Worried about my daughter?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi everyone, I'm new to college confidential (although I have been following the forums for quite some time) so, hello! :) I was wondering if I could receive some advice on my D's situation.</p>

<p>D is a junior in high school, and to paraphrase, it hasn't exactly been a smooth ride. Sophomore year she was dealing with health issues and fell into a 6 month depression, which really affected her gpa. I know she was working as hard as she could in the situation, but she ended sophomore year with five B+s and a 3.15 for the year. She was so disappointed at coming so close, with several 89s, and talked repeatedly about wanting to hurt herself because of her grades. I told her not to worry - an improvement junior year could offset this to an extent.
Enter junior year, where D is taking 3 APs (English, Psychology, USH), Honors PreCalculus and Honors Physics, and she was loving it and excelling. She's planning on majoring in English or Psychology, and found her classes both interesting and challenging, and was pulling high As, with strong B's in math (weighted) and Physics. At this point she had about a 4.33.
However, three weeks ago, a close friend of hers committed suicide. My wife and I were wondering why her grades were suddenly dropping so extremely, and why she was losing points in silly things like homework, when she finally confessed to us. She just finished finals today, but regardless of the hours I know she put in, she did not do well in any of them. Even English, the class which she absolutely adores this year, especially in regards to her teacher, fell to an 89.98. (This shocked me more than anything, as she'd never gotten anything less than a 95 in that class.)</p>

<p>Her final grades are </p>

<p>AP Psychology: B+</p>

<p>APUSH C+</p>

<p>AP English: B+</p>

<p>Physics: C+/B-</p>

<p>Math: Dropped - she's taking it over the summer. It was getting too low.</p>

<p>GPA: 3.667</p>

<p>D is very capable and bright, and it breaks my heart to see how miserable these grades are making her. A lot of our friends have told us to 'back off' and let her handle it, but she is in a weak place right now, and I'm worried for her and the future, and so I come to CC :) I know 1 1/2 semesters of subpar grades will be a lot for colleges to accept, so if she were to get all A's from this point forward, as well as senior year with a challenging course load, what colleges could she consider?</p>

<p>SAT I: 2320<br>
SAT II: 800 (Literature), 780 (USH), and she will be taking Biology and French in June.</p>

<p>EC-Wise, I'm not sure if it's enough to compensate: internationally ranked for DECA, President of CSF at school, ranked in top 2.9% of voice students in California, several law/music internships, 300+ hours volunteering with the Red Cross, sells piano music compositions under a major recording label, interning at the Stanford Child Development facility and working with kids there (2010-present), singing with the Stanford choir, a lot of music accolades and music-related activities/groups/competitions at school and as a solo vocalist.</p>

<p>Legacy at Columbia, NYU, UPenn Wharton, Notre Dame, University of Maryland College Park. Relative is a professor at U of M.</p>

<p>I know D was previously interested in the Top 20s, U of M, UCs, Duke, BU, BC, JHU, etc., but I'm not sure how possible those are at this point.</p>

<p>We're all in a somewhat anxious state right now, and any advice at all for how to proceed and what colleges to start looking at would be greatly appreciated. :)</p>

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<p>I know it’s hard because she’s obviously very bright and has outstanding scores but you need to worry more about her mental health and well being than her college admissions. Does she need to take some time off and regroup? Losing a close friend to suicide on top of her own history of depression is a major concern. Maybe she could go into treatment and put school and activities on hold for awhile.</p>

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<p>Your daughter’s friend commits suicide and her grades fall and she’s had a bout with depression and this is the question you are asking?</p>

<p>I think you ALL need a bit of therapy and would advise some family counseling leading to some break out sessions so that your daughter can get some emotional balance and you can get some help learning how to manage your expectations of others.</p>

<p>In the meantime, I hope your daughter is all right.</p>

4

<p>I do know that you are allowed to submit information with your applications, on reasons why grades are not where you want them to be, especially if there is a glaring shortfall. The guidance counselor can submit this information and perhaps your D can write something in her essay about the challenges in HS. BUT, I would not be worrying about this as much as I would be making sure that D gets some support and counseling. Suicide affects everyone, but for some reason, adolescents handle it differently and it can be pretty difficult. Speak with your school and then get some counseling for your D. </p>

<p>It sounds like you may be shock and men try to handle problems by solving them, because they have a hard time handling emotions. I know your heart is in the right place, but make sure your heart and head are in the same place right now. I will say a prayer for your entire family. Hugs.</p>

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<p>Thank you so much for your responses.
I understand it might seem like I’m worrying about the college aspect more than my D’s health, but all she has talked to me about for the past week (and really for the past year) is how badly she wants to get into a good school and pursue what she loves and just get some new blood in her life. If she wanted to take a break, regroup, maybe go to community college, I would completely stand behind her. The only reason I’m pursuing the subject this way is because this is her dream, and her grades were a major reason for her depression. If there were any way for her to get into a college she loved after really applying herself, it would make her world.
She is currently in therapy and says it’s been making a significant difference, which is absolute music to my ears.</p>

