<p>woody - are you letting the girl have a life?</p>
<p>Woody she’s such a planner compared with my kid. I can’t wait to hear about her summer plans as they happen!</p>
<p>Mizzbee, 86 pages including lab reports, the fraternity rush process, and Dean’s List!!? Wow! </p>
<p>I’m very interested in transfers, etc. Our tiny local school (D went to the much larger regional through school choice) sends few to college and most of those don’t finish. It breaks my heart. (Did you all see the Sunday Times article about poverty and college success? Not surprising but very sad.) D knows several who are very unhappy-- some were determined to get far from home and are now transferring to the state flagship.</p>
<p>Woody I’d think the RA experience would depend on who her friends are-- if she’s on a team or in a club, or a major that tends to stick together then it would be fine. But if dorm life tends to be her social life that might be a problem.</p>
<p>Yeah, Gwen…he surprised me as well. I feel he has blossomed in college. I had warned him his school was writing intensive. I will never let anyone say his school isn’t rigorous, just not as selective :)</p>
<p>The transfers/dropouts are a big concern. None of them are financial this semester, but I expect some of that when the next round of FA is calculated. The pregnancy was a bit of a surprise for the parents of the young super achiever. She will apply to dental assisting school after the baby is born (was studying to be a dentist) and her boyfriend got a promotion at the local auto parts store, so a marriage will be later in the summer.</p>
<p>Mizzbee - does the fraternity give out bigger rooms for dean’s list? :p</p>
<p>texaspg, he will move higher in the room selection for his grades. He already has a room next semester with only 4 people but between his Senate Seat and his GPA he will most likely get a double his sophomore year. That has been a big motivating factor as well. He admits that his desire to be chapter Grand Master his junior year has a lot to do with a single room.</p>
<p>MizzBee–love the room upgrades your S is plotting (erh, planning) to get!!! Also, congrats on his academic excellence.</p>
<p>Interesting hearing about all the transfers/years off. I remember once I mentioned that I thought about a quarter to a third of kids I knew of transferred or took a year (or more 
) off and I was roundly scorned! I agree that kids that have had to blaze a trail somewhere seemed to do best socially. So far none of D’s friends are transferring or quitting but many have gone to the state flagship in town or cc. D did well with grades, having some anxiety issues manifesting itself as eating issues, so we are dealing with that. She is still excited about next semester and is already making plans with friends about off campus living for soph year. She will also rush in January. I’m trying to balance my worry about her with feeling good that she is overall thriving at her school.</p>
<p>OHmomof2- sending positive thoughts for your son. I really hope they give him another chance!</p>
<p>Mizzbee - congrats to your son, sounds like he is blazing quite the trail!</p>
<p>D had finally connected with all of her friends and happy to report all had good first semesters. One is transfering to a large OOS school from her private school (felt the small pond was too small, even though she made dean’s list)</p>
<p>D is still comparing grades with sorority sisters for pick of rooms next year…</p>
<p>I have a little note up top telling me I haven’t posted in too long! Son is home, relaxed and feeling like school was a good fit. Today is our year anniversary of his acceptance letter!</p>
<p>OHMom - I understand the anxiety completely. The unknown is a killer too. I’ve heard about more kids stumbling their first semester than complete mastery. It sounds like a great life lesson that you’d rather he learn now then down the road. I had the discussion with my son that I’ve always wanted to clear the path in front of him and it’s hard to step aside and let him trip a little along the way. </p>
<p>One funny thing that didn’t amuse my kids - I had them come in and look at the kitchen table - set for 4. It hadn’t been like that for awhile. </p>
<p>I feel like I adapted well while S was gone, but just seeing him made me realize how much I miss him! It’s nice to not be cramming in deep conversations but just back to normal.</p>
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<p>Glad to hear all is well and those reminisces are fun!</p>
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<p>This is worded perfectly for how I feel…</p>
<p>My guy saw the official Dean’s List notification on his computer yesterday. 
