How common is getting "shut out" for "reasonably good" students?

Parents Forum
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<p>But will they randomly be placed in classes, or will they tend to find each other in classes matched to their ability and motivation (e.g. honors and more advanced courses, or courses that other students fear to take because they are “too hard”)?</p>

<p>Granted, if the good student chooses a major which happens to be a “gut major” at the given school (and “gut majors” are not necessarily the same ones at every school) or with a weak department at the given school, the academic experience may be quite unsatisfying. But that may mean doing careful investigation of safeties to check whether the majors that the student is interested in are quality ones suitable for that students at the safeties.</p>

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<p>At large public universities often used as safeties (directionals or flagships), yes, they’re randomly assigned classes. All freshmen may have to take a freshman seminar and they’ll be randomly assigned; or all freshmen take Comp1 or Comp2, but even if they’re in Comp2 they have no say in which one or it may just mean they’re placed into it second semester while they take something else 1st semester. They may be placed in huge lectures for their major’s prereqs or in subjects, like anthropology or geology, that weren’t offered at the high school level. They may or may not skip some introductory classes; they may or may not get into the honors program (they may not even understand what the honors program is). They may be told to get online and pick classes in the catalog and they’ll be assigned to some of them if there’s space. They may meet with someone who’s been designated “new student adviser” who meets with them for 10mn in August and tells them to take some classes that still have space based on their math/English/foreign language placement results or (sometimes) SAT Subject or AP scores. Sometimes they register for classes before knowing how exactly their AP classes will be treated or even before they know their senior year AP results. Odds are that 3/5 first semester classes will be “random” classes.
And investigating academic quality and depth at the college level is virtually impossible for high school students: how could they imagine that, outside accredited programs, there’s such immense disparity between rigor, demands, requirements, etc? Many don’t even understand that because courses are listed in a catalog, it doesn’t mean they’re offered every year. </p>

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<p>My junior D2’s first criterion for a school is “quirky” to match her. She also doesn’t have the social acumen to successfully search for kindred spirits on a large campus. She’s a STEM kid who aspires to have conversations about philosophy at 3am in the library. I think she’d be unhappy at any large state flagship, unless it had a completely self contained honors program. We are looking for LAC/tech school safeties, with her one hook being a female STEM student. And hoping the LAC safeties will have strong enough programs in her areas of interest. </p>

<p>An unusual case, maybe, but the safety has to match the student.</p>

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<p>When I went to a large public university as a first semester frosh, I chose my own courses. There was certainly opportunity to choose honors or more advanced courses. The only courses where students had no choice were remedial English composition courses for the 60% or so of frosh (back then) who did not test out of them. Of course, popular courses, instructors, or sections at popular times (meaning not 8am) were more likely to be full.</p>

<p>Of course, this was back in the day of paper catalogs and schedules (often with updates posted on paper by the department office). These days, a student has plenty of on-line resources which can be used to help select courses.</p>

<p>This is not to say that everything works perfectly. Advising is often not very good, particularly for undecided undeclared-major students, so that students who depend on such advising may not end up choosing well. Students in declared majors or who know what majors they want to declare can, however, look at the semester-by-semester course plan for their majors for guidance.</p>

<p>Perhaps the appeal of separate “honors colleges” at big state universities is for those who fear being unable to find other high achievers among a mass of not-quite-as-high achievers.</p>

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<p>True, getting down to the level of actual course quality and rigor (beyond looking at offerings in the catalog and schedule) is difficult. But it is not always a safe assumption that courses at more selective schools are more rigorous than the same courses at other schools. See bernie12’s comments in this thread: <a href=“Schools that are considered to be on Ivy League level for undergrad? - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1619090-schools-that-are-considered-to-be-on-ivy-league-level-for-undergrad-p1.html&lt;/a&gt; .</p>

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<p>Consolation, I misread your post from before. Sorry.</p>

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<p>So how do introverts do it in real life, where it isn’t immediately apparent how smart people are? Obviously in a selective college environment it’s easy to have reasonable expectations about one’s peers. But after college, how does a person find suitable friends and companions among the general population of regular people?</p>

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<p>We regular people can also make for good friends.</p>

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<p>Sorry, but I just can’t buy into the idea that an extremely bright kid who doesn’t get into Harvard, Stanford Yale or MIT will be left with only the semi-literate as his classmates. Woe is me to the kid who has to attend a CMU, Grinnell or Reed. Where do the parents of these kids think all the other valedictorians who didn’t get into Ivy League colleges end up? I understand that finances can complicate things, but a high stats kid will still end up with offers of merit money at strong schools.</p>

<p>Frankly, a 4.0, 2300 SAT kid who can’t find a backup other than their state flagship isn’t really looking very hard.</p>

