Why some kids don't live up to expectations in college

Parents Forum
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<p>I am constantly seeing recurring threads dealing with my a high performing kid didn't do well. Parents seem to blame themselves. Administrators seem to scratch their heads in disbelief, and kids seem to lose confidence.</p>

<p>First,to all you parents: It isn't your fault.Say that five times!</p>

<p>Secondly, After teaching college for many years, I have come to several observations.</p>

<p>Yes, college is harder than high school,but the work itself, especially if the kid took a lot of APs, isn't that much harder. Thus, what is happening?</p>

<p>Frankly, I actually feel that all the emphasis on SATs and GPA misses two very crucial elements of college success and maybe even more important than grades and scores: attitude and time management.</p>

<p>In high school, kids are spoon fed. Even AP courses are somewhat spoon fed. College, kids are 100% on their own. They have to do the work and keep up with their subject. Sadly, no one is there to say "do your homework." </p>

<p>I really feel sorry for the brilliant kid who easily skated through high school without doing much work and then comes to college. That same kid didn't develop the work ethic of his peers and now much suddenly "sink or swim." I ran into those types of kids a lot and usually they have a very hard time in college. Too bad there isn't a section on the SAT that tests work ethic!</p>

<p>In addition, many professors curve their tests. Thus, to do well, kids have to be among the top of the curve. In high school, a 90 can be an "A." If 40% of the kids get
"As," so be it. This may NOT be the case in college. Each professor sets their own curve. I normally gave about 10-15% "As."</p>

<p>Moreover, there are many numerous distractions such as boy/girlfriends, parties, movies, LAN parties, alchohol, etc. These distractions may actually be the toughest part of college It takes a lot of will power to resist these events. </p>

<p>Even worse, the saying"misery loves company" is quite true. I have seen many kids who aren't doing well constantly trying to get the successful kids to party with them..</p>

<p>This is NOT to say that kids can't have a social life too. However, it takes a LOT of time management skills in order to navigate both the academic waters and the social scene. I know one girl who actually penciled in her calendar when she could spend time socializing and when projects needed to be completed. She then allocated time each day for each major project so that it would be completed by the due date. This may be a bit too much time management,but some time management is very crucial.</p>

<p>It is also crucial to seek help when things start going downhill. Sadly, too many kids wait until a week or so before the final to start trying to fix their dismal performance. If a student doesn't do well on a quiz or on midterms, they should be seeking weekly tutoring and going into the professor on a regular basis. Every professor that I have met is willing to be of help. Sadly, many students don't do this, and many professors bemoan that vastly too few students take advantage of the professor's office hours.</p>

<p>In all the years that I taught, I can only remember once or twice when students came into me during office hours for help. I have met many other professors who echoed the same sentiments.</p>

<p>Bottom Line: attidude determines altitude. It isn't the parent's fault. What is needed are rules that the kid has to live by. I would form a contract with students that they need to work at least two hours for every course, need to get weekly tutoring if they don't do well on a test or feel that they didn't understand an assignment, and a guarantee to do all work. If kids don't live up to these standards then tough love may be in order such as pulling them out of school and other punishments..</p>

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<p>Can I be a bit of a devil’s advocate?</p>

<p>Is it possible a student didn’t learn time mgmt because he/she had a parent who was managing their time for them in HS, so that they never learned the skill? In which case, maybe it is partly the parents’ fault? I only say this to throw out there that helicopter parents should quit hovering in HS so that the kids are better prepared to navigate all these demands on their own.</p>

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<p>Agree with both taxguy and Youdon’t say…but one thing not mentioned that may contribute to the phenomena…high schools with rampant grade inflation, hand holding, extra credit, credit for HW assignments, etc…</p>

<p>My daughter just finished her freshman year and came home last week to ask me the following question:
“Why are my friends from high school doing better (GPA wise) in college than they did here?”…and these are not the highest performing kids, mind you…</p>

<p>Our high school is reknowned for grade deflation and no breaks to the kids for anything…made the kids miserable in high school and in the college admissions process, but I guess it helped down the road…</p>

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<p>Another thing at work, especially if a kid goes to a super selective college–maybe you’re finally in a peer group where your best isn’t going to get you the string of As that you’re used to getting in high school.</p>

<p>Harvard is chock full of high scoring, high gpa students–but 50% of them will be in the bottom half of the class. All you can do is do your best and be satisfied with the results.</p>

