The First Semester Grade Drop

Unfortunately, holiday cheer can be dampened when first semester grades arrive. If you are unpleasantly surprised by what you see on your student’s first grade report from college, you’re not alone. Many students see a drop of a letter grade or more between the grades they saw in high school and what they earned in their first semester of college. There are a few common reasons for this:

A 4.0, or “perfect”, GPA in high school is fairly common these days.  When our generation attended high school there may have been one or two students who were able to maintain a perfect GPA and each high school probably only had one valedictorian.  This is no longer the case, and many students from a variety of high schools have never made anything below an A in any class.  This is simply a result of grade inflation* in high school and unfortunately it can do a lot of harm to a student’s psyche when they arrive at college and realize they are one of many “perfect” students vying for top grades.

There’s more to the first semester of college than a GPA. In addition to attending 15-18 credit hours worth of class each week, your child has also had to learn how to navigate an entirely new world.  Everything from how and where they live, shower, eat, and socialize is completely new and learning the ins and outs of college life is emotionally and intellectually draining. Even students who earned a 2.0 GPA have actually learned a great deal from college in their first semester.

College is harder than high school. When I relay this fact to students most of them give me the “Duh, no kidding” look, but some are surprised. They think that they can employ the same strategies they used in high school and earn the same grades, but that usually doesn’t work. Students are in college classrooms less than half of the time they were in high school classrooms and they have to do much of their reading, writing, and learning on their own or in student groups. In addition, college classes require that students think through problems critically and develop their own solutions based on research, their own or someone else’s. In other words, in addition to simply answering questions, they have to explain why they answered in that way and how they came to their conclusions. This is the mental equivalent of heavy lifting and it takes time for students to get used to flexing their intellectual muscles.

If your child is disappointed by his grades in the first semester, don’t worry. Most students’ grades rebound during the next semester after they adjust their study and time management habits. If your child needs help with these issues, a visit to a study skills center, academic counselor, or attending a workshop on these topics can give him the information, skills, and motivation he needs to improve his grades in future semesters.

* http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/issues.pdf

http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2011-2-investigating-grade-inflation-non-equivalence.pdf

 

What to Expect This Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break may very well be the first time your child will come home this semester and there are some universal experiences that all college parents face when their child returns home from college for the first time.

1. Most students will sleep a lot when they get home.  Not only are they tired from traveling, but they are probably mentally exhausted from being “on” all semester. The first semester of college is mentally, emotionally, and physically draining, so let them sleep.

2. Once your child arises from a 10 hour nap, he will probably want to eat and see his hometown friends. This can be painful for parents since you’ve been waiting for months to see your child, but all he wants to do is go out with other people. You can approach this from two angles; you can insist that he stay at home for the first evening and see his friends later, or you can let him go out with his buddies and plan to see him during the rest of the break. There’s no correct way to handle this, but the one thing that is essential is communication. Express your expectations for “family time” before he returns so everyone knows what to expect.

3. Go ahead and coddle during the break. While it’s crucial that students learn to care entirely for themselves while they’re at college, when your child is home for break a little spoiling won’t hurt. If you want to make a big breakfast, do it. If you want to do all her laundry, go for it, but don’t do these things out of a sense of guilt or duty. Just do them from a position of love and caring, and by all means expect a “thank you” from your child!

4. Thanksgiving break is too short. By the time your child sleeps for a day, visits with friends for another, helps out with a few household or yard chores, then sleeps away another day, the break is over and he’s gone again. Rest assured that even though this visit is way too short, you’ve probably had just enough time together. A four to six week winter break will arrive within about three weeks and for some families, that gets a little too long!