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<p>Even a state flagship as unselective as Arizona State is not the end of the world, since its top students do go on to top PhD programs in their majors.</p>

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<p>Hmmm… I must be pretty provincial - I thought those are great schools that are also highly selective with their admission.</p>

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<p>Before last year, I would have thought the same thing. But I guess financial constraints are very real for a lot of students/parents. My daughter has two good friends who got into top 5 schools (but not Ivy) but could not go due to finance - I must say that I do not quite understand - I have thought these uber schools are need-blind? So they are now attending our very good state flagship school. I pity their classmates who have to compete with them.</p>

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<p>Again, I don’t think you can make blanket generalizations about public universities. They’re not all alike. They do things differently. Some may randomly assign students to classes, others do not. And many have programs of various kinds aimed at tailoring the college experience to the needs and interests of the student. Those most attentive to this sort of thing might, in fact, offer a wider variety of educational and living/learning options than private colleges and universities which are generally smaller and can’t offer as wide a menu of options.</p>

<p>My own alma mater, the University of Michigan, offers a wide array of residential “living/learning communities” designed to bring smaller communities of like-minded students together both in residential settings and in the classroom from Day 1. These include an Honors Program with Honors classes and optional Honors housing; the Residential College which operates like a small liberal arts college within the university, with a special emphasis on writing, languages, and the arts; the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, a living/learning community focused on writing, visual arts, and creative arts more generally; the Michigan Community Scholars Program, a living/learning community with a special emphasis on community service and social justice; the Women in Science and Engineering Residential Program which brings together women in science and engineering programs in a residential community; the Global Scholars Program which offers residential and curricular options for students interested in global, international, and intercultural studies across a variety of disciplines; and on and on. Students aren’t “randomly assigned” to these programs; they’re self-selected, though admission to the most popular of them is also competitive, so not everyone may get their first choice. But the point is, there are plenty of choices to be had, all aimed at generating opportunities to bring together people with similar interests, goals, and capacities in both residential settings and in the classroom. </p>

<p>And it works. I am by nature an introvert, and I was deeply introverted as an uncertain 18-year-old. I was invited to join the Honors Program and I gladly accepted, though I was somewhat torn between the Honors Program and the Residential College (I’m told it’s now possible to do both). I lived in an Honors house and in my first week there I made friends with people who would become and remain close friends throughout my college years, some of whom have remained close lifelong friends. That process is really no different at any school, large or small. It’s just as difficult for an introverted student to meet and make friends with people at a small school as at a large one. In fact, I think my daughter had a somewhat harder time finding her niche in a liberal arts college of 1,300 students than I did in a major state flagship easily an order of magnitude larger, because her housing assignment process was more random than mine–and by and large, it’s the residential setting where close friendships will be formed, more so than the classroom. </p>

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<p>I feel sorry for children whose parents believe it is necessary for them to surround themselves only with people like themselves. These young adults will be woefully unprepared to deal with the real world. </p>

<p>Water seeks its own level. Smart will find smart, but should be interested in living with and learning from everyone.</p>

<p>I was a 3.5 GPA, mid-500s SAT high school student who was far too interested in having fun to study. Went to a CTCL LAC, then a state flagship when money unexpectedly ran short, and ultimately on to law school, where I graduated in the top 4% of my class. Today I am at the top of my very competitive field, with plenty of Ivy-educated colleagues for company. So be careful whom you disregard, all you 4.0 GPA, 2400 SAT, 20 AP students. You may be working for one of us tenacious late bloomers one day!</p>

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<p>Just to remind people we’re not talking about 2400/4.0 kids, but 3.5/1300 kids.
The high stats kids who bother applying to their flagship’s honors colleges/CTCL’s/women’s colleges/specialty tech schools will tend to end up somewhere provided they weren’t given bad advice. (In my opinion, depending on who you are, any of these options is excellent.)
The most worrisome aspect for these kids is the bad financial advice - many guidance counselors don’t have training re: financial issues. And then you have the dazzled guidance counselor who doesn’t realize some universities can’t be used as safeties even if the school hasn’t had such a brilliant student in 10 years (like the superkid from a low-performing HS whose counselor thought WashU was a safety.)</p>

<p>I agree that living-learning communities are great, new options. But not all universities have them and their implementation really, really varies.</p>