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<p>

One of the collateral benefits of my D spending 18-20 hours per week in ballet classes & rehearsals by the time she hit 11th grade was that it made time management at college a cinch when she was dancing only 4 hours per week. As it was, staying up until 12:30am working problem sets for Calc became the norm and getting up in time to make a 7:20am “A period” class was an ugly exercise that involved a hoist and a crow-bar, but come college the transition and self-direction was relatively easy. </p>

<p>Written assignments in college took much longer than their high school counterparts to do well but problem sets were problem sets.</p>

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<p>Taxguy, thanks for posting this, it gives me the opportunity to talk about something that has been worrying me. My D will start as a freshman at a university art school next year. Based on her portfolio/personal interviews she was award a very prestigious full ride scholarship. She is an A+ in attitude, but a C- in time management. She insists that once she is away from the hovering of her dad and me that she will be just fine, but I have some concerns. She is a procrastinator and a magical thinker - always believing everything will work out for her, even if she doesn’t attend to it. So I worry that with the pressure to do well because of the scholarship, and the heightened expectations it brings, she may find the transition pretty hard. Should I suggest some of the measures you talk about before she even starts, or wait to see if she has a problem. Have you had any experience with any support or mentoring ideas that work for new freshman who need to up the time management quotient?</p>

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<p>I agree with most of the posters. My teacher mom used to say all the time “kids need to learn to fail before they can learn to suceed.” I totally agree with this. It can be as simple as beginning in middle school. I can’t tell you how many “moms and dads” drop off their kids gym clothes (which they forgot) because if the kid doesn’t have his clothes he gets an F for the day. When the kid calls me the first time to ask me to bring something to them, I say to my kids “so sorry, you need to write yourself a note or put the gym bag in front of the door so you don’t forget it. I’m not bringing them to you.” When junior leaves the lights running on his car and the battery is dead after school I say, “So sorry, find someone with jumper cables.” We had a rule, you loose your cell phone you don’t get another one until the contract is up and you’ve earned a new free phone so you loose it, it’s gone" even though everyone knows cell phone are really for the parents LOL and it’s a pain in the butt more for the parent. Kids get a grade they think is unfair, or get lost in the middle of Algebra, I say, “Go talk to your teacher tomorrow” even though my husband or I could probably sit down and help the kid re-learn whatever they didn’t learn the first time around. I might say the next night “Did you talk to the teacher yet” but I won’t lift a phone or type an e-mail to the teacher. The kids need to get comfortable asking for help from other adults and to use the services available to them. All these seemingly mindless things begun at an early age teach our children time management and personal responsibility. Mentoring is all well and good, but the real lessons start long before college. I’m not perfect, and my kids aren’t perfect and I worry just like anyone through their freshman year, but I know that they own the process and I did everything I could to “launch” them from the nest. If you ask my oldest the hardest thing about going to college he will say and I’ve heard him say, “learning how to balance everything.” If you ask me what the hardest thing is was for me it was to come to the realization that if my kids get a B they got the B I didn’t get the B and they need to learn how to get the A on their own. I could do that for them, but I should not do that for them. That is how I view it. I don’t love that sometimes I have B+ kids, but I have kids that I’m not totally afraid to send to college.</p>

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<p>“In all the years that I taught, I can only remember once or twice when students came into me during office hours for help. I have met many other professors who echoed the same sentiments.”</p>

<p>That is amazing. Hopefully this is a message we’ve made clear to D2 as she enters school… H and I were both undergrad teaching assistants in college, and reiterated this again and again. D1 readily agrees that it has made a big difference to her; she’s finishing sophomore year with her 4.0 intact (and by my screenname, you can guess her 2 majors…) She was the one with the time management skills in high school. H and I are worried that her little sis doesn’t quite have the same focus. at all. Just as brilliant and amazing, but she makes things difficult for herself by procrastinating past the point of panic.</p>

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<p>Other considerations:
[ul][<em>]College’s distance from home: some young adults may need a more gradual tansition from a family setting to independent living.
[</em>]Student-to-faculty ratio: some students require a more personalized education experience; others are more self-starters.
[li]College isn’t right for everyone: some students would excel in vocational as opposed to academic pursuits; applicable to some ‘high performers’ – society needs master craftsmen/women in a number of specialties.</p>[/li]
<p>Related:</p>

