This Is Your Quarter.
So I spent a day calculating Dylan’s GPA. At the mid-way point in 9th grade, and including the high-school-level classes he took in middle school, he has a 3.22 (unweighted). A 3.22 GPA – according to at least one website – will not get him into the college of his choice. But it might get him into a college. Then again, it might not.
So I recalculated a GPA with more A’s than B’s. I looked at his class schedule, and just imagined the classes in which he could have A’s. I guessed. And with the recalculation, his GPA went up to a 3.55!
The new (imagined) GPA puts him higher into the “maybe” category for many of his (so far) chosen colleges. He has selected some pretty interesting colleges – so far – and they’re not necessarily easy to attend.
So I did one final recalculation. I imagined that he had A’s in all of his classes this year. And his GPA leaped to 3.78 – a GPA that would allow him to get into the college of his choice, as long as he wasn’t planning to attend an Ivy League school.
So we talked about it. I showed him the different GPAs, how they’re calculated, what the colleges might do with them.
Then for the first time ever, I accepted the fact that he might not care if he gets into the college of his choice. He might not care about scholarships. He might just want to be a singing sensation, and isn’t planning to try to do anything else with his life.
When I was 15, I wanted to be a backup singer (and maybe guitar player) for Tom Petty. So who am I to think my son really wants to go to college?
But – without any prompting from me, because I was quite literally letting Dylan “off the hook” – he said he does care. Dylan really, really, really wants to go to college.
So I said, “Okay. If you care, you can do this. You are brilliant. You have been brilliant since the day you were born. I have never had any doubt that you can do it. There are only two things keeping you from getting A’s.”
I held up two fingers.
“First is missing work. Talk to every teacher after every class, every day. That is how to make sure you never have missing work. And the second thing is that you need to study.”
“I do study,” he said, for the millionth time.
“You need to study more,” I said. “And more often. Spend five minutes a day going over what you learned in each class. Then you won’t have to cram so much before a test. And you will be ready for pop quizzes when they appear. And that’s it.”
Two things: talk to your teachers. Study every day.
Then I said, “This is your quarter. See what you can do.”
“Okay,” Dylan said. He sounded almost excited about the opportunity.
Then he played the piano, spun around in circles in the kitchen for awhile, then nearly knocked me over so he could play a song called Crazy Frog on the computer.
And the quarter has begun.