<p>bclinton I get your point and I agree to a certain extent, but you’re talking about UMichigan - and that reasonably good kid above would NOT get into UMich. They’d likely get into MSU or Michigan Tech or Oakland, but can you honestly say it’ll be as satisfying for them?
What about colleges where the living-learning communities are still tentative, or not really geared toward the intellectual/quirky/non preprofesssional student, with themes such as “Sports and exercise”, “Business and entrepreneurship”, “Engineering and Information Technology”, and “ROTC”? (Sometimes you do have an “International Community” where an international student is paired with an American student interested in learning about other cultures.)
At UWyoming (another example), the choices are: substance-free, male-only, female-only, honors, Engineering, Honors, Engineering, Animal/Vet Science, Pharmacy, Teaching young children, Theater, “music avalanche” (?), criminal justice, international studies (for IS majors), and ROTC.
I think these are great innovations and they really help in making a large environment more personal. At the same time, do you see an emphasis, perhaps representative of the students there? Could the choices at Michigan be different? And wouldn’t these choices speak to different types of students than, say, students who’d feel good at Oberlin or Sarah Lawrence or Guilford?</p>

<p>BTW, I agree that it may be easier to “find your people” at a large university than at a small one if you chose the small one without looking at fit - at colleges under 2,500 students, fit is crucial. However finding your group of people in a very large environment when you’re not in the norm for whatever reason is very difficult too and can make for an alienating/miserable experience (I actually studied that and it was NOT what I was expecting to find.) The reason behind the movement for “small high schools” is that a more personalized environment helps a lot of kids. The reason why the US has LACs (at all levels) is that not everyone wants a large university. While you can “make do” (and certainly someone who has to “make do” at UMich should be better off than someone at Northern MI State…) some students will do better in one type of environment than in another one, while for some it won’t make a big difference. The trick is to help students find the safety school that’s closest to their “dream” school and the criteria may be different depending on what’s important to them. </p>

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<p>Two examples of the unexpected fallout of choosing the teeny tiny niche college that seems so perfect at first. These are two kids I personally know.</p>

<p>One was accepted to one of the two top music performance conservatories in the country. He wanted nothing more than to play his instrument full time professionally. He left after a year because the place was so very small. He found that he really didn’t like the other students there. That world was too insular. He transferred to our state flagship, where he continued to play his instrument, but switched majors to something completely different. He loved the change. He has since graduated and is doing well.</p>

<p>Another child attended a different small fine arts college, one of the top in the country. She realized that she was more interested in industrial design, and transferred to a large university (where she had been offered a huge scholarship when she had first applied, but now, of course that scholarship was gone when she transferred). She is very happy now. </p>

<p>Sometimes the small school that seems to be the perfect “this is my tribe” can be very restrictive. The tribe is awfully small, and a change in majors might not be possible. </p>

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<p>"Sorry, but I just can’t buy into the idea that an extremely bright kid who doesn’t get into Harvard, Stanford Yale or MIT will be left with only the semi-literate as his classmates. Woe is me to the kid who has to attend a CMU, Grinnell or Reed. "</p>

<p>No one is talking about “HYP or else they are all semi-literate.” Of course CMU, Grinnell and Reed have a high density of these smart, achieving students. There’s no “woe is me” in those situations whatsoever and no “settling.” That’s a complete straw man. </p>

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<p>The kids getting shut out are the ones likely overlooking schools like CMU, Grinnell and Reed.</p>

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<p>Re: shut outs: One key problem will be for lower-income kids with good but not stellar credentials - what if they live in a county/township/state where the non flagships really are not good, or where the flagship doesn’t meet their needs, or where the flagship is too expensive (like PA or IL), and/or where the state aid is bad to nonexistent and/or mountains, distances, weather make commuting difficult? </p>

<p>That would concern me more than the “'perfect stats” kid, because with good advice the perfect stats kid can find his/her place, but the lower-income kid is stuck, good advice or not.</p>

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I agree that the kids who are unable to see that all top 25 universities and LACs are excellent choices, and all top 50 universities/LACs offer something for the right person, would end up shut out and unhappy about it. </p>

<p>Another situation that would generate shut outs: What about the kid who wants a specialized major and has few choices? </p>

<p>Eastcoastcrazy: large universities and small colleges have pros and cons. And since we’re talking about teenagers their priorities may change quickly. That’s why having two safeties, not just one, is key (another key reason is that, this way, the kid gets to choose which school they attend instead of being “forced into” their one safety. With two safeties, they’re able to visit campuses, share in the lunch table conversations about “I don’t know where to go”, etc, etc).
The ideal type of university really depends on the student’s personality and goals (more than “being smart”.)</p>

<p>You raise an interesting point: students who want to major in arts (BM performance, or as others pointed out, musical theater, visual arts, etc). These are other potential shut outs.</p>

<p>Re: surrounding yourself with people like yourself - I think that college is a great time for kids who have always been in the majority to surround themselves with people different from them; but I also think that for kids who have always been in the minority (non athletic in athletic powerhouse high schools, artistic in a county without a community theater or orchestra or funding for arts, liberal in a conservative environment/conservative in a liberal environment, Jewish in a primarily Christian environment, whatever…) to be in an environment where suddenly they’re not the odd one out, especially if being among like-minded people is something they long for.</p>