<p>[list][li][Four-Fifths</a> of U.S. High School Graduates Not Ready for College](<a href=“Politics - Bloomberg”>Politics - Bloomberg) [*][Unacceptable:</a> Many Teens Aren’t Emotionally Ready for College](<a href=“http://www.edutopia.org/dispatches-redefine-college-prep]Unacceptable:”>Unacceptable: Many Teens Aren't Emotionally Ready for College | Edutopia)[/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>[/list]</p>

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<p>This struck a big chord with me. It was touched on in another thread (about merit aid renewal and ‘panic’ time). It is so true. My daughter is one of those who for some reason is reluctant to go for help. She is doing great overall (mostly As, some Bs but 2 Cs ) but struggled mightily with organic chem 2. The first day of class last semester she was already worried about the class. When she told me I said go to office hours, go to tutoring. She didn’t. She struggled and struggled with the class all semester ending up quite distressed. Even though she was in a real tiz about the class she *still *never went for help. She and a friend would study together and another friend would try and help them (he had passed it, but with a C). Eventually it was so far into the semester that she felt it was too late. She ended up withdrawing (her first and hopefully last W) just before the deadline (it looked unlikely she could get more than a D and a minimum C is required for her major). To me the most stupid thing is that now she has to retake a whole semester of a subject she really hates (it is a requirement for her major) while if she had just sucked it up and gone for help she could hopefully have got at least a C and she could move on. I don’t get why she couldn’t see that. That ‘magical thinking’ another poster mentioned I guess. Really frustrating to me. I posed the question in the other thread of how to persuade a reluctant student to go for help. The response was that you can teach them many things but some things take maturity or must be learned the hard way. I really hope she has learned a lesson from this. Not holding my breath though.</p>

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<p>This thread is one that rings here at this house too. We had the kid who was a HARD worker, very well organized, and just did what she was supposed to do. She had a great GPA and was VERY highly ranked in her class. She couldn’t crack 1250 in the CR/Math SAT, however. She was accepted at her first choice school with a small small amount of merit money (only the HIGH SAT kids got the good merit awards). She is a diligent NOW as she was in high school. She isn’t getting all A’s but she still has higher than a 3.0 GPA as a junior with a double major in engineering and biology. Her school is challenging and to be honest, I think she could have done well anywhere. BUT her reach school didn’t look TWICE at her application, I’m sure, because her SAT scores weren’t above 1400 CR/Math or higher (reach school was Davidson). Too bad, because they lost a great kid (yes I’m biased) but you know…she’s better off where she is…not much of an engineering program at Davidson compared to where she is.</p>

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<p>We just used a gradual approach with our son and that worked well. I don’t believe in throwing the kid into the pool to teach them to swim. Show them how to swim a little at a time and give them the resources in the form of advice to where to get it and they will get it.</p>

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<p>"I would form a contract with students that they need to work at least two hours for every course, need to get weekly tutoring if they don’t do well on a test or feel that they didn’t understand an assignment, and a guarantee to do all work. If kids don’t live up to these standards then tough love may be in order such as pulling them out of school and other punishments… "</p>

<p>How would you know and enforce this? Sort of a pledge? I like the idea, especially for kids on “parents probation”, but I’d rather have a school professional make the recommendation. Maybe the "student support center "or whatever.</p>

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<p>It all comes back, doesn’t it? Yesterday I had a similar conversation with D2: “Second semester was SO hard. I’m mad because I could’ve done better…as most of my 1st yr classmates…and they are ALL so smart!” This is the child who (we were told by the admissions officer), when interviewed for 6th grade at private secondary school, proclaimed that she was looking for a “new challenge.” Yes, she worked her bottom off in high school and couldn’t understand why some of her classmates didn’t seem to care and do the same. Now she is at a challenging university…still loving it…gearing up to take some core engineering courses in the fall…and working at the help desk in a dorm. Well, she got what she wanted… :wink: I reminded her of that…and she acknowledged it. :)</p>

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<p>taxguy, Thank you so much for sharing your observations. </p>

<p>May I add one more item to the list from my own experience? I was very lonely at college for first few months. I had gone to a very small high school and while I was very social in hs, I did not know how to make new friends at my huge college.</p>

<p>It was terribly embarrassing to me and I told no one. It was easier to stay locked in my room than to walk across that big campus to the massive classrooms where I knew no one and I could see that others were making friends. At night I’d go read somewhere alone while telling my roommate I was going out with “friends.”</p>

