I'm Thomas. I'm a sophomore in high school, and at my IEP meeting, the first thing my parents talked about was my grades immediately upon arrival. Immediately when my Dad saw my grades, he said "You're not so unique in that respect, Thomas."

Here are my grades so far:

Special ed English: B-
Concert Band: A
Jazz Lab: A
Geometry: C
Special ed social skills: A

- Never in this entire school year was I ever assigned more than a worksheet or two for homework on a typical day. In my school district, the students in the regular ed classes get assigned ten minutes of homework for every grade level. For example, 1st grade gets 10 minutes each day, 2nd grade 20 minutes, and so on. My sister in elementary school gets more homework than I do.

- If you think social studies is bad, wait until you hear what goes on in the autistic support room. Every day for 4th block, I have to sit through all kinds of information I've known since elementary school. For example, the five senses, teamwork, and even table manners! I wasn't kidding on that last one, table manners in 10th grade!

- I told my guidance counselor it would mean a lot to me if I was in an AP class in 11th grade, but she flat out refused. She said "If I put you in a class like that, you're going to fail it."

- Back in 9th grade English, I fought the teacher daily and was very resistant to directions, and often I refused to do my work. My 9th grade reading teacher put a C+ on my transcript, even though I was giving him D work. The only reason why he put a C+ instead of a D is because he didn't want that class to kill my application when I try to get into a good college! Because of that, I now have to take English for the whole year instead of 18 weeks unlike the regular students who decided to take English seriously instead.

- Concert Band and Jazz Lab are the only two classes I excel at. I have been in Concert Band ever since 4th grade, and never got a grade worse than an A- ever since. I was so good in 9th grade Concert Band, they put me in Jazz Lab as well this year. They're the only two classes I show positive attitude in on a daily basis. As for special ed social skills, the teachers are very easy going on me, because they know that if you get tough on a person with autism, there could be trouble.

- Students entering grades 7-12 are supposed to read two books over the summer. One from a district approved list, and one from the decision of the student. Out of the 20,000+ students in my school district, I am one of the very few exempt from summer reading, because the teachers know that I hate fiction, and they believe there's no point in obligating me to read over the summer if they have reason to believe I'm not going to do it.

- The reason why I get less than phenomenal grades in special ed English and Geometry is because until recently, I never spent any time outside the school building studying. I thought I could remember all the important stuff without sacrificing my time talking with my friends on Facebook. When the teachers said my homework was to study, I considered that equivalent to no homework whatsoever. That was true in elementary school, where we did simple passages on reading quizzes and single step problems on math quizzes, but there's a lot to contrast between elementary school and high school.

- I do not participate in any extracurricular activities. I never was interested in them until I found out everyone who wants to get into a good college does them for a good reason.

- I do not want to be forced to go to community college. I want to get into a nationally recognized top ranked college with remarkable student reviews, like NYU for example. NEVER with my grades and my lack of extracurriculars.

- My mom says that if I do not significantly improve my grades, the best career she recommends me is a tour guide. That's nothing to get excited about. A job I believe I'd be very happy at is one at Facebook's new engineering office in NYC. I've always loved everything that has something to do with computers ever since I started using them regularly. My family besides my mom strongly recommends it to me.

I never cared about my grades until the summer of 2011. My Uncle Drew was able to get himself a 5,000 sq ft custom built home in Avon-by-the-Sea, NJ. And that's without the basement. If the basement is encompassed in the square footage calc, it's 8,000. It has a bar, 100" home theatre, fitness room, elevator, private dock, basketball court, balconies on the 2nd and 3rd floor, library, wall safe, built in sound system on all floors, fireplace in both the family room and master bedroom, even a 1980's arcade machine! The house looks to be around $3M. He claims I am just as capable as him to build a house like his if I work like he does. Is he being honest?
Uncle Drew got into Notre Dame. He has been licensed to practice heart surgery since '99. He never got comments about him having a horrible lifestyle schoolwise.