How to Get Great Grades in College After Depression Hurt Your High School Performance
Last week I dug my son’s fall semester transcript out of the kitchen junk drawer, where he’d left it after stopping by for lunch. My hand still hesitated before I opened it, muscle memory from three years earlier, when I opened his 11th grade report card to three Fs, one D, and a counselor’s note saying he wasn’t on track to graduate. Back then, undiagnosed depression had him skipping first period three times a week, sleeping through entire weekends, and forgetting to turn in even the simplest assignments. This time, the transcript had three As and one A-. It’s still hard to believe, but it’s not a miracle. It’s just a bunch of small, intentional changes that any kid can make after struggling through high school.
I work part time as a high school guidance counselor, so I get this question all the time: Seniors who barely graduated because of depression, their parents leaning into my office desk, asking how their kid can possibly get good grades in college when they couldn’t even pass high school. Most of the advice out there is generic “just try harder” or “get help” which doesn’t actually help anyone. What I tell them comes straight from what my son figured out, one step at a time.
After graduation, we didn’t push him to jump straight into a four-year school. He didn’t feel ready, so we enrolled him in our local community college, let him keep a small apartment a mile off campus (cheaper than dorms, and he could have space when he needed it). His first semester, he didn’t sign up for the full 15-credit load most freshmen take. He signed up for two classes, six credits total. I thought that was too slow at first, but he said he wanted to get used to the routine before he added more. That first semester, he got a B and an A-, and he didn’t burn out once. That was enough.
I remember we were folding laundry after Sunday dinner last month, and I asked him what was so different between college and high school that made it work. He paused for a minute, then said high school was seven hours a day, five days a week, six different teachers who didn’t know his name, constant switching between classes, rules that didn’t bend for anyone. “I couldn’t take a day off just because I couldn’t get out of bed,” he said. “If I missed one day, I got behind in six classes. In college, I make the rules.”
What does that mean, practically? First, he builds his entire schedule around his energy. He still struggles to get up before 10am on bad days, so he never schedules a class before 11am. Last year, he arranged all his classes to fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so he has three free days a week to work around bad stretches. If he has a week where all he wants to do is sleep, he can catch up on homework on his free days instead of missing class. That’s a simple change that most kids don’t think to make — they just pick the classes that fit the “normal” freshman schedule, instead of picking what works for their brain.
Second, he talks to every professor on the first day of class. He doesn’t make a big speech, he just stops by office hours for five minutes and says, “I struggled with depression all through high school, I’m working really hard to stay on top of things here, but if I ever hit a rough patch I’ll reach out to you ahead of time.” He didn’t even bother with the college’s official disability accommodation his first year — he was still uncomfortable labeling his depression that way, and this was simpler. Most college professors are far more flexible than high school teachers. They don’t care if you turn in a paper two days late if you ask ahead, as long as you’re upfront about it. That small conversation has gotten him more flexibility than any IEP ever did in high school.
Third, he cuts himself more slack than he did in high school. When he failed his first biology quiz first semester, he called me panicking, saying he was just going to end up like he did in 11th grade. I drove over with his favorite fried rice, and we sat down and looked at the syllabus together. That quiz was only 10% of his grade, and the professor dropped the lowest quiz score. We didn’t have a big heart-to-heart about trying harder. We just mapped out what he needed to study for the next quiz, and moved on. In high school, every small mistake tanked your grade, so one bad week could ruin an entire semester. In college, there’s way more room to mess up, as long as you don’t quit when you do.
It’s not a perfect story. My son still has bad stretches every couple of months, where he doesn’t leave his apartment for three days. He doesn’t join any clubs, he doesn’t do extra credit he doesn’t need, he just focuses on his classes. That’s okay. He’s not trying to be a perfect student. He’s just trying to get the grades he needs to transfer to the engineering program he wants next fall.
I still talk to parents who think a bad high school transcript from depression means their kid will never do well in college. It doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to fix your depression completely before you start college. You just have to start small, build a routine that works for you, and ask for the flexibility you need. It’s still a work in progress. We don’t know what will happen when he increases his course load next semester. But right now, it’s working, and that’s enough.
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