<p>I’m not sure why everyone seems to dislike this type of program so much. I was a student pulling over a 3.5 in my classes back when I was an undergrad at a “top college,” yet I found these sort of peer tutoring sessions to be fantastic. All through high school I was a strong math student, yet I found sessions such as these (in addition to recitations, office hours, and peer study groups) invaluable in helping me master the material instead of just learning enough to get by. To me, it was certainly worth the cost of having a grad student in a room for a few hours a week, as it was to all my friends from my study group.</p>
<p>coolweather:</p>
<p>Why do you assume that everyone is not “weak” in math and science? Do you just assume that every high school has good/strong teachers in those subjects? Do you just assume that every high school even teaches those subjects? (Hint: out HS had a mandated two year curriculum of integrated science…a little bit of chem, a little bit of bio, a little bit of enviro…not good preparation for the science curriculum for any four year Uni.)</p>
<p>If you’re that weak in science, do you really belong at one of the top schools in the state? Getting tutored at the expense of your fellow students (whose fees have risen up dramatically and who are now funding a great deal of the University’s financial aid) or at the taxpayers’ expense in a state that is broke?</p>
<p>California’s Higher Ed Master Plan clearly set out the purpose of the UC system as opposed to the Cal State and Community College Systems. </p>
<p>Take a look at the description for Math 1:
"The purpose of Math 1 is to give students a strong preparation for taking calculus. Students completing Math 1 are expected to continue in Math 3A or Math 31A. Math 1 does not satisfy the quantitative reasoning requirement for the College of Letters and Science.</p>
<p>Math 1 covers material that is ordinarily addressed in the high school curriculum. However, this material is not required for admission to the University of California, and for this reason the course is offered for credit at UCLA."</p>
<p>That’s right – they’re apparently letting students into UCLA who haven’t even succeeded at everyday high school math coursework, and on top of this students expect to be tutored in the subject at public expense? Meanwhile, UCLA is turning away thousands of students with outstanding high school records including numerous AP courses and strong performance on the SAT and Achievement tests. Something terribly wrong about that.</p>
<p>^UCLA turned down one of the top students who were accepted to HYPS.</p>
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<p>blue,
It thought the minimum requirements for admission to the UCs included 4 years of math and 3 years of lab science. How is it that the hs courses these admitted students are taking are not sufficient for college work, especially if they must also have earned something like a 4.2 average weighted GPA and high SAT scores? It doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>Racin,
It is not that people “don’t like” the peer tutoring program. It would be wonderful if every single UCLA had a free assigned peer tutor 24/7 for the entire 4 years. The issue is whether this is a “critical” service necessitating the expenditure of additional taxpayer dollars, and if so, why?</p>
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<p>My D was rejected by UCLA, admitted to Cal and attends Yale. No peer tutoring required so far.</p>
<p>bay:</p>
<p>Integrated Science counts as a lab science for UC purposes.</p>
<p>The minimum requirement for UC eligibility is 3.0 gpa on College Prep classes, not honors. Moreover, just because one takes Alg II and earns a A may not mean much in a HS where the average SAT-M score is a ~400. </p>
<p>And yes, I understand that we are discussing UCLA where the UNHOOKED require a high gpa, but again UC purposely admits a lot of underprepared, hooked candidates, many of whom are from single parent, poor households.</p>
<p>Integrated science at the HS level is probably not the best way to prepare students interested in STEM at a competitive university. My S is a freshman at Northwestern, and was admitted to their honors Integrated Science Program. They admit about 30 students a year, and most double major, in ISP and then another science. </p>
<p>In order just to be considered for this program, a student must have completed/taken tests in AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Bio (at least 2 of 3) AP Calculus and/or subject tests related to same. Many students admitted to the program come with more than these requirements. For example, by the time he entered NU, my S had completed Linear Algebra and Multivariable Calculus. As is his custom, carried over from HS days, he’s quite willing to be an ad hoc peer tutor in math.</p>
<p>Relevant to this discussion about UCLA, we are aware (as S was accepted to UCLA) that they have special honors level classes for high powered math students. So they are still catering to this end of the specturm of ability. </p>
<p>I believe the UCs are going to have a harder time determining in the future how many of their admitees may need remedial education and/or tutoring of any kind, now that they are removing the subject test requirement for applicants starting next year. I think, especially for the upper tier of UCs, this requirement should not only remain, but UC should specify what subject tests need to be taken.</p>
<p>Integrated Science is yet another progressive education notion that just fails. While I am willing to believe that there are a few schools that do it well, I have yet to see any public school (and I work with detailed data from several dozen of them) whose students seem to benefit from integrated science other than the very weakest students for whom schools and districts are simply trying to give the kid enough credits to graduate and to nominally meet state standards. </p>
<p>I have seen some good integrated math programs (Saxon and Singapore, for two) – but not high school science.</p>
<p>If this data provided by OP is correct, (and he is not including athletes or minority students in his count, and actually his statement it is a bit unclear), then it seems that many more students than just the disadvantaged must be utilizing the peer tutoring services. Or are 4,000+ of UCLA’s admits unprepared, disadvantaged students?</p>
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<p>Either students who don’t really need the service are utilizing it, or something is really out of whack.</p>
<p>arabab, the Integrated Science Program at Northwestern University (which has been around now for 30 years) was actually designed to integrate math into the science curriculum. So, for example, NU will have three different entry level physics classes: one will be less math based, the second will be more calculus based, and the third (the ISP one) will go even beyond that.</p>
<p>One of the beauties of the ISP is that it’s a small program, which means the ISP classes are also small (a few talented students outside of ISP can be referred into a class on a case by case basis.) It’s kind of like taking a mini-CalTech and plopping it down into a more vibrantly diverse campus like NU.</p>
