So dd11 skipped 6th and is in 7th. She generally seems to be adjusting well, and until Tuesday her lowest grade on anything was a 95. Then she got the first social studies quiz on forms of government back (not the subject I imagined her having trouble with). She got a 60! Yikes! I know she studied, dh and I both discussed the information with her and it seemed like she knew it...but just not well enough. My mom is freaking out and using this as evidence that we ruined her life by skipping her.

I think it actually shows that the kid had no idea how to study and it is a good thing she will be required to. She can choose to redo one assessment during the 9 week period. She was upset of course, but I don't think she is scarred!

It is hard to discuss this with my (very involved) mother because she takes our choices for dd as a criticism of how she handled my education. Dd is usually smiling when she comes home and seems happy at school so we continue to feel the skip was the right choice.

I am new, so I have no advice, but my sympathies to you for dealing with a mother who questions your choices so much.

It's hard enough making tough choices for the well-being of your child without a judging audience. Try to realize her over-involvement is her issue, and that you do not need to take all her criticism to heart. You made the skip for the right reasons, and one bad grade does not a bad decision make.

That sounds like a little slice of heaven, honestly. You don't want her getting to college with these kinks un-ironed.

I see far too many kids (high school/college) who have not learned:

1) to be challenged
2) to study
3) to be gracious receivers of "average" (they want to argue and give excused why it was everyone else's fault that they didn't do an "a" job.

My advice is to keep mum about your dd's schoolwork to your mom. She can't criticize what she doesn't know .

Tell your mom that I lived it, and you are absolutely correct.

(Or maybe Evemomma is right: and avoid the topic... )

As an adult looking back at my own useless, sucky education I would have given anything if my parents had skipped me so that I could have been challenged and learned study skills when I was young. My mom and dad didn't know any better - I always had the top marks in my grade so they assumed everything was fine. In high school I still managed to stay on the honor roll until the last half of grade 12, without ever doing homework or having any study skills. Had I gone to university I would have been toast.

This is precisely why I keep DS8 in French Immersion even though he has a language processing disorder (tell your mom that, lol ;p ) Nah, she'll think I'm crazy ;p

Anyway... listen to your instincts, and remember this is kind of uncharted territory for the uninitiated. They have no frame of reference from which to understand. Your mom just means well, but IMHO you're the one who's right this time.

Exactly! My mom thinks that this will negatively affect her self-esteem (IMO self-esteem comes from putting in effort and then reaching your goals, and sitting in class for a year learning absolutely nothing new and having to put forth no effort is what is detrimental to healthy self-esteem.)

Honestly--I was a little bit shocked at how unprepared she was to actually study. They have a map quiz on the Middle East tomorrow. She did not know how to approach memorizing countries and their capitols. Seriously. There were tears. (Thankfully she found a website that is helpful and now knows them.) This is precisely why I wanted her to skip. I know from experience that going to college with those kinks un-ironed is not a pretty sight.

Me again (this topic is near and dear to my heart)

DD9 was an early reader, very fluent in language from a young age.

For grade 4 she was in a 4/5 French Immersion split consisting mostly of 5's. She was the second youngest in the class and many kids were 2 years older. She's in the gifted math program (was complaining that the grade 5 math was too easy and she wanted to do grade 6) ...anyway.

Her French Dictee (spelling) marks S.U.C.K.E.D. (50-60%?) so I made her study. She managed to bring them up to the 80% range by the end of the year.

It was awesome. (happy sigh)

Take it from me, good self-esteem in an adolescent PG daughter does NOT NOT NOT come from 'perfect' scores.

It comes from hard work, proportionally rewarded. You can't get that "proportionally" part of things without making things a reach.

My DD is far, far prouder of her A- grades (honors math coursework) than any of the A+ ones in science and social studies. Some parents might be more worried about dinging her 'perfect' transcripts. I'm more worried about her developing a resilient and authentic sense of self-worth.



Don't go down the road of "perfect." That train stops at some very unpleasant places, including anxiety, affective/eating disorders, and ultimately even task-avoidant perfectionism and underachievement.

This is why you skipped!