He had a really nice start and is looking forward to continuing on. But until then, I’m enjoying the time we have together… Youngest loves having him home too. I don’t think he likes being an only child.</p>
<p>I must admit, I have really been enjoying having my girls home. The younger one has been off since Thanksgiving and that was really nice having it be just her home like last year. Her sister came and joined us in England straight from finals so she was a bit grumpy which made her sister a bit grumpy so I was ready to send them both back to school. Now that we’ve been home for a few weeks and everyone’s settled back in and we’re not quite so “on top of each other” I love seeing them interact and laugh and enjoy being together. I will miss them also, but only for a while, until I enjoy having my time and house to just the parents!</p>
<p>Hi all. Hope all is well and the holidays have been filled with love and family. </p>
<p>End of semester grades: A (Spanish), B+ (writing), B (math-calculus, series, and differential equations), C. Not happy about the C. It was in science (biology and chemistry integrated into one class). Heartbreaking. I hate science anyway and this makes me hate it more…lol. GPA is 3.082. Devastating. Even though that is a B average…the C is glaring at me. Average Harvard GPA is 3.3, so around a B+. </p>
<p>My concussion made science (even more) frustrating because I could not remember the things I needed to. I will be sure to include that in applications for internships, but now I am very discouraged. I wanted to get B- or better in all of my classes. </p>
<p>Edit: I am never going to take a science class ever again in my life. I will be studying applied mathematics.</p>
<p>I haven’t been able to keep up, things got crazy towards the end of the semester. Hope all is well with your families and any complications, academic or other, are resolved as soon as possible and it is a learning experience.</p>
<p>CPU - don’t beat yourself up over a C in your first sememster. A new sememster starts right around the corner. At the end of the day, no one will care what your gpa was - they will care that you graduated from H.</p>
<p>CPU: Don’t be too hard on yourself. Much of what you learn as a freshman isn’t reflected in your GPA. I agree with what glido says, your degree from Harvard is what will matter, not a C first semester of your freshman year!</p>
<p>Hope you can relax and recharge over the break and that your spring will be free of the obstacles you faced this fall.</p>
<p>CPU - 3 is a good GPA for now. Science classes are filled with premeds and it is a problem if you are graded on a curve. I am sure Harvard has 500 kids currently thinking they are premed.</p>
<p>You will get over this and do a lot better now that you know the pace.</p>
<p>Harvard has 400 kids thinking about pre-med, 400 kids thinking about pre-law and 400 kids thinking about IB. :)</p>
<p>Thanks all. This science class is not curved (don’t know if that would be to my benefit or not, probably it would help). </p>
<p>The workload was not unmanageable, it was surprisingly ‘easy’. Even will my concussion (which came with the mental exhaustion and memory issues–sometimes i’d repeat myself and it freaked my friends out), science never seemed “hard” to me. Strange, I know. </p>
<p>But next semester will be tougher. I am taking two math classes and one intro to the applied math concentration class which is supposed to be “painfully easy” (so much that people recommended to NOT take it because it was so boring/easy), and a gen ed. I think because of the math classes and the gen ed with a lot of reading I will be more busy but I am determined to do really great. A lot of people here rely on the H name to pick up their slack (slack as in ‘why work hard, I don’t “need” to’) but I still want to perform well because I know I can. </p>
<p>It was agonizing watching my GPA drop as grades came in. From a 3.8 to a 3.4 to a ~3.1. I was told it’s the norm for students to do better for their major GPA than overall GPA because they tend to work harder for the classes that “matter”. But I want to do well in all my classes :)</p>
<p>oldfort that is so funny and scarily accurate.</p>
<p>CPU - how many kids are in these classes normally? Are the finals weighted more than the midterms?</p>
<p>The class I was in is intro, around 200. Many courses have different grading schemes, and based on your performance on exams/quizzes, they will weight them differently to give you the highest score. But since I had a concussion, for math and science I had to have my last midterms and final heavily weighted more (more than the normal). But that didn’t help either because even though I was cleared to start work again, there was no way I could catch up after being out for 2-3 weeks.</p>