<p>That also applies to kids who have attended high schools that did not value academic success: they deserve to be in an environment that will value them, finally – eg., I once attended a high school graduation where every varsity athlete was recognized on stage, where the special ed kids were recognized by name, but where the val and sal were not, in any shape or form, nor anything academic. I actually felt angry on behalf of the 15% kids who were going to attend a 4-year college and had to battle long odds, such as a counselor wondering what the point was of taking the SAT when there was a “perfectly good community college nearby” that would take them without test results so why waste a Saturday morning. (Note that this isn’t CA and the “perfectly good community college” was not adequate for anyone needing more than remedial instruction or 2-year vocational degrees. For a kid who wants to major in English Literature or Engineering and trusting the guidance counselor, there was a crisis when they discovered the community college would not prepare them for what they wanted and they had to scramble for alternate solutions, often having lost their best chance at financial aid or admission to the flagship.)</p>

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<p>They overlook those schools because they are unaffordable for most. </p>

<p>My college major was very specific and highly competitive to get into a program. There were 3 schools in state that had the major. One was commutable distance so that wasn’t an option to me (I needed to get out of the house). The other two were state directionals. I was accepted to both and chose the one that offered me the full tuition scholarship (a whopping $1200 a term back then). I had to take two years of general studies courses before starting my actual major program. I did not have much choice in what those were. There were some specific courses required for my major. The others were required by the university. There were speech, english comp and basic humanities courses required for every student who wanted to graduate. They were intro level courses. I barely did anything those first two years. My biology and chemistry courses didn’t even cover everything we covered in my high school courses. Every single course consisted of reading the text book, listening to the lectures and regurgitating exactly what was said in the text book or in the lecture. Even in my Lit of Poetry class, the “meanings” of the poems were dictated to us as truth. It made me crazy. Do you really think every poem ever written has the same meaning to each person who reads it? Doesn’t life experience, stage in life, mood, etc. affect how you interpret the arts? </p>

<p>There was no critical thinking encouraged at all. Government class was all about “This is what the Constitution says.” We were never encouraged to discuss what the implications could mean or how it could be applied in a variety of situations. </p>

<p>One of my D’s friends is at the same school now. She is thankful she is in the honors college because they get to live in a dorm that doesn’t constantly reek of marijuana. Her courses still don’t demand any level of critical thinking. It is still read, listen, regurgitate. Just the facts, ma’am. That is not the kind of education my D is getting and she would not have been happy if that was all there was to it. My son wouldn’t thrive in that environment either. They’d graduate at the top of their classes and have awesome GPAs, but they would never be challenged. I think that’s ok for some majors, especially those that are health care oriented or task oriented (like accounting), but for something like Poly Sci, that isn’t the ideal environment. </p>

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<p>I was a grad student at the University of Michigan and by my second semester, I started noticing this really young guy (maybe a sophomore) who was in A LOT of my classes! He wasn’t being challenged in the undergrad social science classes and he had noticed that a lot of these classes were HUGE, with hundreds of students in them. So he apparently petitioned to be allowed to take a certain number of grad classes, and found a rather obscure subfield within the social sciences that was a bit undersubscribed. He became the star student in that subfield, established awesome relationships with professors (something of a rarity at Michigan for undergrads) and stayed on for grad school, fully funded. I think he was a bit of an outlier, but it has led me to wonder about other opportunities for bright undergrads – even at big state schools that might not provide a natural peer group for a really bright guy or girl. </p>

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<p>Great points, MYOS</p>

<p>Our public high school is considered one of the best in our state with almost all students going off to four year colleges, yet the kids in the AP/honors classes often find themselves in the minority among the student body as a whole wrt to their interest in academics. Those who do not depend on tutoring, prep classes, and excessive hours spent hitting the books to get top grades and test scores in one or more of their classes are a minority among this minority, as are those who will go far beyond what is necessary to get an A in a class even if this means neglecting another class, driven by their interest in the course material. </p>

<p>Small wonder that many do relish the opportunity to find their tribe in college in the dorms, off-campus apartments, in Greek life if applicable and in other EC’s such as club spots, as well as in classes and among other students in their major. The biggest complaints I have heard about the honors college experience seem to come from lonely students who are not pre-professional and who choose or end up in majors without a good-sized cohort of like-minded students, because the majors are small or do not attract lots of dedicated students. (Sometimes, for some students, events run by the honors college will pick up the slack.)</p>

<p>OTOH, students who do find others “like them” in college can find themselves easily distracted by the prospect of having a great social life AND, depending on their course selections, challenging academics for the first time ever, and academics and GPA can suffer if they are not careful.</p>

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<p>Great post (and welcome, albclemon). And very true. </p>