<p>^^my chuckle of the day actually has come from the “phone calls you DON"t want to get from your kids”…some of them are truly scary…</p>
<p>But this is still my #1…</p>
<p>Thanks historymom, it is the D3 who made the Dean’s List… S is applying, well he is all done applying, thank goodness, and he is the last of the four! So now we wait.</p>
<p>yabeyabe</p>
<p>High School Class of 09
Brag About your Lesser known school
a Meta Thread to save us all time
and last years’ Haiku thread in the Cafe</p>
<p>Most of them made me laugh. This and the “Lesser Known School” thread gave me a chance to connect with parents of other kids who are not “CC typical” and those are the people from whom I have profited the most. It is hard to avoid feeling like your kid may end up flipping burgers for a living if you play the CC comparison game and all 5 are/were havens of sanity at every step of the process.</p>
<p>Well SLUMom congrats to the girl! 
I am sure the boy will do something worth crowing about today too so give him a pat on the back too ;)</p>
<p>update: we need advice…</p>
<p>Sooo, as mentioned earlier, daughter wanted to double up pre-calc and AP stats next year…our curriculum guide does not show that any teacher rec is needed for the AP stats…so, my daughter goes up to the AP stats teacher and tells her that she’s signing up for her class next year; teacher proceeds to tell my daughter that she needs to be recommended…see where we are going here?</p>
<p>Daughter goes to her math teacher; he sends her to her history teacher? because AP stats is alot of “documenting” stuff and backing up arguments…History teacher says “good choice” “I approve”…daughter goes back to math teacher, tells him about history “thumbs up” and he tells her to go back to the AP stats teacher and let her know…</p>
<p>As of this afternoon, she gets an email from the AP stats teacher that she needs to talk to the math teacher and she’ll let her know…did I mention that the curriculum guide says that you don’t need a teacher rec for AP stats…???</p>
<p>Expecting the worse outcome possible, I guess I can contact the Dean of Faculty to discuss…but I guess I should wait until we hear the result??? Am I over-reacting?</p>
<p>and, yes, I have the curriculum guide saved…and documented…</p>
<p>I would wait, tempting as it is, in case it turns out ok.</p>
<p>If teaching does not work out for those folks, they should apply for jobs in either the state department of motor vehicle licenses or the HR departments of large corporations</p>
<p>Our curriculum guide is also the not most up to date and coincidentally, AP stats was one that incorrectly didn’t have a prerequisite of my son’s current math. Did you look to see if the curriculum guide is on-line? At our school that’s often more up to date then the hard copy. I’m for cutting our school some slack because the print version had to go out before the school really knows it’s final budget. If there is something to trim, the classes that have a low popularity will have to be cut.</p>
<p>kathiep: it was actually the online version we were referring to…and since this is a private school, cutting the class won’t be a problem…</p>
<p>yabeyabe: ya think???</p>
<p>From my point of view, the AP stats teacher is not being totally unreasonable. That teacher may not be aware of the policy, or may not agree with it, but the intent seems to be to prevent someone who should not be in that class from taking the place of someone who would be more likely to understand the material. If they do not know which category your daughter is in, the easiest way to find out is to ask for a recommendation from a math teacher who has taught her.</p>
<p>I think the math teacher she asked for the recommendation is passing the buck. When I learned stats in college, it was not so much about documenting and backing up as it was about learning a set of tools not encountered in earlier math classes, then learning how to solve problems by the creative use of one or more of those tools. As always in math, showing work is important and problems tend to have objectively verifiable correct answers. I have seen students who could document procedures and back up answers in the social sciences with the best of them, but would not know where to start if asked for a mathematical proof. Sending her to the history teacher for a math class recommendation makes about as much sense as sending her to a language teacher for a science recommendation, in my opinion, and apparently the AP stats teacher agrees.</p>
<p>She needs to find out why the math teacher did not want to write the rec. If it is because he feels that she does not deserve it, that is a problem and you need to explore whether she really should be in the AP stats class. If it is because he was too busy, then perhaps there is another math teacher that she could ask, or perhaps it is time to escalate the problem starting with the head of the math department and then the Dean of Faculty.</p>
<p>Bassdad: thanks for the complete explanation; I have been told by many that stats is a “different animal” than regular math, which is why my daughter was instructed by her advisor to check it out; her strength is in writing…it’s just that it WAS the APstats teacher who sent her to the history teacher…but who knows…</p>
<p>as an aside, there are a number of kids in the class this year that never got any recommendation last year and doing just fine; regular “B” college prep kids…</p>
<p>and, yes, I guess if this does turn against her, she will need to see others to figure out what is going on…thanks again…</p>
<p>Ah, the other posting made it sound like the math teacher who was asked for the recommendation sent her along to the history teacher. It does not make a lot of sense to me that the AP stats teacher would send her directly to the history teacher and then balk after getting a glowing recommendation. And, in that case, why the need to report back to the math teacher in between the history teacher and the stats teacher? Are you sure the story you are getting is accurate?</p>
