@sevmom
Sometimes during my first year at Rice I felt that Texas A&M might have been a better fit for me, but the grass is not always greener on the other side.
As a Quest Scholar at Rice, I receive the full COA including a stipend for books, travel, and miscellaneous educational needs. At Texas A&M I would have needed to borrow twice the federal loan amount per year to be able to attend school.
I should have said pre-law focused major – poli-sci, history, rhetoric, etc. And I definitely did not choose the major with GPA in mind. I quit the STEM track because I found Chem 1A so boring that I couldn’t deal with the idea of taking a second quarter. It was also a difficult course, but I had a B in it and in those days B’s were considered pretty good. I opted to major in something I found interesting.
I was not a poli sci major (I had an individualize major) – but about half of my major coursework was poli sci at a UC. My son was a poli sci major at a CSU. My daughter was a poli sci major at an elite. So I’ve got a basis for comparison. The expectations my daughter had in poli sci courses in terms of level of reading and analysis was well beyond anything I was expected to do in college, and the level of academic expectations was even less at my son’s college.(Though counterbalanced for son by the fact that my son’s college funded him for a congressional internship one semester, and opportunity that probably had more intrinsic value than anything that could have been learned in a classroom setting).
It’s not about GPA-- we all got A’s in our poli-sci classes, thought the focus on GPA is one more example of what I consider to be misplaced priorities. It’s about what the courses required: how much reading, how much independent writing, the depth of scholarship expected in the writing, the types of questions posed on exams. My daughter was required to complete a series of colloquia with extensive writing requirement and a senior thesis. I also did a senior thesis but I think mine was about 30 or 40 pages at most, while my daughter’s was 95 pages – and my daughter’s work had much more academic depth than mine.
I find your comment about GPA to be either misguided or insulting – I don’t know which. I honestly don’t know if I would have done better or worse with a STEM major – I personally always tended to do well in math & science classes. The only thing that might dampen a GPA in the science classes as they tend to be graded on a curve, but a curve can work to the advantage of a student who is a less challenging environment overall. That is, my B in Chem 1A didn’t really reflect how much chemistry I had learned, so much as it reflected how well I did on the midterm and final exam in comparison to my classmates. My d. was required to take a year of a lab science in college and she got A’s-- so again, no noticeable difference between grades based on subject.
Questbridge, Gates Millennium Scholars, access programs, the push for economic diversity, helping first generation kids, etc. is much more at the forefront these days than it was decades ago.
Re: #321
There was no intent to be insulting to you. What I was thinking was that you may have been disappointed by the low level of rigor in the courses that you chose. From my own experience decades ago, H/SS courses were not necessarily easier than STEM courses, although there did seem to be some specific ones that grade-seekers (or those looking for easy-to-pass-with-minimal-work courses (taking the course passed / not-passed)) seemed to favor.
I wasn’t disappointed, I enjoyed my classes. But they were easy. I didn’t realize that at the time, because I just assumed that they were easy to me because I was smart – not out of an inflated ego, but simply because that had been my experience all through school. Like many of the students who end up at elite schools, I was always the kid getting A’s through elementary and high school with little expended effort. So honestly I just assumed that was the way things were. Law school was the first time I was confronted with an intense workload and intellectual demands that truly challenged me. My daughter, like me, had an equally easy time in elementary and high school, but her college was more academically rigorous – so she experienced the intensity of demands from her first semester. (Although admittedly she had signed up for an upper-level linguistics course straight off the bat … I don’t think she found the courses geared to first year students particularly challenging. But she found grad school to be quite easy compared to her undergrad experience).
I don’t know if they are or not, I just made that comment about of respect to students who are studying in an area that I pretty much opted to avoid. The big deterrent to me wasn’t subject matter, but the huge lectures and labs that were staffed by TA’s who spoke little or no English. It was just hard to get engaged in that environment.
@calmom I enjoyed reading your contributions. But you paint in broad strokes, framing the lower born student as the frozen out harmless victim and “more socially competent” because they’ve maybe worked a part-time job. For every rich jerk there’s a lower or middle class student who is incredibly close minded, hyper-narrow world view, has hostile preconceived notions about “rich jerks” if they see someone wearing a certain polo shirt, they’re hesitant to get out of their comfort zone, likely angry and jealous of and intimidated by the confidence of wealthier peers. What I’m saying is friendship goes both ways.
My theory is some lower born kids obsess over their lack of privilege (even while steeping in privilege on a full ride at an elite) because they realize they’re not as smart as they thought they were and they wallow in self-doubt. It’s classic scapegoating. They have to find something that makes their experience rigged or unfair.
I’m sorry, but I find the use of the term “lower born” incredibly offensive. We do not have a caste system in America.
Can I suggest, with the best possible intent, that some of these class/race “theories” espoused in the thread should be re-evaluated at their core?
For the record, just yesterday we visited a super-elite (against my wishes). Our tour guide was a URM child of immigrants. He was an incredible young man and as we walked campus many other students cheered out to him (just a rising soph, with school not in session). He spoke at great length about how hit fit in with his roommates who were all very different from him. He was happy, grateful, and clearly succeeding.
