I'm so over my head

marite
Sun, 31 Oct 2004 01:06:00 +0000

Curmudgeon:

LOL. Are you trying to scare your D? She sounds pretty level-headed to me. Have confidence in her. So far, she has risen to challenges, right? She’ll do fine in college.

The special program at Yale is specially hard. Not every student can be admitted into it or do well in it. Most colleges, however, try to ease students into college-level work (MIT does that by having Pass/No Pass for the first semester).
As for math, you have to show your work in AP-Calculus. On the exam, there is a Free Response Question section, and you get points even if your answer is incorrect (for example due to a computation error) as long as your reasoning is correct). Conversely, points are deducted even if your answer is correct but your failed to explain your reasoning, or it was faulty. So, if your D is taking Calculus in high school, she will be prepared to tackle it in college ( Psst: Non math/science majors are not required to take calculus in college! ). As I said earlier, students need to take a mix of courses to make things easier for themselves.

My epiphany came when my S was in 3rd grade and he beat me solving a math problem. My self-image has never been the same since. But I’ve had time to recover. :)