Happiest day of my life in DD's academic career was the day that she beamed from ear to ear after earning a B+ in second-semester Geometry. Truly. That felt awesome to her precisely because she had to battle back from a disastrous first midterm, on which she earned a humiliating 67%.

Thank you! I lived it too--but I can't exactly come right out with it so bluntly.

My mom does mean well. She still thinks (or I guess is trying to justify it) that she did the right thing by not wanting to put pressure on us and put us with the "wierd" gifted kids who had no time for fun. She says she never had to crack a book until college, but she has great memories of school and had a wonderful childhood and was happy to be social and not study. She has no hint of executive function issues so somehow managed a challenging course of study in college. I don't get it, but whatever--that wasn't my experience, and it certainly wouldn't be dd's. This is a kid who said she thought it would be a punishment to do work that is too easy.

Anyway--thanks for the validation. Hopefully it was enough of a wake-up call to her that it won't repeat. Although she was painting posters for her Harry Potter birthday party (in November) last night instead of studying when I got home from church with the younger two.

Oh--and French immersion I think is the thing that saved my (German)dh when he was 10. It was hugely beneficial to him. (Aside from the obvious benefit of learning the language).

Can you talk to my mom? lol! You were more eloquent than I was, but that is exactly what I was trying to tell her. I had to bold the parts I esp. liked. Thank you! (and happy for your dd she got to experience that sense of accomplishment!)

Ahh, well, this was an ongoing point of disagreement with my OWN mom until the day she died, too.

Similarly, it was wrapped up in her own guilt for maybe not advocating enough for me. With the additional layer of her having been in a position of "should have known better" since she was an educator.

So we heard an endless litany of "She seems like a perfectly NORMAL ____ year old little girl to me..." complete with pointed, nasty looks at me, which was her passive-aggressive means of letting me know that I was Ruining My Child's Life Forever.

So no, I can offer sympathy. I can point out that there are probably some battles which cannot be won with any amount of truth or logic. But I can't tell you how to work this with your mom. If I knew, I'd have used it with my own.

Oh that's good to hear (thank you!)

I think we all have a pretty good sense of how to help our kids, but like you say, validation helps too.

Yes, I bet we would have lots of company! I guess I should be thankful, my mom is not passive-aggressive--she just flat out tells me, lol! And then when she doesn't listen to any truth or logic, it ends up going down the inevitable road of "I just won't say anything" ( never going to happen!) or "I know, it is all my fault that you and your brother are underachievers" (It is not all her fault...but my daughter is very much like me (minus the 2E I think) and I get her, and my experiences do shed light on these decisions.)

I think I just need to give up on reason or logic and just accept that any stumbles, probably from now on, will attributed to the skip. (while knowing better myself) Sigh. Surely we will not do this stuff to our own daughters! Right?

Exactly! My DS took his Honors Geometry class this summer and came back with a 64% on his first test. He never felt he deserved his 4.0 because he didn't work hard at it. He had no skills in preparing for a test on challenging material. He was shaken by it at first but it was the best experience for him in the end. He said at the end of the summmer he felt he earned his grade and his accelerated placement this year. He has never felt he deserved his higher placements because he does not work hard like his friends to earn them in his mind. He spends his morning at our high school and the afternoon in the middle school. His experience being pushed and challenging has made his transition go smoothly. He walked into that High School surrounded by kids years older than him confident with his head held high. The experience taught him sooooo much! He is more confident in his ability to recover from mistakes, he has learn some strong study skills, and has really learned to how to learn from his mistakes.

IMHO, we all need to know how to get up when we fall. Our kids need those skills and experiences to be prepared for life. I have no regrets about pushing and challenging him this year. It was long over due for us.

deacongirl, maybe you just need to state the principle more succinctly: "I don't want DD going to college with kinks." Sometimes it's all in the phrasing.

Awesome! Thank you for sharing.

Or, "I don't want my DD to be kinky in college"

We're right there with you right now--DD is at a GT magnet and the math is a year ahead. They start them off slow the first year, though. This year--not anymore. She's struggling a little right now--what? I don't understand this instantly? I have to PAY ATTENTION? I must be AN IDIOT! I AM NO GOOD AT MATH! AAIIIIEEEEEEEEE11111!!!!!

(I know all the other kids in the class are going through the same thing bc I've talked to their parents)

It's very early in the year. This is the polar bear swim.