One guy, yes, but I don’t think this “problem” or the theories that purport to explain it, is very common.
Also, yes, some of you guys may not realize it or intend it, but you are saying offensive stuff.
Officially, no. But we do have population subgroups with distinctive cultures, and although many other factors (such as race, religion, geographic area, and urban vs. rural location) play a role in distinguishing those subgroups, something akin to social class is also in there somewhere.
My daughter, an exceedingly well-qualified graduate of a public school magnet program, was placed with a random college roommate who had come from a lower socioeconomic background and (evidently) a really terrible high school. This girl probably had massive financial aid, but in important respects, she had gotten the short end of the stick because she was ill-prepared for college academically and she struggled with every college course.
I don’t know how smart my daughter’s roommate was – probably very smart. But poor academic preparation for college can derail any kid. And I suspect it places a burden on many of the kids from poorer areas who receive large scholarships to elite colleges.
What I find very offensive is being given $250,000 to $260,000 to attend the best schools in the world and suggesting that isn’t enough.
Having the opportunity to create what ever life you wish to for yourself is a gift to be embraced and appreciated. To want more given to you is extremely offensive.
I went to community college for two years while also working 30 hours a week, I transferred to a SUNY and worked 12 to 15 hours per week, I took out student loans and paid them back over a period of 10 years. I put myself through college.
My wife and I have one child, she is a Junior at Harvard and we are a full pay family. A full pay family where significant sacrifice has been made to save for and pay for our daughters education.
So please forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for a young person who is being given this opportunity for nothing. That doesn’t mean I begrudge them that opportunity because I don’t, I am glad that these opportunities are available to them and wholly support that they are. We have opened our home to friends of our daughters who couldn’t travel home for Thanksgiving. A First Generation college student spent this past Thanksgiving with us. She was raised by a single Mom and she is a great kid.
I don’t identify our family by class but if I were to we would be considered upper class economically. Our daughter has strong friendships across the socio economic spectrum, as do my wife and I.What matters to us is whether someone is a kind person, a decent person etc. we couldn’t care less about their socio economic status.
Our we fortunate, yes we are. Do I resent people who are economically more successful than ourselves? Of course not!
The kids who are receiving these fantastic opportunities have the choice to do amazing things with what they have been given. If they don’t get that than that is a real shame.
It isn’t enough if you aren’t also given access to tools and resources that would enable you to succeed and information about how to access those tools and resources.
We will agree to disagree. There are significant resources of that nature made available to all students at elite colleges.
Additionally these students wouldn’t have been admitted if it was thought they were incapable of doing the work.
When it comes to URM students, especially those from inferior high schools, I am not sure that this is true. The colleges want these students very badly. I think that sometimes they make admissions decisions that are not in the students’ best interests.
As for opportunities to succeed – I don’t think that anything less than a full year of remedial work before tackling college courses would have enabled my daughter’s roommate to succeed, and that opportunity was not available to her.
But yes, we will agree to disagree.
No, it sounds like you resent people who are less economically successful than yourselves, which is the odd part. And I understand you might not think so and tell you with the best intent that is how it sounds.
So, a young person earns a scholarship by virtue of accomplishment despite hardship and that ends any sympathy you might have for any other problem they encounter?
I know I am just a stranger spouting off, but I might suggest you show your post to your obviously brilliant daughter and ask her for her thoughts.
The elites have the highest graduation rates of all colleges. Do you think when admissions officers are combing through thousands and thousands of applications to fill those relatively very few spots that they have to select students who will be needing the type of help that is being suggested?
Postmodern, I believe you completely missed the obvious in my post. How all that matters to our family is whether people are kind and decent and we couldn’t care less about their socio economic status.
^^I understand you may not have meant it that way, but that is why I used terms like “it sounds”. And it really does. I read them again to be sure.
I certainly would have no sympathy for any financial part of their college experience once given a “full ride” as discussed in the article.
Maybe to you it sounds that way but it should be dropped once intent was clarified by GreatKid. Bringing it up again just sounds like (And it really does) you’re picking a fight.
Even if they go hungry during college breaks because the dining plan does not include meals during breaks and they have no money to buy food elsewhere and no money to travel home during the break?
Even if they go without textbooks so that they can send the money intended for textbooks home to their families, who need it for necessities?
Graduation is not synonymous with success. A student who comes to college poorly prepared and who barely graduates as a result does not have the career opportunities that he or she might have had if there had been realistic opportunities to make up for those academic deficiencies early on. But the college gets to count the student as a “success” even if the student’s future opportunities are limited.
Postmodern, I don’t know how you arrive at that conclusion having read what I posted.Your interpretation couldn’t be further than the truth. If you are not accepting of that there isn’t much I can do about it.
Marian, the answer is no. Certainly that may be a personal bias of mine, but I worked like crazy to afford college so I don’t see why kids given a free ride should be entitled to even more without working hard to afford the minor things.