Before enrolling -- Check prof RATINGS

srparent15
Mon, 30 Nov 2020 13:39:02 +0000

This is great advice but to go even further and to take what @1intwo2go says, I would absolutely research some of the professors at the schools your students are applying to, especially how they’re doing during covid, even if Fall may be more normal and in person. Why? Because this tells you how they may deal with other issues and how the school handles it.

I have one kid who’s classes are all remote but thank god they’re all synchronous, have office hours (online) and readily available. Others at her large public school have not had the same experience and have mentioned that their kids have had courses that are 100% asynchronous and then the professor just gives a test and that’s it. It’s awful and no instruction. The professors are too lazy to do the work, show a video only or whatever. Not even recorded lectures of their own. My other daughter actually took an E&M Physics this way last summer at UW-Milwaukee. It was her first experience like that and fortunately because she had that class in high school it helped. But for students that didn’t they were having trouble since you had no interaction with the Professor and no one to explain things to you.

In non Covid, we also know there are plenty of bad professors at all schools. Parents and students should research that as well. It might be great that your student can get a free ride at a lower level school, but take note of the quality of the teaching and professors as it may not be as great as a school one notch up where you may still get a lot of merit money but not quite the full ride.

Reddit can be helpful and a lot of professors are even on that. But it is also often a bitching site for students, so take it with a grain of salt. Rate my Professor can be helpful to some degree, but there are also other sites but most importantly, talking to students from those schools. It is not hard to find students at the colleges your kids are looking for on insta, reddit, fb, etc.