Yes, this is one of the only places where you will find a big group of people who do NOT want their kids to get all A's. Our kids deserve to learn how to fail and how to persevere, just like all the other kids in school.

I haven't had time to read the other replies, but my first thought is - chances are she might have received the very same 60% grade if she'd waited until next year to start 7th grade - like you, I suspect it's more related to how-to-study-skills than the *ability* to learn the work. It could also mean she wasn't feeling well during the test or whatever! And do you really know what the other kids got on the test? Maybe everyone got a 60?

We've approached middle school as the place where our kids need to learn *how* to study, how to be organized, etc - as well as a place where they can be challenged intellectually and pushed a bit so that they can soar once they reach high school. From all I've ever heard, grades on a report card in middle school don't show up in any way/shape or form on their high school transcript, but the *skills* they learn (organizational/study) absolutely will show up in grades once they hit high school, and I also believe it's really important to keep our kids excited about learning during middle school as other things like peer pressure etc kick in - and for many of our HG/EG/PG kids, keeping them excited about learning at this age means giving them intellectual challenges, not letting them sit back and earn all easy As. Do you want me to call your Mom and have a word with her

Stepping off my small soap box... I would have a tough time having my mom know so much about what my dd is doing in school. My perspective is skewed of course by my own individual mom - but she tends to be critical of things, and I can't imagine having to listen to her obsess over one of my kids getting a low grade! Just remember, your mom is *your* parent, not your dd's. You're supporting your dd in the way you know is best - don't worry about what your mom thinks about this one test grade.

polarbear

ps - wanted to add, my ds started middle school in 6th, and that's the first time kids in our area get letter grades. Not getting all As on his first grade reports *really* motivated him and he's developed excellent study habits

I understand the reasoning of you and others -- challenge is important -- but if your child is "privileged" -- white or Asian with parents having advanced degrees -- the most selective schools expect nearly straight A's as a baseline and want to see an exceptional extracurricular achievement on top. Look at the stats for Brown http://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/about/admission-facts .

So I want my son to do his "failing" on things like the AIME (test taken by students who excel on the AMC), NOT in regular courses whose grades will determine class rank.

OK, so (a few comments back) some were sharing mommy stories. I'll indulge: my mom is proud - PROUD - that she never once advocated for me (or my siblings) at school. Her opinion: one has to learn to sink or swim at some point. She thinks my concern for ds' school experience is beyond irrational. While I do appreciate some of this hard knocks approach (I was actually VERY well equipped for college as I had been treading water on my own for years and was hell-bent on out-achieving any stunted expectations I was given), I tend to think that a parent's job IS to advocate for their child (within reason).

But that's just me.

True. But hoping she gets this figured out before high school. And, not sure if the most selective schools are the goal or a financial possibility(although it would be great for an option). Considering what is in the college fund now, my latest plan is to have her put that dual-citizenship to work and go to college in Germany. She is starting Saturday language school this week. Alternatives include me becoming a Tiger mom and chaining her to the violin, or the honors program at a state school.

When you say Brown, I think "safety school for people who weren't bright enough to get into Harvard."

I'm coming from the perspective of a parent with a kid in elementary school. It would be nice if kids didn't have to game the system to get a spot in college, but I'm sure my perspective will change a bit once grades "count".

... and I'm coming from the perspective of not only parenting a high school junior right now, but also from a point of believing that there is much, MUCH more at stake than having a child who gets into an Elite College.

Not getting a perfect 4.8 GPA in high school? (Yes, this is weighted, but it's also fairly realistic for most of our kids, who will be taking honors and AP coursework throughout that high school career)

versus...


Not knowing how to be happy with anything less than an instant, low-effort 100%?

Not knowing how to STAY in those elite situations (college, internships, etc.) once the material becomes more challenging and requires study skills/task persistence that the student has never needed to develop?


Ooooooo. Not good. I'll take whatever turns out to be behind door number one, since I can see how that one can be really good. I don't really see how numbers two or three can be healthy or lead to a happy adulthood.

