excuses for your son, no offense. I have been reading the whole thread. I don’t understand why he hasn’t been doing his homework. When he was younger didn’t you do his homework with him or try to help him or check it to see if he did it? You may want to check his homework, but he is too old for that now. LOL. I know some friends parents check to see if there kids did all the homework and they’re in high school still. The parents can tell because it will say the missing homework on the progress reports. He is too old for that though and needs to prove himself at a CC. My mom was a A’s and B’s student and went to CC first. Her parents weren’t rich and it saved a lot of money. You aren’t dumb if you go to a CC first! It seems like your in denial no offense again and I’m sure he can go to a four year university. But he should go to a CC first, why waste all that money for a good college. If he drops out, at least you didn’t pay a lot of money. What makes you think he’ll do the homework in college, if not high school? I’m sorry for being so harsh, but reality stinks!</p>
<p>early_college, I do my homework now that I’m at a CC and I didn’t do mine in high school. There are lots of people out there who don’t take high school seriously and have to make it up at a CC, and many of them are successful.</p>
<p>Stop being so close-minded and take a look at the UC transfers forum. The people there are just as motivated as anyone else here.</p>
<p>My S had a similar history in high school. He would get perfect scores on exams but was lucky to get a C in the class because he often didn’t do the homework (why should he if he could get 100 on the test in his opinion). He almost failed AP english because he didn’t feel like writing a paper on an author he didn’t care for, then got a 5 on the AP exam as well as a perfect score on the SAT (1600 at that time). His college opportunities were limited due to his slacker nature. Luckily, he was interested in theater and found a program that looked at his great theater work and not at his grades. Unfortunately, many of the great schools he was interested in (and could have done the work for) such as Northwestern and SUNY-Purchase, would not even look at him. I think your son will have to scale down his ambitions until he proves himself.</p>
<p>Reading through the thread and other posts, I get the feeling that there is a tendency around here (meaning CC and perhaps the U.S.) that values natural intelligence over hard work and patience, hence the OP’s insistence that being a ‘slacker’ but ‘smart’ still qualifies his son as deserving to be in a 4-yr university.</p>
<p>Here are a few of her quotes that gives me this impression:</p>
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<p>The reason why a lot of colleges implements “holistic” admissions and asks for personal statements is because they are looking for students that have strong values such as the commitment, resilience and mental toughness to overcome adversity. I think the maturity to work hard and do the required work despite disliking the subject or teacher, or even when one thinks the materials are way below one’s competency level, is one of those values. This is also a value that would put him in good stead when he pursues his career after school. If the OP’s son lacks these values, then perhaps he has to learn humility the hard way by first proving himself at a CC, despite his lack of respect for it.</p>
<p>To the OP’s remark:</p>
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<p>Perhaps it is time to tell your son people don’t get everything that they want in life, you have buckle down, do what is necessary regardless of one’s wishes and to work for it.</p>
<p>I’m not close minded. It depends on the person and from what I hear it doesn’t sound like the guy is willing to change. I never said people who go to CC are not motivated, my mother went to a CC. She did her homework all the time too! That’s why I think the OP’s son should go to CC and do well and transfer.</p>
<p>Well he had been begging for quite awhile, and it really was the “resposibility” incentive “de jour”, but after all that, he didn’t even ask to drive it! Well, not for quite awhile.</p>
<p>Okay, I get what you’re saying. But at this point we’ve set a course and we think we’ve found the answer.</p>
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<p>DS has the 16 credits already, if you combine his GPA from his earlier school (3.4 - 28 credits) and the GPA at his current school (3.18 - 12 credits), so his overall GPA is 3.33</p>
<p>All he has to do is finish his senior with nothing less than a C- and he has automatic admission to his second choice school. (#1 is/was U Colorado, but we have no clue how we could pay the $26k/year out-of-state tuition)</p>
<p>Okay, some answers to questions from earlier posts…</p>
<p>1) No, he was not skipped a grade. He started school in California, where the kindergarten cut-off was December 2 - his birthday - so he was 4 1/2 when he started kindergarten. Now we’re in a state with a September cutoff, so he is a year or two younger than his grade peers but he has never skipped a grade.</p>
<p>2) Boston is out. He really doesn’t want to go anywhere east of the Rockies.</p>
<p>I am a smart slacker too, I had a 3.06 GPA after junior year and could’ve done a whole lot better if it weren’t for my “end of the year slides” every year (a couple D’s and F’s in a few classes 4th quarter).</p>
<p>Make sure that your son does his very best for just the first quarter or semester. I managed to get a 3.5 GPA first semester (3.7 first quarter) and I believe that 3.7 GPA helped me get into much better schools that I deserve too (I also applied early action so those schools only saw my 1st quarter grades and saw the potential in me for better grades).</p>
<p>My advice would be to ease up on the course load a bit. Junior year I took 3 AP classes, senior year I only took 1 AP class and took a few more CP classes which can help with the GPA. At this point, it’s not about course difficulty, it’s about grades.</p>
<p>Also focus on the test scores as they will be extra important for you.</p>
<p>At most colleges, you will sooner or later run into a professor you neither like nor can avoid. It’s just a fact of life that you have to learn to work with people you do not like, and you cannot afford to just “blow them off”. </p>
<p>Look, in all honesty I think your son needs a hitch in the Marines, I mean two years enlistment. Yes it will be rough, he will start out thinking he is too good for being an enlisted man in Basic Training, he will think most of his platoon are jerks, especially his DI. But this guy, from what I read, has a very wrong concept of the world. He seems to think that a good self-image and a superficial interest in sophisticated sciences means he can skate through life with no troubles. If he does not wake up fast, he will end up waiting tables at a Taco Cabana and angry at the world for not recognizing his brilliance; I’ve seen it happen. I went to Baylor long ago, and ran into a guy who cruised to a Masters in Math - but he was delivering pizzas for a living because he never learned how to work in a structured environment, or how to get along with established authority figures. </p>
<p>A tour in the Marines will toughen him up physically and mentally, and teach him how to use all his faculties. He will learn why you have to work for anything worthwhile, why having “potential” means nothing until you do the work to make it happen for real. Also, many schools will consider military service a plus and give him a chance for admission, that right now wouldn’t take him under any condition. </p>
<p>I know that sounds harsh, but at this point he’s really damaged - badly - his academic options. The first and most urgent action is for him to understand the damage he’s done to himself, and start working to repair his record.</p>
