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Any Gunn High School 12th grader basking in a bout of “senioritis” got a nudge back to reality last week.
Assistant Principal Kimberley Cowell reminded seniors and their parents that colleges do not take kindly to free falls in second-semester grades.
“We were all shocked to see so many of you on the D/F grade list!” Cowell said in an e-mail message.
“This is no time to let down!
“You must still meet graduation requirements, and college acceptances are conditional. Colleges do look at second-semester grades!” she said, urging students to speak to their teachers or counselors now if they have concerns about a class.
Cowell later told the Weekly that this year’s list of students with mid-semester grades of C minus or less is “slightly higher than usual,” but “there is no disaster.”
“The e-mail was intended to catch their eye — which it did — and I got a lot of really good feedback,” she said.
“This is something we emphasize every year, not just this year,” she said.
“Colleges do rescind their admittances if students have not met their obligations, so anybody who’s got a conditional admittance needs to make sure they do what they said they were going to do.”
Admission to many colleges, typically issued around this time of year, is conditional on second-semester grades and graduation. With high demand at cash-strapped public institutions, Cowell said she expects those conditions to be enforced with increasing stringency.
Each year, Gunn has “one or two” seniors who have their college admission rescinded, and one year the University of California at Santa Cruz rescinded more than 200 admittances overall, not just Gunn students, she said.
“They went back and saw that students had not met their obligations and they were rescinding admittances even as the new students were taking their things out of the trunk to move into the dorm,” she said.
“This is a reminder for students to be mindful,” she said.
“We’ve had a lot of activities going on — robotics, the show, the current play, the Model United Nations trip — so it’s not unusual that kids would have some difficulties because they’re involved in a lot of stuff at this time.
“I’m fully expecting them to bring themselves back and get things in and so forth.”
Thank you Gunn Guidance!
Frightening!!!
After the Students complain of stress, this is the e-mail that goes out.
i understand the reminder to not let grades fall but IN LIGHT OF THE CURRENT EVENTS, THIS IS A TOUCHY SUBJECT.
WOW!
Absolutel!! What a horrible piece. This is more pressure on the kids and even more reason to worry about Palo Alto High Schools.
The kids have repeatedly said over and over how they are stressed out and this is what is printed in the paper.
Did you not get it Assistant Principal Kimberley Cowell? Ask yourself, does this say we are listening to you students. Instead of saying we have heard you this is saying what ever!!! Students should be encouraged not scared to bring up their grades.
Now to anyone who thinks this is nothing to worry about, ask yourself is it senoritis or could it be someting else why these students grades have dropped. No this is not an imagination over working.
It goes back to “Why do we have a guard at the railroad tracks”.
Wow.
k,
get over it. you can’t slack in school and you can’t slack in life if you expect to succeed. there should be no problem maintaining a C. if some student can’t do that then they should not have the right to take a college space that can be filled by someone who is willing to work for it.
give the rail road tracks a break, too. the colleges have expectations and the guidance counselors are just doing their jobs. if some kid did not get in because of second semester grades you’d be all over the school blaming them for not doing their job. KUDOS to the school for taking care of the kids.
Of course they need to keep up with school work, but I certainly hope that someone is in touch with the kids who’s grades are sliding to make sure there is not a darker reason than ‘senioritis’ to explain why their work is declining. Pay attention, schools and parents!
I am disgusted by the timing and tone of Cowell’s email. This is exactly what’s wrong with our schools. Skelly needs to start managing whatever administrators he has left a lot better if this is what we can expect.
Most are missing the point. Can you imagine the disappointment a college bound senior would feel if they let a senior let down ruin something they have worked their entire life for? This would be really devastating to a student. The Gunn staff is doing the right thing by forewarning these students. Can you imagine what would happen if they saw this and did nothing? That would be a real disservice.
The students are not being forced to achieve unrealistic goals; they are being warned that Ds and Fs could jeopardize what they have already achieved.
Missing the point is right on. The kids have the summer to slack off and have fun. They only have two more months to keep working hard. Cs are not hard to keep up. Ds and Fs should not be acceptable and the tone of Cowell’s email does not sound harsh at all.
Please remember that the pressure comes mostly from the individual and from their peers, and the parents are the ones who pushed the district for more AP courses. Time to stop blaming the schools. Do you want great, competitive schools, or schools that don’t challenge your kids? You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Missing the point, I agree with you!
There are so many whining parents in Palo Alto. They don’t try to find problems from themself and always pointing fingers to our schools. Growing up, Palo Alto Parents!
Oh the irony.
T, you are telling parents to grow up, when you don’t even know how to use the present and past tenses correctly
Please, please give Gunn a break. My kid is a senior, getting college responses and hanging in there.
Gunn guidance absolutely gets in touch with kids who have below a C on quarterly grades. Colleges will rescind a student’s application if they flunk out.
So please, as a Gunn parent, stop blaming Gunn. Really tired of it.
THANK YOU GUNN PARENT, as another GUNN PARENT, I too am tired of people blaming the school. Enough! They are just trying to do their jobs, if my kid’s acceptances were rescinded and they had not received school attention….I guess I would be blaming the school, huh?