Yep. Me too. My other thoughts on the matter, since I do have but an 8 year old, is that college degrees ain't what they used to be, and they continue to change. The very large company I work for is hiring software developers without degrees, for example... So who knows what I'll be thinking in a few years. But it is WONDERFUL to teach perseverance as early as possible.

This doesn't really happen until you transition from the test-taking environment of school where raw intelligence is the primary factor to the world of work where ideally you should be able to, you know, produce actual work product.

It also doesn't happen during internships, although the summer clerk program at law firms may be truly alien in this regard.

The more elite schools don't really want you to drop out. I know, because I make a half-hearted attempt to quit law school at Duke by simply declining to complete the mandatory mood court competition due to simply no longer caring about anything at all. They declined my request to quit.

They go out of the way to make you feel warm and loved. They really do.

Law firms, and employers generally, on the other hand, don't really care, so they will eventually fire you if you don't get the message. As happened to two of my friends that the smallish firm (100 attorneys) where I worked. One after 2 years and one after 11 years.

Well said. In the long run, the ability to work and learn well are what count. They'll open enough doors (even if not every one) whereas their absence can make it impossible to go through even an open door.

That's generally been true for software people generally.

Just like in law, it's generally true that the best thing you can do for your legal career is to go to Yale Law. The second best thing is to go to Harvard Law.

Different career tracks have different entry requirements.

Every night. But she has gotten 95s on all the quizzes so far. The process is just painful!

Yes, yes, yes. This is how I see it. For my dd's talents and passions, (not mathy/computery) I think she will for sure be attending college--but I do think that she could find intellectual peers at a state school even if it might require a little more effort.

I hope she does. There is wide variation in the selectivity of state schools. UC Berkeley attracts students who are as good Stanford's best but who were rejected for non-academic reasons or who wanted to save money. I don't think many of the very best students are found in a less-prestigious UC school such as
UC Davis. Nowadays admission to flagship state schools has become more competitive. I have written a lot about Ivy admissions, but getting in has such a lottery aspect that no student or parent should count on it. Not getting into the flagship state school I consider a real loss, however.

I'll agree with posts by numerous others. 7th-8th grade is a GREAT time to explore, perhaps face plant, or at least struggle enough to be forced into learning how to study. Grades in MS have zero bearing on any college application. Better to learn to struggle and persevere now rather then hitting that wall for the first time as a 1st semester Freshman in college.

Learning to learn is the most valuable thing one can accomplish in Middle School. Struggling, being somewhat frustrated, yet keeping after it and succeeding is what builds true self esteem.

No, but they determine whether a child will placed in honors courses in 9th grade, which does matter for college admissions.
In addition, the correlation between grades in 8th and 9th grade must be substantial, so mediocre grades in 8th would concern me.

This is highly field-dependent.

And FWIW, UCLA is one of the most selective public schools in the nation right now. Average accepted student GPA's are topping 4.50-- yes, really-- and that is far higher than at either Stanford or Berkeley. The reasons aren't really clear, in all honesty-- other than simple population density.

Also-- Davis is the flagship school if your interests are in veterinary medicine, and some kinds of molecular biology. In those fields, a degree from either Berkeley or Stanford would be considered second rate.

Just noting that.

I would definitely not pick on the University of California, Davis. It is ranked #38 in US News and World Report. The average GPA for an accepted student there is 4.20 on a 4.00 GPA scale. In California, all of our state UC schools are overflowing with students.

The quest for the perfect high school transcript and college application is an unhealthy one on so many levels.

I will admit to knowing little about UC Davis except that it is not as famous as Berkeley. But looking at the SAT score ranges of the two schools confirms my statement that Berkeley has more top-notch students.

UC Berkeley
Test Scores -- 25th / 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading: 600 / 730
SAT Math: 630 / 760
SAT Writing: 610 / 740

UC Davis
SAT Critical Reading: 520 / 650
SAT Math: 570 / 680
SAT Writing: 530 / 650

It's kind of a joke.

The kind of joke that isn't very funny.

Perhaps it is correct to say that "Davis accepts more merely good or average students than Berkeley accepts." But this is to ignore the reality of the UC system as a whole. Berkeley doesn't produce "top notch" graduates in every discipline that the UC system offers a degree in. It doesn't even produce spectacular graduates in every discipline offered at Berkeley.