<p>I finally did make some friends (including one I married!) but by then I was so far behind in class that I didn’t know how to catch up. One bad decision after another. It happened so fast and I didn’t even entertain the idea of talking to my professors or TAs.</p>

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<p>My D1 takes full advantage of office hours. Every time I called her, she would tell me she was at some office hour. I was beginning to worry because I thought she was having a hard time. She said, “No, it’s just going to office hours saves me hours of doing it on my own.” </p>

<p>This semester she mistakenly took a 300 level art history class for a grade (really, my fault. I told her not to take it for P/F). They only had 2 tests and one paper. The first test she got a C-, and she felt she couldn’t have studied more for the test. She felt she knew all the answers, but she wasn’t doing it the way the professor wanted it. As a non humanities major, she also didn’t have the history background for reference.<br>
She was very worried with a C in the course it would put a lot of pressure on her other classes. She decided to park outside her professor’s office. She got a B on her second test. For her final research paper, she started working on it a month before it was due, she kept on showing the professor her paper. We don’t know yet what she got on her paper, but she got a B as her final grade. </p>

<p>B is the lowest grade so far for her, but it is the grade she is most proud of. I am also proud of her for not giving up.</p>

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<p>I like taxguy’s advice. I’m not even a parent.</p>

<p>I learned since high school that I had to do everything on my own. My parents NEVER helped me on my high school assignments AND college assignments. I was a young adult. Their parents never went to college, so they had to learn everything on their own too. I needed to develop organizational and time management skills that would help me wherever I chose to live and attend school. I wrote my own college applications (repeated this same process for graduate school). I’m not expecting them to help me with graduate coursework either.</p>

<p>I never discussd my grades with my parents in college. In fact, they never repetitively asked “what is your GPA now?” They didn’t care; it was a given I was going to do well to the best of my abilities. They knew I was smart and could complete my assignments on time. I also knew I wasn’t always going to get straight As, and I had my not-so-good experiences too. You learn from your mistakes. I didn’t have unrealistic expectations. </p>

<p>Sometimes, I think kids should sit down and realize what do they want. Make a list of realistic goals. As someone said earlier, you are not invincible. It’s human to experience failure. Look at these moments as learning opportunities. The earlier you start, the easier you can readjust to any environment.</p>

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<p>As I have read through the previous posts, I don’t recall seeing ‘the reason’ that I personally fell into this category of students. I was not allowed to attend the college of my choice. I had to attend the one that my Mother chose for me. So, initially I didn’t do well, because I didn’t want to be there. For me, being pulled out would have been a treat not a punishment. One of the biggest lessons that I learned from college was to allow my children to pick their college. That lesson has paid off. My d just finished her 1st year at the college of her choice. She experienced some illnesses both semesters, however she stuck it out and did what she had to do to be successful. Why? Because she was where she wanted to be. Had my husband or I chosen her college, she may have used her illness as an excuse and not worked as hard.</p>

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<p>ladyofthehouse, you reminded me to add something else: my parents allowed me to attend the college of my choice. That’s another reason that encouraged me to do my best and work hard.</p>

<p>Sure, some parents want their children to attend their alma maters or schools that appear more prestigious. High school kids are a few years from adulthood. These students need to make their own decisions. It will have a major impact on their personal and professional development.</p>

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<p>Several years ago, when my daughter was still in HS, one of the dads here wrote a post about time management in college (despite searching, I can’t find it now). It talked about viewing college as your “job” and that those 9-5 hours should be spent, not in the dorm room, but in the classroom or in the library studying. I printed out that post at the time and gave it to my daughter before she went to colllege.</p>

<p>She really took the advice to heart. (Her MO in HS was to do far too much last-minute cramming for classes [except for her music], and I knew she couldn’t sustain that in college.) She found keeping a planner has been a life-saver, and she has made a habit of starting research for papers within days of finding out about the assignment; for someone on the quarter system (3 x 10 week quarters), this has been a critical part of her success. Last quarter, she backed off on keeping her planner and found herself scrambling at the end of the quarter, so after that little “experiment”, she’s back to the planner. She’s also found the it invaluable to give herself rewards…tonight she’s going to see the Star Trek movie with some friends, because she achieved her goal of writing more than half of one research paper by noon today.</p>