Here is a little detail for you. I was grateful for Kim’s Reality check. I was one of those parents who personally thanked Kim Cowell, because my lovely Senior had gotten a warning notice. Thankfully we addressed it the minute it came in the mail (’twas a surprise to all of us at home), and it appears the problems have been fixed, but I do thank all the personnel at Gunn who have the BEST interests of our kids in mind.
I love the post by “Missing the point” I found it well put,succinct articulate and spot on!!
Let’s give the administrators a break, shall we? Parents, eyes on your kids without being pesky hellicopter parents (misspelling intentional).
Out of all of the great things going on at the Gunn Campus, this is the story that the Palo Alto newspaper “chooses” to run. Very interesting and very predictable– great investigative reporting Palo Alto online.
Guess what? Paly seniors have been told the same thing. Is this not equally newsworthy? I expect seniors in all high schools get told the same thing every year. I don’t think this is really worth the discussion.
There are few things going on here with high schools.
First of all students need a reminder that they didn’t inherit a seat in university, they need to work hard even in the last quarter or term (whatever it is) grades do count. The process of application and admission decisions are made even before Seniors graduation is pure convenience for universities and time saving process.
The Assistant Principal was just re-iterating what ever was the truth. These days parents try to protect their kids but isn’t it parents’ responsibility to remind their sons/daughters of consequence if they don’t get good grades? (Parenting 101)
These days parents try to put bubble wrap around their children even when their children are in high schools. Students need a tough reminder that nothing is permanent, esp the college admission. If they didn’t put in efforts in the last quarter they really don’t deserve the seat as they just studied until they received the conditional admission letter.
There are students who work hard, have a job and get average grades, they will deserve that seat better than an A+ student who becomes arrogant and stop getting good grades after receiving admission letter.
Wake-up and smell few school bags!
Senioritis is completely normal. I started having “symptoms” after I got into my top choice of school. If anything, the last semester is the final hurdle a senior has to go through to be “prepared” for college.
Ms. Cowell had sent that e-mail to every senior and through the Gunn Connection. As considerate as that was, (if she absolutely had to send it) it would have been better if she had just sent the message to the students who were in the D/F situation. It sent a number of students who were “fine” into an unnecessary panic because they thought they were getting a D/F in a class. If those students weren’t getting D’s/F’s by the time that e-mail was sent out, clearly they did have any intention of letting them drop even if that message wasn’t sent out.
If a student is foolish enough to let his or her grades drop so drastically just because of a college admission, then clearly that student should give up his or her college seat to someone else who was smart enough to keep working hard. That’s life.
And those of you who are bringing this subject to the railroads are being incredibly rude and disrespectful. If you seriously believe that bad grades and competition were the causes of those incidents, I suggest you get a reality check.
I really don’t understand why so much pressure is put upon students in high school. These kids may seem mature but emotionally they are not (and this goes especially for the ones who really think this). The high schools in this town are pushing kids as if they are in college already. Gunn, in particular, isn’t a nurturing school. Their whole lives these children are told over and over again to get with the program or else! Or else,what? Their life will be ruined if they don’t get the college they want?
The focus in high school should be to finish high school. Not being over focused in getting to college. Not everyone is ready for college or even should go to college. When you finish high school you should be prepared for an entry level job. period.
All Kim Cowell did is get everyone upset for no reason (according to Gunn Senior). She should have notified the parents of the students and not the students. It is between a parent and child, not just the child’s responsibility. Oh, but if you are 18, then the parents are completely out of the picture.
I certainly hope Mr. Skelly doesn’t recommend her for principal. That would be a HUGE mistake. She is totally out of touch with everyone.
Every time we shield our students from the fact that the world is tough, the more ill prepared they are for it. My biggest worry about our students is not that they lack the skills to do well, but that they will be so inexperienced with disappointment and failure that they won’t know how to handle it.
Should Ms. Cowell not remind students of this reality? Should we shield our kids from the fact that bad things happen? I think not. We can’t prevent bad things from happening. We can only make sure they are emotionally prepared to deal with them. And this means they have to suffer some disappointment for the little things.
I remember one year when a couple of seniors started a fire at Gunn. One of those seniors had been admitted to an Ivy League School and had his admittance revoked. I wonder where he is now, and what he’s doing?
I really think the PAUSD should reconsider how the school year is laid out. Here is an article that explains the reasons why our school year needs to be better planned
“The Case for Saturday School”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704207504575130073852829574.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_6
Seriously? A mass email because a there were “slightly” more grades of c and lower… I’m just shocked. Not an appropriate way to handle the situation at all. As a student who graduated last year, I know that my peers were perfectly aware that slacking off could have consequences such as getting your acceptance rescinded. Seeing as how “one or two” students were rescinded, scaring the entire senior class was just so unnecessary. I am definitely not blaming gunn. Poor decision of cowell.
@Need More,
That article is insane. No wonder you live in the Gunn attendance area. PAUSD works the students hard enough. School is not ideal for all people. Right-brained people struggle with academics. Don’t you want your children to rest and have some fun and outside interests besides math, English, Science? I guess not. Perhaps Cupertino would be more well-suited for your family.