One thing which your lack of familiarity probably contributes toward is a lack of understanding that admission to the institution is far from admission to the program of the student's choice. The elite programs at Davis (a land-grant institution, so like a school such as Washington State or Iowa, ag and engineering programs abound, which tend to draw students from less stellar academic pedigrees than the hard-science disciplines which a campus like Berkeley is known for) are in Vet Med and a few other areas. I know that to be admitted into the programs that feed Davis' Vet Med school is at least as difficult as admission to Berkeley. Another major, perhaps not so selective. True. But if your aim is to gain admission to Davis as a Vet student, you're well-advised to go to Davis as a pre-vet student.

Program rarity contributes to some odd bedfellows. An Ivy pedigree won't get you into most VetMed schools, and relatively few Pharmacy programs care about it, either. Oh, they care where you did undergrad. But the "elite" there isn't what most people think of when they think "elite college."

And yes, I know this was trolling. I'm not biting, but explaining just in case other parents don't know some of the particulars here. Graduate/professional programs are a different world than Ivy/Law school admissions in terms of what matters. "Prestige" is highly field-specific. In spite of what Harvard might like to think, they don't turn out the "best" graduates in every field that they offer a diploma in. It's not a school which is particularly well-respected for it's chemistry graduates, for example.

I'd guess that's highly district-dependent. Our district recommends kids on the AP track for math have at least a B in the previous class; for science APs, the recommendation is for at least a C in the previous class. But anyone is allowed to enroll. (The stick is that they only let you drop a level at the semester break, and the grade you get is the grade you get.)

I personally face planted in 7th grade math, and it had absolutely no impact on my life beyond that, including not keeping me out of 8th grade Honors Algebra I.

I think my law school roomate got about zero value out of his random Harvard masters degree in some environmental/policy thingy.

Each career track/field has their own entry points and value for degrees.

As an example, one of my other law school roommates had a brother who went to Stanford undergrad. His parents were quite willing to pay for him to go to med school. However, they weren't willing to pay for a more "highly ranked" private med school when they knew that the local state med school would do just fine. They were well aware of the difference in prestige in terms of ability to succeed in a profession with respect to med school and law school. They were fine paying for Stanford undergrad.

They had plenty of money, but they weren't interested in wasting it, so it was a cost-benefit analysis.

Yes, UC Berkeley is considered the best of our UC schools. However, the other ones are still very good. My point was how difficult it is to get into a UC that isn't even berkeley.

I'm not sure what "top-notch" means. I suppose that if you judge in the context of industrial metrics and expensive extracurricular activities chosen for admissions appeal, UCB and Ivy League students are "top notch." By industrial metrics, I mean results on standardized multiple choice tests and inflated grade-point averages.

But I don't think that these metrics are necessarily indicators of what I'd define as a top-notch student. To me, they mostly describe top-prepped students or top-groomed students.

Personally, I see top-notch as meaning that the student is thoughtful and thinks critically about what he reads/hears/sees, can find creative solutions to problems, has a history of being able to follow through on dull stuff as well as interesting stuff, and is very intelligent. Obviously, I'm only talking about undergraduate university admissions here. The definition would be different for different disciplines.

Before 20 or 25 years ago, one of the strengths of the US college admissions system was that colleges looked at these kinds of attributes much more than I suspect they'd admit to now. Yeah, I know there are more people now, but Harvard still got way over 10,000 applications for its freshman class in the early 80s. Today we have an arms race, and the industrial metrics plus extracurricular activityitis have taken over. The result is that we're creating lots of hyper-prepped students who'll suffer (or already have suffered) the way that JonLaw describes.

Sigh. I have a family member who did not get into UC Berkeley (I'm thinking it was probably close, but her HS likely has MANY very strong applicants) and is at Davis instead. She's not over it. In the grand scheme of things, I really wonder how much it matters. But she's convinced she's a failure.

I had never HEARD of Berkeley until I got to Harvard Med, that's how green I was! I think the UC schools are still very good but they are also really overcrowded. We had a babysitter at one who was also pre-med, and she could not get into basic classes like Organic Chem! She would sit on the overflowing lecture hall floor for 2 weeks auditing the class and then not get in.
Berkeley is not cheap either, nor are the other UC schools. They run about $35,000 a year with room, board, and tuition. Stanford/Harvard, etc. are about $50,000 year. More expensive, but if you can't get your classes and get out of UC in 4 years, it's not alot cheaper.

