<p>My kids have chosen to share their end of semester grades, and of course we get the phone call when an exam goes either unexpectedly well or poorly. In fact, they’ve asked me to double check their graduation requirements in order to ensure that everything is in order, which involves giving me their password. </p>
<p>Since kids #1 and #2 both ran into final semester bureaucracy problems that in one case delayed official graduation (he was able to “walk” and #2 hopefully is on track for May), I’m planning to insist that #3 continue this family tradition.</p>
<p>I have absolutely no interest in day-to-day grades (quizzes, participation grades etc), although I’m happy to brainstorm ideas for improvement, such as how a naturally reticent person might overcome that in class discussion.</p>
<p>I haven’t hit that milestone yet since D is still in high school. Seeing end of semester grades will make sense for my family. I really dont want to manage this in college. </p>
<p>I do not look at the high school on line grades at all. </p>
<p>I know every family is different, but I really think this process should be owned by the student. I have very good friends who do a fair amount of distance nagging over college grades they see on line. I don’t want that as part of the relationship dynamic with my kids.</p>
<p>Do I check it? Yes. I ask my daughter for it. I don’t have the password to see it myself, but she shows it to me on the screen when she’s home. </p>
<p>My daughter attends college far away. When we talk, she tells me about all the fun stuff. She doesn’t usually mention much about her classes unless I ask. So I look at her GPA to be sure she really is majoring in academics and not in sorority. She was a B+ student in HS, and she has remained a B+ student in college. So I don’t complain.</p>
<p>I asked my son for it when he was in college as well. He was always on Dean’s list, so I didn’t HAVE to ask, but he spent 2 years on the cusp between summa cum laude and magna cum laude. In the end, he missed summa by .01. There are worse problems to have in life. He found a job he likes in his field, so all is good. :D</p>
<p>This is our philosophy also. It’s nice to be out of the GPA business! </p>
<p>We ask our kid after each semester how she did that semester. She tells us. We make appropriate supportive noises. The only thing that we’ve told her is that graduation in 4 years is a must.</p>
<p>We are paying in full, but there was no explicit quid pro quo. There was never a struggle. Both kids signed waivers authorizing me to see their grades (and medical stuff, etc.). They have both asked me at times to go on to their respective school’s web site to check things out that were confusing to them. They tell me how things are going: I got an A on the last test, a B on that lab. I’m not actively monitoring but have access and would like to know if there is a problem. In fact, the kids would tell me first, before grades were official, if they thought there was a problem. But, they know I’m in their corner and I’m only there to help.</p>
<p>I always find it odd, in this kind of thread, that some posters pronounce that those parents who do it differently than they do are somehow wrong or morally delinquent. IMHO, different kids mature differently. My kids both have learning disabilities and need a little bit more assistance in bureaucratic things than others might. One, despite severe dyslexia, has a really high GPA at an elite school. He does so by focusing on just a few things (coursework, friends, a couple of ECs) and ignoring everything else. He’s far from a big spender and almost never takes cash from his bank account, which I monitor, (and sometimes appears to earn his pocket money playing poker). But, he has a credit card and we pay the bill. I hear some of the crew saying, “in one and a half years, he’ll be an adult and you are handicapping him for the future by helicoptering.” Well, I’m not worried about his ability to add that constraint (of managing his spending) to his optimization problem when he has time for that. My other child is great at managing her money at this point, so she does that. She likes to shop and knows what she has to spend. They’ll be fine adults. My job is to launch them to be successful, capable, caring adults. It appears to be working even though I have access to all of the kids grades, records, and more.</p>
<p>I had a conversation with my D about this very topic just a couple of nights ago. I said something along the lines of, “You know, it’ll really be important to keep your grades up when you’re at college.” My D said, “What makes you think I’m going to turn into the kind of person who doesn’t care about doing well in school? And, anyway, what if I do? What are you going to do about it?” She wants me to trust her. She’s never given me any reason not to trust her. I know exactly how she would react if I asked her to grant me access to her grades while she’s in college: Nothing doing. She’s itching to explore what it means to be an adult. Mommy checking her grades online is not compatible with that vision. As far as her HS grades go, she knows I look at them all the time, but I’ve stopped quizzing her about every minute detail. (“What’s this? You got a C on the white sauce quiz in foods and nutrition?” True story; she was fulfilling a requirement. She got an A in pancakes so everything was copacetic in the end.)</p>
<p>When our oldest went off to college the Director of Housing told all of the parents at orientation that they “suggest” to the students that they allow parents online access to their grades, especially freshman year. The parents know their kids better than they do at that time and can spot potential problems before they can. He said that parents should expect a full grade level drop in grades–so if your child was an A student in high school, expect a B first semester freshman year. Anything outside of that, he wanted a quick email so they could keep an eye on kids that might be struggling with the adjustment before it got to be a problem. We were pleased to hear that the school wanted to make sure the kids stayed on track and didn’t let freshman year ruin their GPA.</p>
<p>I gave up access to online grades when mine were, I think in 9th grade. I deliberately had them change the password to something I didn’t know. I could be very helicopter-y and I needed to make a public statement that I was turning the reins over to them.</p>
<p>This strikes me as an odd thing for the Director of Housing to say. Doesn’t really seem to be his bailiwick, for one thing. And who does he want the email from - the parents? That’s how the school wanted to make sure the kids stayed on track? This differs from what I’ve read so often elsewhere - that colleges have identified helicoptering parents as an issue of concern.</p>
