It’s been hard to stay positive the past couple of weeks. While I was thrilled to be one of the select few applicants to get an interview with my first choice graduate school, the interview itself was extremely disappointing. I was scheduled for an hour with the department head, but she rushed out after half the time due to a visit by a previous student with her new baby. It’s hard to compete with that!
After that, I met with a professor who would most certainly be my advisor if I were accepted. Although she started the interview by saying that she also discovered her passion for psychology after her getting undergraduate and graduate degrees in unrelated fields (as I would be doing), she then went on to point out how weak my background was and to say how they had limited spaces and more qualified candidates. At that point I wondered why they even interviewed me in the first place. I found myself in a defensive position for the rest of the interview and felt like I was never able to get the conversation back on track to my passion and my purpose.
I’m still waiting to hear from my second choice school, but have spent some more time reviewing their program and find myself more and more disappointed. Almost all of their classes are at night, which would take me away from my family. The school is also not in the best neighborhood to be hanging around at dark. While their program fits better with my background, I’m not sure it would ultimately get me where I want to go… i.e. working with gifted and twice exceptional children.
I feel like I’m back to the drawing board at this point. While I still have to wait to receive a formal rejection from school #1, I would be fooling myself if I thought there was much of a chance of being accepted. So do I start job hunting? Do I stay home with Z another year and take some online classes to bolster my applications for next year? Do I start looking for schools out of state? How much am I willing to sacrifice for another career which will likely pay less than I was making before?
On top of all of this, C’s school unexpectedly insisted on having a conference this week, without many details for the reason. I knew they would be talking about their plans for next year, but they made a point to say that was not their primary reason for meeting. During the meeting, which I had to attend without my husband so that he could be home with both kids, they basically presented a plan on how they would un-accelerate C. They would have him repeat first grade next year, although there is no academic reason to do so, and have him attend math and reading with second grade. Then the following year he would move on to second grade and repeat second grade reading and math, with what appeared to be some sort of gifted pull-out which we would have to pay considerably extra for.
Their plan, as ridiculous as it is, was not the worst part of the meeting. No, that would have to be when they started to build a case that C has Asperger’s syndrome. They admitted that they weren’t qualified to diagnosis such a thing, but went on to refer to it again and again and push for C to be evaluated. I know a child with Asperger’s and know the clinical definition for Asperger’s and C does not fit the bill. What has me so worked up is the fact that C is going to a school where they totally don’t “get” him and that his school seems set on trying to find things wrong with him rather than what is wrong with their program.
C obviously behaves differently at school than at home. Whether it’s anxiety, SPD, ADD or who knows what, it makes me feel horrible that he is not in an environment where he can just be himself. This then further feeds into my fears, which started in September. We agonized so long about where to send C to school this year and I can’t help but feel that we failed him. My mother seems to like to bring up at every turn how he would have been better off at this expensive prep school he was accepted to, even though he would have had to repeat kindergarten and we would only be able to pay for it through loans. My husband seems to be the most sensible one at the moment, reminding me that however bad things are now, it may still have been the lesser of evils for this year. C is not unhappy, and I need to remind myself of that. He likes his school for the most part. Still, I feel that environment has been unhealthy for him overall.
C is currently on the waiting list to see a local psychologist. We’re hoping to get some clarity on things (including a possible ADD diagnosis or anxiety issues) and give him someone objective he can speak with. I feel like I really need to speak to someone as well. It’s difficult to know what’s what anymore when C’s school is telling me the opposite of just about everything I knew to be true about my child.