I remember being wait-listed at Princeton years ago.

That didn't convince me that I was a failure, rather it just made me feel a great deal of anger toward Princeton.

I was pretty green, too-- I had only the haziest notion of how one attained a high-profile research career when I entered college. I didn't really understand what graduate school was, nor what a PhD entailed (no, really). I knew that physicians went for more schooling after a bachelor's but nothing more than that, really. I was extremely fortunate to have an undergraduate advisor who recognized those deficits (having lived them herself, growing up where everyone she knew graduated from high school and went to work processing pineapple) and got me thinking about graduate school.

Clearly "elite college" wasn't much on my radar. Luckily a few of them were recruiting me, or I would never have applied in the first place. I got in everywhere that I applied. But times were different then, and there seemed to be less of a fixation on the Ivies, at least out here in the West. Even much-vaunted Stanford and UCB weren't necessarily viewed with the same cachet that they seem to have acquired in the intervening three decades.

This is one of the problems in life, generally.

You only figure out what's going on after it's too late to do anything about it.

Yes. Our DD is already deeply frustrated by this. I'm amazed that she has so clearly seen this already--

How on earth am I supposed to know what will make me happy and fulfilled when I'm forty?? I don't know who I will BE when I'm forty. I don't even know who I might be when I'm twenty... How am I supposed to choose the right major??

She wrongly interprets this as a lack of maturity since so many of her academic peers (who are 16-17) seem to know full well what they intend to do with their lives and express few doubts.

We tend to think it entirely possible that the opposite is in fact true. Our advice to her is to "choose what you can love, and choose BROADLY, not narrowly in terms of preparation."

Interested in Particle Physics? A math undergraduate degree can take you there-- or to teaching-- or to chemistry, or biophysics, or engineering, or law school, or even med school or an MBA program...

If you are interested in becoming a doctor, spend undergrad making sure, and for heaven's sakes choose a major that will allow you to be employable with that undergraduate degree, because that is one very specialized skill set after med school.

I think that we're teaching kids to specialize earlier and earlier, and that is not at all a good thing. Breadth is a strength all its own-- in any field or endeavor.

Jon, you're absolutely right. You can't know what you have no way of knowing. Unfortunately.

While I do in general believe that this is true, I have two friends who graduated with MD/PhDs and then decided that they didn't want to be doctors or researchers. Both are now excellent patent lawyers (MD/PhD/JD), doing pharmaceutical work. I don't think it was a particularly cost-effective route, but they both made it work for them.

Yes, you can always become a patent agent if you get enough undergrad science credit.

Although I found being a patent attorney similar to eating sawdust every day.

One of the attorneys I used to work with had a biochem undergrad degree, I think, and was doing work for a generic pharmaceutical manufacturer.

That is such a long road though! College = 4 years, MD = 4 years, PhD part 2-6 more years, law school = 3 years. I had a few friends at Harvard Med who went all the way through and then realized they hated being around sick people! Ideally, you would figure out before medical school that you don't really want to be a doctor.
One friend of mine got a PhD in philosophy at Princeton (took him 6 years, after 4 years of college) and couldn't find a job in his field. So he went to law school.

Agreed. Which is why when DD7's principal said in a meeting that the kids need to know what they want to be when they grow up before they leave elementary school, I looked at her like she'd just swallowed a bug.

Amen! I hate when they make these types of comments. Usually, in the same breath, they will state that many of the current jobs will not exist when our kids are adults. They also speculate that half of the jobs that will be available when our kids are adults, don't exist yet. So the message is : know what you want to do but don't be surprised when that job no longer exists and be ready for something no one has created yet.

Is this why most students in college change their major at least once if not multiple times? I thought they already knew what they wanted to be when they "Grew up" leaving elementary school!

In college, I could switch to any major I wanted to switch to as long as it was engineering or else I would lose my scholarship. I think I switched a total of three times.

So, I got a nice collection of engineering science, civil engineering, and chemical engineering classes that took me 5 years because of the prerequisites.