Nothing in the world is not of its price.
Same response I just gave when you posted this on the prep school forum, although I see you backed down on your diversity smear. My kid was a senior at Mudd last year while this was going on. She did not draw the same conclusion at all from the experiences of last year that you seem to have. Your daughter, of course, does not need to apply if neither of you is interested. But she might like to have a class at a tech school with a 50/50 gender split. My daughter had 2380 SATs (when the scale was 2400), and 800 Lit and 800 Math II subject tests – they aren’t scraping the bottom of the barrel for these kids. Take a look at this as well:
https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=students-study-most
Your daughter isn’t going to be yawning in the back of the classroom waiting for others to catch up if she is lucky enough to get in.
yikes–this is the first i have heard of this.
@intparent, I really didn’t mean that. Sorry for carelessly giving you that impression. The article made me think, jeez, that’s too much challenge and I have been so naive even considering the school, I am not sure my d has what it takes. I am not so much of narcissist as you presumed.
In the interview, the president did talk about how hard it was for her to manage the school’s new diversity conscious admission practice, such as having nightmare everyday. And I still kept “diversity” in the new thread’s title. I believe in diversity. And still it’s not of its price. I didn’t purposely back down.
Your d obviously was well prepared. But you also see the hardship they had to accommodate those who were “less prepared” right? I am glad that HMC overcame it and still keeping the diversity conscious practice. Because there is so much to gain from it.
The article said that HMC attempted to adjust and relax core requirements to lighten the work/stress load, but that backfired because " And instead of using it to take more relaxing courses, students used it to move ahead in their major, which made it even more stressful for students." So how is that a hardship to accommodate the less prepared? It sounds more like the faculty & admin underestimated their students’ level of motivation.
I’d be very interested in if @intparent could provide more information based on the senior daughter’s view last year.
For me, reading between the lines, this statement suggests a hostile environment for women and/or minorities:
I say that in part based on personal experience as a law student in the 1970’s at a time when the top-ranked law school I attended was going through a similar transition. There were “some” faculty who were very vocal in their criticism and advocated abandoing affirmative action policies --but it is not what I saw as a student. The influx of women and minority students were not struggling academically, but we/they did change the dynamic of class discussions, offering a different perspective and raising questions some of the professors were not prepared to answer. But I do realize that studying law, which is very much centered on understanding social policy,l is different than math or engineering.
^ So how is that a hardship to accommodate the less prepared?
It’s even more hardship when it doesn’t work isn’t it? And they kept trying and combining other methods. I thought it was commendable for HMC.
^ But I do realize that studying law, which is very much centered on understanding social policy,l is different than math or engineering.
I imagine it would be even harder at a top engineering school, because curriculum is more directly built upon one another, Klawe said she had nightmare every night for a month. But she, and the school as whole, seems is steadfast.
But my point is the facts of what happened don’t support the conclusion that the women & minority students were less capable – if that had been the case, they would have chosen to take a more relaxed curriculum when given the opportunity.
The article references the death of two Harvey Mudd students, but from the link it appears that one was a white male who was killed in a car accident while on his way to a camping trip wih other students – hardly something that could be tied to diversity issues and/or academic stress. The other was a hispanic student who died of unknown causes and was a senior and worked as a proctor (which is a student leadership position) – so no indication that death was related to to academic problems or stress. And it’s a real stretch to attribute the death of a Scripps student to issues related to academic stress at HMC, given the fact that they are separate colleges with totally different academic environments.
So while there are opinions expressed in the article, I don’t see facts presented that support those conclusions.
My reading of the actual report that was the source of controversy – http://tsl.news/news/6611/ - only reinforces my impression that the problem is with the faculty and faculty attitudes rather than students. Example:
That’s not a problem tied to student preparation – that reflects an institutional culture of continually raising the bar.
It was a complicated year, to say the least. I was at graduation, and suspect that no one was more glad to be done with the year than Maria Klawe. My D and I discussed it at length during the year and over the summer. I guess I’d summarize her view as that almost all of the faculty are very supportive – it was a tiny fraction who made the offensive comments – and she felt the faculty and fellow students went to great lengths, especially the first year, to help the kids with less prep. Uneven prep is inevitable – there are kids (like mine) who went to high schools with no AP sciences and only AP AB Calc offered, for example. She graduated from Mudd on time, got into several grad schools, and is very proud of her Mudd degree. She would choose it again in a heartbeat.
She is in close contact with some friends and faculty on campus. There is a review of the core and related workload in process this year. She says things seem settled and busy on campus; much calmer than last spring. The campus was raw from the deaths of the students – remember that there are only about 160 students in a class there, and the shared workload makes it a tighknit place. Then the unfortunate comments from a few faculty compounded a difficult spring. Also, the people who did the report only interviewed students who had complained about worklife balance to start with, not a cross section of the student body.
My kid got an amazing education there. She was mentored by profs she still talks to weekly, and I suspect she can’t wait to finish grad school to go move into some Mudder enclave on the West coast.
My D is pretty sure she knows who one of the profs was who made those comments, and he retired at the end of last year.
Maria Klawe’s nightmares weren’t from trying to help the college support a diverse student body. They were from a perfect storm of student deaths, emotions running high, a poorly executed and leaked study, and the heavy workload that every student is told to expect when they apply there. I’d send my kid again, and am always happy to help students or parents interested in Mudd figure out if it is the right fit. It isn’t for everyone, but it is a pretty unique and great experience for the right kind of kid.
