Not every child begins high school on a high note, and it can be upsetting to know that your child is at the bottom of their class. If this happened in your family this year, don’t despair, there is still time to improve before they apply to college.
The first thing you need to do is figure out what happened. Is there possibly an undiagnosed learning issue? Was the leap into high school classes harder than anticipated? Were there too many extracurricular activities? Before you can begin to fix the problem, you need to identify what exactly went wrong.
If you suspect a learning issue, then you should get professional testing, but if it’s simply a matter of adjusting to high school expectations, your family can work on that at home. As parents you need to remain calm and rationally figure out what needs to change.
The first thing to consider is if the classes your student took were too hard. While colleges do want to see that applicants have challenged themselves, they also want to see a challenge that ends in success. If even one class was too hard for your child, that could throw off the entire year. A “too hard” class can become all consuming, sucking up all of the time and energy a student has and leaving them with not enough for other classes. Maybe it was too many demanding classes - again, be rational and realistic when looking at the schedule for next year.
Freshman parents sometimes pressure their kids to do too many extracurriculars in an effort to make their kids appealing to colleges, but realize that academics are the most important part of an application and so should get the most priority throughout high school. Have your student pick a couple of truly enjoyable activities and stick to those.
It could also be time for your student to admit that they need a planner. The jump into high school is bigger than some kids anticipate and even if it isn’t too much academically or they don’t have too many activities, the combination of it can become overwhelming. For some reason using a planner is a touchy subject with some kids, and so I suggest you be open to them using a digital calendar such as google calendar. Take some time to watch some youtube’s on how to integrate google calendar with whatever digital platform their school uses for classes. That way it will all be on their phone and easy for them to use and see.
To be real, it might already be time to admit that your child isn’t going to be accepted into the Ivy League or even your state flagship university, but that doesn’t mean they won’t have other really good options. Just allow them to blossom with a class schedule that works for who they are and activities that interest them. There are definitely colleges that will appreciate a student who started slow in the 9th grade but showed steady improvement over 10th and 11th grades.
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