6

<p>Ok, I think you need to chillax the anxiety right now and start by looking at what she NEEDS in a school. </p>

<p>Will she major in voice or other music? Or will that be a sideline? You are in California, but other than the UC’s you have named a bunch of eastern schools. Do you really want her on the opposite side of the country? Does she? What about size? City vs rural? What is important to you and to her? What about cost? Merit scholarships? Need-based aid?</p>

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Sometimes we think that making a change such as this is going to fix problems we have in life that we cannot, in reality, run away from. Hopefully this is not the case for your D.</p>

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<p>First of all, I wish your entire family the best of luck with everything going on for you right now.</p>

<p>In regards to college, submit something about her circumstances with the apps. Admissions offices are really understanding and will evaluate her on the entire situation as a whole. Her SAT is incredible (Ivy material) and her ECs are amazing as well. I think she can really have a good chance at most schools she applies to.</p>

<p>As far as the grades go, have you spoken to the teachers about the 89s? They are generally more than happy to work with students to pull them up; after all, students grades reflect the teachers as well.</p>

<p>Maybe take a gap year to get things under control, take community college courses and establish a good GPA there.</p>

<p>All in all, good luck with everything!!</p>

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<p>I am going to agree with Sylvan here - if I had the UC’s in my backyard I would look no further. They are great schools, affordable and in your situation you would be in a better position to provide support to your daughter. It is clear from her SAT scores that she is extremely capable. Admissions offices will see that as well. I would shoot for the higher ranked schools within the UC system.</p>

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<p>@sylvan I do think that might be one of the main reasons she wanted to leave home… But every time she has visited the EC she’s loved it. However W and I are determined to keep her in California.
We don’t qualify for need-based aid, but she was interested in pursuing some music scholarships, and she’s said she was interested in pursuing a major/minor in music.
Size-wise I think any type of school would be fine. D is a fan of big, sprawling, urban schools, but we’ve also agreed that it might be safer to have a campus.
tl;dr we aren’t exactly sure what we want in a school besides what D has said, which is basically a “big name” school on the east coast.</p>

<p>@carbs Thank you for the wishes :slight_smile: Everything you said means a lot. I’ll talk to D about taking a gap year; it might be the most beneficial thing for her.</p>

<p>@Harvest That’s great to hear! I was worried about UCs being too fixated on GPA, but hopefully admissions offices can see that she is capable as well.</p>

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<p>I admit that when I first began reading the post, I thought the OP was going to ask how to support his daughter’s emotional health, how to be sure the friend’s suicide did not impact her future behavior (teen suicides unfortunately can lead to copycat acts by depressed friends), etc. I was shocked to see that the bulk of his post related to disappointment with her grades and how that could affect college admissions.</p>

<p>OP, I agree with the above. The most important thing is your daughter’s emotional health. Just because she says one thing this week does not mean that she is in a good place. She has a history of depression and has admitted to thoughts of hurting herself in the past due to anxiety about her grades! Her college prospects should really be way down on the priority list imo, though I get it that you don’t want her chances for future success to be irrevocably damaged. You say she is going to counseling, which is good, but I agree with poetgirl that you and your DW would also benefit from therapy to learn how to best support her. I would be very very careful not to give her the impression you are disappointed with her or that you have expectations for her that she is just not capable of meeting at this time in her life.</p>

<p>And I, too, wish her the best.</p>

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<p>@Nrdsb4 I’m so sorry to give that impression in the title. I care about my daughter dearly; we’ve emphasized to her many times that we love her and are so proud of everything she has accomplished, and she is much more to us than her grades. I just know this is so important to her and has been consuming her thoughts more than anything, and I want to make sure she gets into a school that will make her happy and nurture her talents, if possible.
I will look into counseling for me and my DW, thank you to both of you for the recommendation. I’d never considered this, but it seems like it would be a good idea in the circumstances.</p>

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<p>Glad to hear that your D is getting therapy and that it is helping her. She is obviously a very bright girl and talented as well, and I understand her fear that she has torpedoed her future and how this affects her feelings of self worth. I’m sure that being surrounded by other students increasingly obsessed with college applications only exacerbates this. I think that she probably needs reassurance that she CAN get her life back to what SHE considers to be “on track,” and that there are good schools out there that will want her. One thing I think you should tell her is that she doesn’t have to apply her senior year. Her mental health is the first priority. She can take a gap year. Many kids do. That would give her time to rebuild.</p>

<p>I also understand your desire to try to fix things for her if you can. We all want the best for our kids, and we want to make things turn out well for them if we can.</p>

<p>That said, it may be that gently refocusing her on a broader range of schools would serve her better in the long run. Not necessarily because she couldn’t get in to any of her current target schools, but because they might better serve her full needs.</p>

<p>One thing that is immediately apparent about the places you’ve mentioned so far is that most of them are big schools. I really think that your D should consider LACs. I think that, coming from California, she probably isn’t as likely to consider them, but the more intimate, sometimes more nurturing atmosphere could be better for her than a large, anonymous U. </p>