<p>I’d agree that some parents may have excellent, non-helicopterish reasons for checking individual kids’ grades. And some parents may think, “My cash, my business.” Our last kid graduates in May, and we’ve never seen a transcript. We do know what their GPAs were, though - they told us.</p>
<p>Happykid has had a tuition and fee scholarship for the past two years at her CC so yes, we do find out the grades at the end of each semester. Scholarship renewal has a different minimum for semester 2 (only 2.0 required), and 3 & 4 (at least a 3.5). She watched for the grade report online, and then a big cheer went up at our house each time she beat the minimum. </p>
<p>Will we still pay attention when she transfers next year? Probably yes, as we will have a much bigger financial stake. Will we insist that she keep pulling in a 3.5? Probably not, as that whole came changes for her when she goes to the bigger and presumably tougher institution. She’s extremely self-motivated, and if she needs to keep a certain GPA there in order to get/maintain a scholarship, she will find a way to do it.</p>
<p>That is why he said an email–easily deleted from over-involved parents. That was just one thing he talked about for parents to recognize that they were having problems with the transition. Another thing he said was that if after 3 weeks your child wasn’t talking, by name, of someone on campus frequently, roommate, dorm mate, teacher, etc. They wanted a phone call about that. That was one sign the child hadn’t “connected” at school. He also talked about why they require all freshman to have a meal plan. They monitor their accounts to see where they are eating and if they don’t eat in the dining hall enough they make sure the RA knows and the RA is to bring that student to lunch/dinner with them, in a discrete manner of course. The dining hall is the #1 social meeting place on campus and they don’t want kids to hole up in their dorm rooms. He has been at his job for 30 years and had a lot of insightful information that was quite helpful. It would never have occurred to me to call the college if my child’s grades were lacking. I would expect him to do that. But, like I said, the school is looking out for a student’s best interest and they don’t want a child that struggles with the transition to college to mess up their GPA when they can step in and get them on the right track.</p>
<p>S’s college sends grades to parents for the first term of first year. Other than that, I haven’t seen anything. He occasionally self-reports grades, and I occasionally ask him how he is doing. I have a rough idea of his GPA. S received almost a full ride of need-based aid from his school until this last year, so I have no “money card” to hold over his head. I want him to feel that I am here to support him and help him out if necessary, and that he can approach me without anticipating a lecture or threats.</p>
<p>S1 had a full scholarship. He had to maintain a certain gpa to keep it. We had full confidence that he would do what was expected of him. I never looked at his grades. Occasionally, he’d tell us what they were but we never worried about him. Also got Dean’s list announcements so knew he was OK.</p>
<p>S2 is full pay and a horse of a different color. He had a very rough start in college so I did check his grades for the first few semesters. After he got on track, I stopped checking and relied on him to tell me how he was doing. Also got Honor Roll letters from his school.</p>
<p>I have no access to my senior in college’s grades, she tells me what they are. I do have access to my freshman S’s, but only the final grades each term, and that came with access to the billing system, I did not request it. </p>
<p>If a college told me they would be checking where my kids ate, I would suggest they transfer immediately! I have to go look up to see if I can figure out where that is, so we can be sure to avoid it.</p>
<p>mncollegemom - seriousely, what school did you kid go to? It just sounds outright creepy to me to be monitoring your kid’s eating habit and wanting phone calls from you about your kid “not connecting.” This is all too "Big Brother"ish to me.</p>
<p>Both my kids talk about school in regular conversation so I know how they’re doing and they’ve never fudged things even when things didn’t go well. In HS I did (and still do) check on a regular basis, not so much to spy on my kid but to make sure that the teachers are entering everything accurately and that her attendance is right. </p>
<p>D1 gave us her regular login and password for her college accounts; she didn’t even bother with creating parent accounts for payment. Do I check? Not grades. I’ll look every month or so to see if she’s getting low on money for laundry but that’s it. She tells us her grades and I know she’s made Dean’s List every semester, but it’s not some formal conversation; it’s just a normal give and take in our house. I don’t understand the micro-managing, but I also don’t understand the attitude of it being a verboten topic either.</p>
<p>We never got access to online grades for either DD. Both had scholarships with minimum GPA requirements and we just asked periodically if we needed to worry about paying more. Fortunately not.</p>
<p>My two talked about school and their classes quite a bit, and we usually heard about any course they were on concerned about without asking. If they didn’t get the grade, they wanted us to commiserate with them. I don’t think they discussed grades with their classmates at all, and we were the only safe place to vent.<br>
I think every family’s situation is different. If we had a kid who was barely hanging on in college, I’m sure we’d have been a little more involved.</p>
<p>No, we’ve never checked our college kids’ grades. We do have access codes to their accounts. We don’t have any reason to question what they’ve told us about how they’re doing. </p>
<p>I also stay far, far away from the online grade book used by our high school. My high schooler is competent, and brings home fine report cards, but her progress within each grading period can include some occasionally awful grades on individual assignments or quizzes. She checks that site herself. I don’t need to see every single grade on every single assignment. It’s better for both of us that way.</p>
<p>However, I would answer this question completely differently if I had different kids. And I surely wouldn’t judge anyone who felt the need to check their kids grades.</p>