<p>Actually USC turns down many excellent students. It’s because they simply have way more applicants than space. Glad your S has UCLA which is an excellent U and likely much more affordable anyway. </p>
<p>We know several NMFs who got into other excellent Us (including UPenn) but rejected by USC.</p>
<p>
Nah, I teach at a “directional U” and I’m a B because I resent not getting an appointment at a fancy-schmancy U ;).</p>
<p>I agree, OL that faculty bashing is popular on CC, unfortunately. Adjunct bashing even more so.</p>
<p>" in the end his happiness should make him a better student." - Wise words. Now next year when he faces hard classes, he may very well have a “what have I done?” moment. That is ok and common. In the end I bet he’ll be happy with the decision. </p>
<p>Tenure issues aside, profs are human and do make mistakes. Encourage your students to be proactive if they have concerns. My son once took a college final and felt he did well… he was dismayed to see a grade of 56%. He contacted the prof who graciously agreed to meet with him after Christmas break. It turns out that the prof (or a TA) had added points incorrectly - he really had an A on the final exam.</p>
<p>sylvan and ordinarylives, if the statement from Poet, “I have nothing against professors or tenure, but if you are telling me that professors aren’t human and don’t occasionally develop personality clashes with students, I think you are not being objective” is “bashing”, then you two are far too sensitive. What, there aren’t injustices in the grading process on occasion based on personality conflicts, political or religious beliefs, or other factors?</p>
<p>Remember, there is always some genius (maybe your son) who gets nearly 100% on the exam and spoils the curve for the rest of them. Often, it has nothing to do with the professor. So, that 3.6 is easily destroyed, especially with illness. In any case, congratulations on UCLA, it’s a fantastic school! I can’t imagine picking U of U over UCLA (I’m very familiar with both). And, you’d spend lots of $ traveling back and forth to Salt Lake, could be an extra $5k over 4 years. Westwood vs. Salt Lake? No contest! And that USC rejection…who cares, surely you remember when we UC students referred to it as the University of Spoiled Children! Ok, SC grads/students, don’t attack! I know it has changed and improved…</p>
<p>ExhaustedDad,
Your bit about tenure really got to me. Will your son refuse to take a course with a tenured prof? Since you are so involved, will you refuse to let him? Walk the walk or just talk the talk?</p>
<p>Oh, ExhaustedDad, if only it were just the one comment by Poetgirl. You’ve been a member for a while, but with just 160+ posts, I don’t know how much time you’ve spent here. Stick around a while. You’ll see a lot of discussion revolving around “bad” professors, which seems to be a label applied to any prof who doesn’t take late work when your kids had a good reason for being late, or one who doesn’t give enough As, or one who fails a student for incorrect documentation when it really couldn’t have been any more than an honest mistake . . .</p>
<p>Oh, gloworm, really? </p>
<p>And I usually find you so reasonable.</p>
<p>Look, my kid is graduating college with a 4.0. There are hoops.</p>
<p>Professors are no better and no worse than any other profession. They also have good semesters and bad semesters, break ups with significant others, family problems, at times, miscarriages, divorces, deaths in the family, and flat out personality conflicts with a student from time to time. </p>
<p>Like any other job, a certain percentage can be problematic. So what?</p>
<p>The same can be said for whatever exhausted dad does, whatever I do, or whatever anybody else does. </p>
<p>We could talk about banker bashing, or lawyer bashing or doctor bashing, or… It’s the same all over on CC.</p>
<p>
I wouldn’t necessarily call that person a “bad prof” but I would consider it an unreasonable policy (assuming the “good reason” was really a good reason).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A difference, in my opinion, is that PhDs are making, on average, much lower salaries. Sylvan had a couple of recent threads discussing adjunct work loads & salaries. It is pretty shameful imho. When tenure disappears, university teaching salaries will be even lower and benefits probably non-existent. This is going to impact who is willing to teach. Do we care? Probably not. Will it change the quality of education available? I think probably so.</p>
<p>Congratulations on the 4.0 grad!!!</p>
<p>I think that what universities are doing to their adjuncts is horrible, frankly, and the fact that the tenured professors are allowing this to go on is also horrible, imho.</p>
<p>I am on the record as stating that the millions and millions we are paying administrators is “the problem” in education, today, and that the “bells and whistles” at the expense of the professors and instructors and students is criminal, imho.</p>
<p>That is my standard position.</p>
<p>Also, I believe you run into your occasional cantankerous prof. So what? He/She might be the best prof out there for some students, just not for some other snowflake. :)</p>
<p>I am not sure how tenured professors are allowing this to go on?</p>
<p>They are complicit.</p>
<p>That’s the problem with “good reasons.” Students and their parents think they’re just fine. We tend to disagree, especially about things like plane tickets (hey, the academic calendar is pretty clear about when breaks begin and end). But, I don’t want to hijack the thread. </p>
<p>I just find it odd that a group of people willing to move heaven and earth to get their kids into the best schools possible with maximum merit aid often turn on the very people providing that supposedly elite education.</p>
<p>My point was that OP still has lots to think about.</p>
<p>161 of the engineering faculty at UCLA are either tenured or on tenure track. They got that through hard work, not screwing students.</p>
<p>Off to have a hot date with H.</p>
<p>I think tenured faculty may be complicit in continuing graduate programs and graduating PhDs who have no real hope of jobs in their fields. I don’t think they have anything to do really with the faculty positions cut the last 5 years or so. It is sort of a double whammy.</p>
<p>I am okay with cutting way back on graduate programs but that makes them much less accessible to the general population and thus much more elitist.</p>
<p>If a couple of tenured professors retire in a dept, and those positions are eliminated, and adjuncts hired to take up the slack… I don’t see what power tenured faculty has to address the situation?</p>
<p>I will take the opportunity to say that because most of us would agree that students and professors may have a “bad day”, it is time for us to have a safety net to take care of this problem.
My proposal in some other threads was government regulation that expunges the bottom x% of a student grade. And this needs to be federally mandated so that all schools/unis need to comply.
The reason for that is that we know that draws from the left tail of the distribution does happen. The way our system works, the student who gets a bad professor of a truly bad day may have his/her academic records destroyed in a single shot.</p>
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</p>
<p>I’m not wiling to move heaven or earth to “get” my kid anywhere. She did that herself. We ARE full pay, though. So, I suppose I was willing to pay a heavenly sum for an earthly product, that’s for sure.</p>
<p>My daughter has had profs which follow along the usual: 20:60:20 Twenty percent have been amazing, sixty percent have been quite good, and twenty percent have not been worth a penny. </p>
<p>That is my experience. Perhaps every professor you know is perfect. Who knows? Could happen.</p>
<p>Regarding adjuncts, let me be a little bit cold and ask: why do they agree with that? Don’t they read anything about supply and demand? What I mean is that if the pay is so horrible, why don’t they go do something else? If you say, there is no other jobs, then perhaps the person does not have other marketable skills.</p>
<p>What about TAs. Why are they paid so little? Well, there is a huge supply of students who want to be TAs.</p>
<p>I know that this is perhaps too much right wing, but if the school can hire an adjunct for less money, why should they pay more? Perhaps the explanation is for humanitarian reasons, but then the same logic should apply to all levels in the organization. Everybody: custodians, TAs, janitors, you name it, should receive more, not just Adjuncts.</p>
<p>regarding the bad profs, or just those having a very horrible no good bad day:</p>
<p>many schools have shopping periods for classes
don’t all schools allow you to drop classes?
and withdraw?</p>
<p>you have more control than in high school.</p>
<p>I think my kids tended to pick teachers they liked. They dropped some courses. No big deal.</p>