<p>This is what I mean by cultural issues. I am sure he asked quietly and not forcefully. He did not go into a litany of symptoms but asked what the professor though he should do. Why is it my son that lied? Maybe, the professor did the wrong thing, was spaced out for minute, did not think my son looked sick. Maybe, the other students whined more than my son. It could happen. Someone in administration said that the professors have meetings and my son does not come up as one of the people in trouble. Maybe, failing a couple of tests is normal at HMC. Is it?</p>
<p>I keep seeing the face of classmate that booked a hotel room during spring break and jumped out the window. She was passing; she just was not doing well. She consider herself a failed ballerina, and I guess she gave up. She was a roommate of a friend of my roommate. I did not know her directly. I will never forget how the roommate walked around in a daze for weeks. I think pressure for the sake of pressure is unwarranted. Yes, I heard HMC was hard, but I thought hard meant they have to stay up late more than in high school.</p>
<p>“Maybe, failing a couple of tests is normal at HMC. Is it?”</p>
<p>Yes. It is.</p>
<p>BicoastalMamma-</p>
<p>are you an airplane parent? if so, now is the time to give him wings</p>
<p>give your son a chance to grow and let him figure things out - he was the one admitted and hopefully he was the one who chose to go to mudd</p>
<p>if a school admits a person they do not want or expect them to fail as it is bad for the school’s statistics</p>
<p>mudd is much more supportive than many other engineering colleges/universities and i know based on being one of only 6 females were admitted to a university with a heavy focus on engineering [many hundreds of males in engineering] where the professors did not help females and the males did not allow females in their study groups or help them - we dealt with the hurdles the best we could - going to the mba program with the smallest percentage of women was another hurdle - there are many hurdles for all of us - no one goes through life without them unless they don’t recognize them</p>
<p>your son’s life is what your son will make of it - getting over his hurdles teaches him things </p>
<p>you need to back off the bad rap you are giving mudd and let your son have his life and give him wings</p>
<p>wow… such a pointless argument…
honestly, the best would have been not to start such a controversial issue
BCM posted an honest post, and she did not expect such repercussions.
Just leave her alone a bit.</p>
<p>maruhan, with all due respect, you probably missed most of BcM’s other posts scattered on a dozen or so threads. She seems to have gained some perspective, but “over the top” doesn’t begin to describe it.</p>
<p>Also, the things that BCM says are happening are things that we DO NOT want to happen at Mudd, even if its because of the ignorance of the student. So not only are we countering what she is saying on belief that its false, but trying to show her PERSONALLY how her son can get what he needs. As has been mentioned either here or elsewhere, but the president of the college is now knows of this matter, and will do her best to make things as right as they should be with regard to BCM’s son.</p>
<p>A lurker, but the fact that the school responded promptly to an email from someone at CC is a <em>very</em> big “positive checkmark” for the school, IMO. Way to go, Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Well, unfortunately, I am not taking anything back that I previously said about HMC. If you high school science curriculum is weak and you don’t naturally score 800 on SAT, don’t go to Mudd. It is not a school for hardworkers who are not naturally geniuses.</p>
<p>BicoastalMamma, I have no dog in HMC whatsoever. I’m a lurker. But if I read what happened upthread correctly, you posted concerns about your son, kind people on here contacted the dean to be helpful, and then you accused them of “meddling” or trying to “out” your son? If HE won’t ask for help, then how do you expect others to know that he needs help – just guess? I cannot believe that you objected to kind-hearted people trying to let the dean know that here was a kid who needed help.</p>
<p>They weren’t kind. They were just protecting their investment. He asked for help. None was offered other than the study sessions (undergraduate TAs) and the suggestion to work harder. He is too stupid for HMC. I guess his high school grades were inflated. Other kids are flunking too although they are working every single minute. The school is too hard for nongeniuses.</p>
<p>He asked for help, none was offered. So then when other people on CC tried to get people at the school to reach out to him, instead of being grateful that people were reaching out to him and getting him the needed help, you got mad that he’d be “found out” and yelled at those people for being “informants” and compared them to the Gestapo. Sorry, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Your story doesn’t add up.</p>
<p>Because he already asked for help and the only thing offered was work harder. He went to all the teachers and all the deans. They just said “work harder.” Well, obviously, he can’t work harder if he is already dropping from exhaustion.</p>