<p>Stats IS a bit of a different animal than some of the earlier math classes. It is not purely throw in the numbers, turn the crank and then plug the result into the original equation to see if it worked right. It requires a bit more insight to understand what is happening in a real-world process in order to be able to build a mathematical model that accurately describes that process. If you build the wrong model, it is not always obvious from the answer. To that extent, documentation and being able to support your choices are important, but they manifest in different ways than documenting a source for a history project and defending one of many valid points of view.</p>
<p>you are a good reader; I left something out: Daughter told the AP stats teacher that the math guy told my daughter to go to history teacher; she (stats teacher) agreed that this was the correct procedure…</p>
<p>so, since you know so much about this, what kind of student is successful in AP stats then? what would one need to be “good at”? you’re making me wonder if she would be able to handle it…</p>
<p>My older daughter took it in college; apparently it is VERY different than the AP course…(easier according to her, based on her friends)…</p>
<p>Rodney, is she allowed to drop the class until a certain time without it appear on her transcript if it doesn’t work out? If so, I would let her try it. I really do think Stats is a lot easier than other types of math for a kid that is more verbal, because it’s really about working out a lot of language-based problems and figuring out how to solve them. </p>
<p>As far as getting the run around about taking the course…isn’t this a private school, and as such, do you have more leeway when it comes to you (the parent) influencing class placement than you might at a public school?</p>
<p>And most importantly, what is the snow forecast down there for tomorrow? We have to be at a bat-mitzvah down there in the morning!</p>
<p>RTR: yes private, but not alot of “leeway” but we’ll see…yes, she is allowed to drop the class; that would be my choice to let her try it…</p>
<p>snow forecast: 3-6 inches starting tonight at around 10…but we are higher elevation…is the reception in the afternoon or night? If it’s at night, I would skip the service; it’s going to be the worst in the am; where are you going? you should have come and stayed here tonight!!</p>
<p>Let me get this straight. Daughter goes to AP stats teacher, who tells her to get a recommendation. Daughter then goes to math teacher to get said recommendation. Math teacher tells her to go to history teacher. Daughter is confused, so asks AP stats teacher whether rec from history teacher will pass muster. AP stats teacher says yes. Daughter goes to history teacher and gets very enthusiastic rec. Daughter goes back to math teacher for unknown reasons, who tells her to take rec to AP stats teacher. Daughter goes to AP stats teacher who says that rec from history teacher is insufficient and that math teacher will need to be consulted. This still does not sound quite right to me. What am I missing?</p>
<p>In my experience, there are some students who do well because they understand the general principles of the material being taught and are usually able to pick the right approach when given a problem to solve without having to try every method in the book. They recognize that subtle differences in the statement of the problem can have profound effects on the outcome and learn to recognize those subtleties. This kind of student will normally do pretty well in probability and statistics. There are other students whose approach is more dependent on rote memorization, hard work and perseverance. While these are often admirable qualities, you can waste a lot of time in stats by building the wrong mathematical model, pursuing it to its logical conclusion, coming up with an answer and having no good way of knowing whether that answer is correct. If you do not get started on the right foot, determination and elbow grease will not save you.</p>
<p>I have also heard students say that an AP course in high school was a lot harder than the equivalent college course. Sometimes that has a lot to do with the teacher, and sometimes it has a lot to do with the level of preparedness of the student when taking the class. Students quickly learn that college is different from high school and have to recalibrate their definitions of “hard” and “easy”. This is precisely why we send them there.</p>
<p>yes, you got the story right…now you know why I posted…</p>
<p>thank you sooo much for the explanation…she is not the “rote memorization” type of kid, but she is the hard work and perseverence type…we will see how this goes…</p>
<p>Then it is even more important to find out what the math teacher thinks. One possible interpretation of that sequence of events is that sending your daughter for a rec outside the department is the way the math teachers have agreed to signal each other “let’s talk about this one” without having to tell the student they cannot wholeheartedly recommend them.</p>
<p>Historymom, thanks for the thread recommendations; you might enjoy the “You know you are addicted to CC when…” thread.</p>
<p>Bassdad makes a good point that perhaps this hoop-jumping exercise is meant to send a message (or perhaps test how srious she is). The history recommendation piece is inane. There are many people who excel at history becuase they are fascinated by the people aspects and who would be poor candidates for stat because the numbers aspects would not interest them.</p>
<p>My S has one acceptance, I opened it, I thought it was a letter telling him what was missing from his application! (Like Teacher Recs) Those skinny envelopes can be deceiving. He didn’t mind that I opened it…</p>
<p>SLUMOM - Congradulations - that first acceptance makes the rest of the process a little more enjoyable!</p>
<p>Congrats, SLUMOM!</p>