<p>I think that you should be looking at schools like Pomona, Scripps, St. Olaf, Wellesley, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, Oberlin, Earlham, College of Wooster, Bowdoin, Davidson, Connecticut College…there are a lot of good schools out there that are not big universities and are definitely not a step down from places already on your list. (Is some cases, a step UP. :slight_smile: )</p>

<p>Edited to add: numerous cross-postings. I agree with this:</p>

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<p>Lots of great advise here. Your DD might want to also consider a GAP year. She could do something constructive, volunteer in the music community and continue to be involved in that area if it feeds her soul. Some kids do better if they have a year to decharge before they start college life.</p>

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<p>I can’t stress enough that she needs to be in a good place emotionally before going off to school, rather than hoping the move will make things better. I know it seems like getting in is the hard part but the reality is the academic load can feel overwhelming, the social changes can be difficult, etc. Mental health centers are overwhelmed on many campuses. I have no doubt she will get in somewhere but the focus should on her health and well-being.</p>

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<p>I would also encourage you to research the gap year. There are many threads on this at CC. A friend of ours has a son who worked very, very hard in order to have the best college options. He was offered a spot at Harvard, which he was thrilled to accept. Yet, he was mentally exhausted, and took a gap year to rest, re-energize, and focus on some other endeavors for a while. It was the best thing he could have done! I think it might have been very counterproductive for him to have pushed forward without even skipping a beat after the years of rigor he spent preparing for college. For him it was the right thing because going to college right out of high school isn’t necessarily the best course of action for everyone, regardless of now bright and accomplished they are.</p>

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<p>Your D would be a good candidate for merit aid at some decent LACs. I think you need to give some serious thought to whether a top school (the type she is a legacy for) is really the best fit given the issues she is having now. Family pressure and expectations can be the biggest problem for a kid like her, even if it is the best thing for her to bring her expectations down a notch. But as the parent of one kid who attended one of those types of LACs we are now discussing (and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and loved it), and another who is looking at admissions to higher ranked schools, I can absolutely say that there is very little lost in the “decent LAC” category. It is as much about you and your wife helping adjust her expectations, helping her find a place where she will be happy, and making sure she does NOT feel like she is failing you (her parents) if she ends up at someplace that is not the top schools she has heard of her whole life.</p>

<p>I know you say she wanted a “big name sprawling campus” out east. Has she visisted LACs, though? That type of nurturing environment might be a good fit, and give you and your wife some peace of mind if she goes further away. Some other schools to take a look at with her scores and current GPA if she is willing to look at LACs: St. Olaf and Lawrence (both have good music programs that are accessible to non-majors – Oberlin has good music, but it is NOT as accessible to non-music majors).</p>

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<p>Depression is a recurrent episodic illness. How was last year’s 6 month depression treated? Six months seems like a long time to be depressed. Is her depression treatment resistant? Like so many others, my first thought is the heck with school, get her to a shrink and a therapist and worry about next year’s classes next year. </p>

<p>I disagree that, right now, you discuss gap years and community colleges. Focus on now, the present. Not a year and a half from now. Put the whole school thing on the back burner until summer so that right now you can focus on treatment. If you don’t, the depression returning sooner rather than later is a real possibility.</p>

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<p>I’m so sorry your daughter is having trouble, but it sounds like there is a lot of pressure and stress in her environment, so it’s not surprising. Our kids internalize our expectations over their lifetimes, so just telling her at this point that “she is much more to us than her grades” really isn’t enough to give her permission to relax a little. </p>

<p>I agree with the others that she needs to continue with counseling for her emotional wellness, and perhaps you and your spouse as well to understand how to support her at this time. She’s dealing with the death of a friend, thoughts of leaving her family, friends, and fears of not succeeding in college or even getting into the type of school she dreams of attending. It’s a lot to bear. I would forget discussing colleges for the rest of this year and summer. Let her get her health back, but assure her that there will be a place at a good school for her.</p>

<p>Next fall if she is stronger and handling her school work, you might look at liberal arts colleges on the west coast. I would not want her on the east coast for several reasons. One, it’s too far. You can’t get into a car and be there in a day like you can if she stays west. Our liberal arts schools are also a lot more “laid back” than the same caliber of schools on the east coast, as is our general environment. Schools like Pitzer, Scripps, Whitman College in Washington, University of Puget Sound, University of Oregon (Honor’s Program), and Lewis and Clark in Oregon are places where kids are admitted without four years of straight A’s, and they are strong schools with bright and talented students but also have a supportive environment.</p>

<p>Good luck to your family.</p>

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<p>I don’t know when she’ll be ready for college, but I am hopeful she will be at one point, but I could not agree more strongly with the people who suggested smaller LACs.
I’m at a large university and you have to: 1) have a very caring roommate who has the courage to meddle or 2) commit a serious crime to have anyone know you are struggling emotionally.
GAP year sounds great. Colleges will be more likely to take a chance on someone who has taken serious measures to get well. Documenting evidence of seeking help and methods to cope will be the best thing to enhance her application and future health.
But, all of us never met your daughter and I am not a mental health professional. Your D’s therapist may be willing (with D’s permission) to provide you feedback about how to proceed.
Good luck and God bless you all.</p>