<p>One of his friends is having an even harder time. I don’t think she is doing OK in any class. The dean’s words of wisdom to her is that she will not be able to come back again. There are a new set of deans this year. Maybe, they are not as helpful as the deans they replaced.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with this opinion at all. I talked to a ton of current Harvey Mudd students and they all said it was extremely difficult to fail classes that were taken on campus. Especially freshman year. There is Academic Excellence which is available to everyone, and if anyone is getting a low grade they are spoken to by their professor and the deans. Every effort is made to help them master the material and bring up their grade.</p>
<p>To fail a class you really had to just refuse help or not put in any effort. This wasn’t the opinion of one student, but of every single one I spoke to.</p>
<p>I am not a student yet, so my perspective may not be completely accurate, but the situation that has been described just doesn’t make any sense to me.</p>
<p>I didn’t go to HM but …</p>
<p>I’ll just add a little of my experience from years ago. I was an engineering student at Cal and it was only after being there a little more than a month that I realized my high school was a horrible place to “train” for this school. I was discouraged for a bit, but I realized this was my opportunity to graduate from a great school. I did go to TA and professor office hours, joined every study group I could and I just worked as hard as I could. It didn’t take me long to realized how fortunate I was. If my school had been taken into consideration I would never have gotten into Cal and I would never have had the chance to “prove” that I could do it. I was asked by one student, 'How did you get here?" when I told her that neither of my parents had even graduated from high school, let alone college.</p>
<p>Yeah I had a few bad professors that really didn’t care about me, and, I suppose, tired of me at office hours, but they were only (2) in my four years there, so what? I’m going to let 2 profs/TAs ruin what I wanted…I don’t think so.</p>
<p>To the OP poster(and any others), aim as high as you want and know that especially in engineering, the work is long and hard but so worth it if that’s your bent, if engineering isn’t for you, then it’s torturous. I look back at Cal as some of my best years, for academic and social reasons. I hope you can look back at the school you choose the same way. :)</p>
<p>There are many dropouts from engineering school, including HMC. You have to be superbright to get through engineering at a hard school. Thank God or genetics if you are so blessed. Some engineering schools have dumber students and easier classes. I wish my son had gone to one of those, because he is bright but not a natual 800 on the SAT math. There are a lot of schools where he would not be in danger of flunking out. I know practicing engineer who went to those schools, who chose not to try to compete with the geniuses. The Academic Excellence tutors are not that good at HMC and the professors don’t want to be bothered with the dummies who are having a hard time with the basic sciences and math. Aettsenoh – you don’t get to meet the flunking students when you tour. They are in their rooms or AE, desperately trying to catch up.</p>
<p>I was at HMC today and yesterday at ASW. I obviously talked to quite a few kids, some that happened to be having a GPA in the 2.5 range, and some who had failed classes… which obviously isn’t even close to what they experienced in HS. They were working hard and going to AE (which they said was extremely helpful to them). I also witnessed them working really hard really late into the night, but they weren’t unhappy at all. It was more of a social activity.</p>
<p>These students, were very happy with Mudd. Instead of whining and complaining about how hard it was, and how they weren’t good enough, they realized that everyone has a hard time there. They all worked together in groups and got their work done. It all works out. One of the girls explain this to me- you take say the top 1% of a students of the whole gap of the world. When you get to Mudd, that 1% gap expands to be your whole world. You can’t expect to do as well as you did in high school. You really have to work hard for it- and yes, with a combination of some innate ability (Which EVERYONE who got into Harvey Mudd has) and hard work, you can succeed. By no means is GPA a complete measure of success either.</p>
<p>As for the professors not being accommodating, that’s absolute bull. I emailed a professor, I’m not even a student there yet, and they were willing to talk to me for 45 minutes out of their Sunday! In addition, one of the kids there told me how he emailed a teacher at 2am, and the professor not only emailed them back with help within 30 minutes, he happened to be doing work late at night and ended up helping them with their work!! I have not heard one bad experience of someone asking for help from a professor or peers and getting completely shut down.</p>
<p>amen. 10char</p>
<p>Bicoastalmamma has some points that should be considered by students getting into Mudd (and other tough engineering schools). Most students will be those who are indeed a natural 800 on the SAT math (and probably Physics and maybe Reading too). If you don’t have a really rigourous high school background it will be incredibly tough. Even if you do have those qualifications, it will be tough.</p>