Is Penn that much more difficult than UCI in terms of academic rigor? Or might the be similar? Son is a little concerned that Penn, being an Ivy, might be too hard and stressful. His academic background is not particularly rigorous. He was full time at the community college this year as a dual-enrolled student, but only took 3 classes per semester.
3 college courses is like 4-6 high school AP courses in material covered per semester (depending on which ones – many high school AP courses cover material at about half the pace of college courses that they emulate). So that is relatively rigorous for a high school senior. If the 3 courses are typical ones of 4 credit units each, then the 12 credit units is 4/5 or 3/4 of the typical college student full time course load of 15 or 16 credit units per semester.
Also, since he is in actual college courses, he was learning the material like a college student, presumably needing better time management and self motivation. College courses tend to have a little less in-class time, but greater expectations of out-of-class preparation and management of larger but less frequent assignments and projects (compared to daily small homeworks in high school). So if he successful taking these college courses as a high school student, he is already ahead of the game compared to other high school seniors.
He is not necessarily leaning towards one or the other, though most people who know or care are encouraging him to choose Penn, and he acknowledges that it would be the best choice. I think the idea of an Ivy is scary to him.
Ucb, while it’s true what you say, I was just thinking that better prep would have been four classes a semester, so then if he ended up needing to take 5 a semester, it wouldn’t be such a stretch. He’s done a good job of time management mostly, but hadn’t gotten straight As.
I guess I’m wondering if the schools would be similar in academics. Penn offers more academic support. They have learning instructors to help students with time management, planning, prioritizing, and just learning how to be successful at Penn. Do the UCs have anything like that?
Holy cow, complication. My son and I are still up, just checked his Special Corporate National Merit scholarship site and he won! It’s a yearly scholarship for at least 2K a year, but likely more because of our income (my oldest gets 6k a year, but I think this one tops out at 5k a year). Unbelievable! Never thought he’d get it!
However, it says he must use it starting no later than fall of this year. Oh boy. I need to call them tomorrow (today) and ask if they will consider a student who is taking a gap year. And if they don’t…oy vey.
Whew. Great news mingled with complications. And this is how it has gone this year! Wow. Crazy, crazy.
Whew! I called NM and as long as he’s enrolled and granted a gap year, he can use the scholarship. (Now I need to find out about the schools allowances for outside scholarships)
Any other input on rigor of the schools is welcome.
Thanks for your kind wishes and commiseration, @Marylandfour.
Our experience with Penn was outside scholies applied to FA package with work study, student contribution being replaced first. Also the COA can be somewhat elastic and exdpanded…
Congrats on the new scholie…maybe you should ask over on the penn forum about rigor of certain programs, I would also have faith that if Penn accepted him, THEY believe he can do the work.
In my experience the hardest part is getting into college. The difficulty once you get there (outside the stress of being pre-med) is usually not nearly as hard. My younger son was at a reach college and got approximately the same grades he got in high school.
He does not seem to be a premed. So my guess is that Grades should not be a major issue. The way I look at it, graduating with a 3.0 GPA still gets him a degree from Penn.
I agree with your assessment and will remind my son that getting in was hard enough; Penn will help you stay in and graduate once you’re there.
True, my oldest son found MIT harder than high school, but we have always been of the mind that just graduating from MIT was the goal since he is one of those people that will always find work because of who he is and the skills he has.
Penn gets way more well qualified applicants who can handle the academic work there than it can admit, so if he was considered admissible (which obviously he was, since he was admitted), then he was expected to be able to handle the work there. Since he already has experience with actual college courses, he may have less risk of the kind of high-school-to-college adjustment problems (time management and the like) relating to the difference between high school and college courses.
Congrats again to your son.
A big concern I would have due to his health issues is that the UC system has policies that are designed to get students in and graduated in a certain amount of time. I would talk to the disability office and maybe the registrar to see how flexible UCI would be if due to his health he had to miss a quarter or two or if he had to drop classes due to illness. At Davis they only allow 1 quarter off for any type of leave without requiring reapplication. With the quarter system depending on your major if you miss a week of class you can get so far behind that you risk failing. Add a 2nd illness in the quarter and your sunk. They have been good about granting a withdrawal without grade penalty late in the quarter. Something worth considering is getting him approved for a miminum progress waiver. That way if he does have to go slower he isn’t in danger of getting kicked out.
Also I think you mentioned previously that at Irvine he might need work study. With his health issues handling school alone might be all he can handle.
Fantastic. He should be fine there. Especially he can mix his classes well freshman year and not take too many hard ones at once and he gets used to the ramped up academics.