It’s important not to have a brittle reaction to quotes like, “Some of these students are coming in with less preparation; they’re equally hardworking, equally bright, but less prepared.” That’s no kiss of death. It’s not some final assessment of their potential at a very top college.
What matters much is a combo of: kids who have shown they can self-advocate (recognize when they need help and pursue it) and great academic support in place. And adcoms don’t just shephed in a flock of underprepared kids. They look for evidence they’ll persist.
Oxford (the English one) has started a program to provide an initial year of preparation at the university for students who are capable and hardworking, but whose prior education has not put them on an even footing with students from better schools. Then the students enter the regular program the next year. I think this is an excellent idea. The military academies also have something like this, with yearlong preparatory school programs. They need this because the students at each academy take a relatively uniform curriculum, and everyone needs to be capable of handling it. I believe that a number of the student at the military prep schools are athletes, but I believe that there are also excellent students whose high schools were just comparatively weak.
This makes a lot of sense to me. It would be good if a lot of the top schools did it. Large public universities can permit it without a formal additional year, by having the students take introductory classes early on, and go through in five years. There is a cost problem with this, though, which does not burden students at the military academy prep schools.
Some of the top schools admit students whose 11th grade SAT scores are lower than the 7th grade SAT scores of students they reject. So it is a pretty safe bet that they are admitting students whose 11th grade SAT scores are lower than the 7th grade SAT scores of students they admit. It is a super-human task to make up five years of education in a four-year program. Of course, some condensation is possible for a dedicated student. But I think that the universities should focus on bringing the majority of the class to the same level at graduation. More time (without stigma or too high cost, or too high opportunity cost) is a way to do this.
Another possibility would be a five-year program that involves transfer from a good community college. Caltech used to have 2 + 3 programs with quite good universities, where the students did the first two years at a very good university, then transferred to Caltech and started with the sophomore classes.
I think it would be great if Bill Gates or the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation could fund programs like this on a trial basis, at a few colleges.
This! My S is a junior at Mudd and while he admits he has never worked so hard in his life, he has never complained and seems to be thriving. And, yes, he even has time for a life outside of academics. There are many parents who have mentioned the same thing. Their kid loves it there. I don’t mean to diminish other’s struggles, and I commend Maria and the entire staff of Mudd for addressing the issues, but keep in mind that these stories and statements are from one segment of the community.
Completely agree.
@lookingforward, even a kid who isn’t great at self advocacy is going to get lots of support at Mudd. The first year they have some additional half credit classes for the students who come in with uneven prep that are essentially times the catch up/check in on progress. Profs, proctors (like RAs), res life assistant deans (some live in the dorms), and older students are all watching for signs of struggle. Most everyone attends tutoring sessions, and students often gather in dorm common rooms to study together. It is true that kids with uneven prep have less free time than some others – but my kid showered, ate, and had some time with friends.
Agree, @intparent, we’ve got some similar checks, profs and others. Admissions can also flag kids who will benefit from proactive intro contact from academic support. Then, follow up with both the students and profs.
I have faith in many top colleges. It’s not (as many think) as if kids are dumped to sink or swim on their own. And “underprepared” doesn’t mean unprepared.
This doesn’t mean a kid can get in with subpar qualities. Holistic looks for that evidence he/she will dog it, has the combinations of shown skills, resilience, experiences, and more.
One of my favorite things I heard at parent orientation was a professor telling us they WANT the kids to succeed and will do everything to help make that happen. There is no attempt to “weed” kids out.
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I really don’t want it for my child. It means that student may slack, and Profs are supposed to find a way to entertain him/her. Not a good strategy for education, IMHO.
I am a foreigner and education is sacred for me. All my achievements in life are based on good education that my parents gave me. I would not want my child to be at a school with rich kids, who are told ahead of time that Profs would graduate them, no matter what.
There is a significant difference between “they will graduate no matter what” and “doing everything a prof can to make that happen”.
In the second scenario, the student has to put in the work and effort.
Wow, are you misinterpreting the Mudd environment. It is identified by the Princeton review as the #1 college where students study the most. But if a kid needs help with a subject, the profs are very committed to helping them. No one is doing their problem sets for them – and they do a LOT of problem sets. There is nothing saying a college can’t be hugely challenging and hugely supportive. They aren’t mutually exclusive ideas. Also, Mudd is a school that meets need for US students. So there are plenty of students there who are not rich.
@QuantMech I was going to write a comment suggesting the exact same thing.
Since you are a foreigner, let me point out that some U.S. colleges are very rich, even though many of the students are not rich. The rich colleges can afford high number of quality professors, who in turn can tutor the relatively small student body to the end of the world so they all can be qualified to graduate, as long as the students are committed too. At a top engineering school like Harvey Mudd, all of the students are probably committed.
Harvey Mudd has a tiny 735 total student body and is endowed for $272M. They have 1 full time teaching (not researching) faculty for every 8 students, which is beyond ridiculous for many foreign universities’ standard. And even relatively underprepared students are proven enough through their not-test-optional admission policy with median SAT 1430-1580. As a result, they can try to help all students to graduate without slack.