<p>This is superfluous to the discussion, but as a CA taxpayer I have found this thread fascinating. Thanks, OP and others.</p>
<p>I have had the IMPRESSION that the top UC’s currently (always) required top GPA, etc. to get into (UCLA and UCB). Of course, exceptions for athletes. That’s something I disagree with – turning away a highly qualified academic applicant in order to admit some water polo player or football player.</p>
<p>It is correct high cost California is in great financial difficulty; our legislature has been on a mad spending spree for years. All budgets are padded. (Yes, I lived in Sacramento and had occasion to observe state government in action…) As others have posted, income tax, sales tax, real estate, cost of gasoline (special California formulation) etc. are all very high.</p>
<p>It doesn’t seem great to think UCs are the target of budget tightening, but I hope they put the money in the best areas of the universities – prioritize. I urge those who know about the UCs to advocate for meaningful programs and priorities rather than the nonsense that gains funding sometimes.</p>
<p>I WANT to support a strong UC system - it has a great history - but it disturbs me to learn a lot of underqualified students somehow gain entrance to UCLA/UCB in particular w/o the 4.2 GPA and the written requirements for those classs – the a-g requirements or whatever. And now, for the benefit of social engineering, the regents (or other officials) are getting rid of the SAT subject test requirements?! – poor idea. With this scheme, all I can see is the need for more tutoring - protected classes will likely see this continue. It may not be that costly, but is it “right?”</p>
<p>Hi all,
First, I would like to challenge the cause and effect argument regarding admitting poor or underqualified students to UCLA and needing peer learning. The vast majority of Covel students are not failing the class. The program in some cases may be remedial, but in many cases is not. Qualified students benefit from peer learning just as much as unqualified students and the program should exist regardless of the quality of the students. To support this assertion, consider schools like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. . All of these private schools who admit supposedly elite candidates have even more comprehensive peer learning programs available to all undergraduates, not just disadvantaged minority students. This speaks to how much peer learning complements regular coursework and develops understanding past what attendance in a 300+ person lecture can do. </p>
<p>That is not to understate the importance of peer learning to students who are failing the class. But referring to the 4,000+ students who use this as mostly “not needing it” is not accurate. Learning concepts so that they can be applied across individual classes is not trivial. Hence Covel’s emphasis on classes that work in series- the idea being that help in the beginning builds on later understanding of the material.</p>
<p>Which begs the question- why pay for this service if it’s ‘nonessential’? Well, why would you pay for office hours, or for discussion sections, or for any kind of teaching for that matter? Why not learn directly from a book and omit the teacher entirely? It’s because peer learning works- there’s a vast body of research demonstrating that getting students actively involved in working with other students helps them to understand and learn the material in ways that are far more effective than lecture-based learning formats (see: the writings of Mike Rose, Alison King, David Boud, to name a few). </p>
<p>Is it expensive or spending more money than would be otherwise spent? Not exactly- student hire time is a lot cheaper than professor hire time or graduate student hire time. So we are looking at a service that may save the college money in the long run- whether or not it’s due to the ten students who fail and take a fifth year or drop out, or because it requires the departments to add an extra office hour for all TAs, etc. In the present scenario it definitely is saving the college money relative to the proposed new centers based on extra TA office hours.</p>
<p>I think it’s not an accurate idea to blame holistic admissions for the use of peer learning at the UC and private school level. For one thing, UCLA only started using holistic admissions two years ago- we’ve had peer learning programs since the 70’s which were in fact more enrolled than presently. But more damagingly, this equates “peer learning” with “remedial”- which as I’ve said earlier is not a true relationship.</p>
<p>Social scientists before me, or my colleagues at AAP have at least shown that peer learning provides a grade point jump. But most fundamentally, peer learning complements and builds on fundamentals in a way that lecture-based learning may or may not do. And here is the big ideological divide, I think. This kind of learning- the difference between getting an “A” in biochemistry but forgetting it after the exam and getting your “A” and truly understanding and internalizing the material- how do you measure that quantitatively? I’m a scientist. It drives me insane that I cannot provide you with statistics as to how much peer learning enhances undergraduate learning at UCLA or at other institutions. But nonetheless, it’s substantial enough that every other major state and private university that we called has its own program, and none of them were worse-funded than ours. It’s even integrated on the CC level where I would argue it is less necessary (eg. NY City College has a very famous program), since there is a high ratio of lecturers to students. But I think the larger the parent school and the bigger the lectures and discussion sections, the more important it is to have this kind of service.</p>
<p>Finally, many of you are arguing that students who are not prepared for UCLA should not be admitted to UCLA. I would like to urge you to think of the class and socioeconomic ramifications of that statement. If a student is nonminority and valedictorian and takes all of the highest level classes in that person’s school, who is to know if that student is qualified or not to enter UCLA? Should we base it on her SAT subject test scores? If the student’s scores are average, and the high school’s average in the 300-400s, can we conclude that the high school is failing this student by insufficiently engaging her? Should she be penalized for this on the college level as well?</p>
<p>When my son attended UCLA undergrad, he got plenty of FREE “peer tutoring” just by making friends with other students in class, or walking down to the study lounge in the dormitory. He also got free help when he joined study groups, asked the TA, and went to professor’s office hours.</p>
<p>Sorry, that’s what community college is for. Not the UC system. </p>
<p>And if we had peer tutoring at UCLA back in the 70’s I certainly don’t remember it. I do remember many study groups that came together to work on problem sets in engineering, sciences, math and econ, but nobody was paying anyone to participate. </p>
<p>And the only athletic admits who seemed to be way behind the academic eight ball were the football and basketball players. You could not ask for better students than we saw in gymnastics or swimming or crew or the other sports. </p>
<p>I was one of the volunteers (note the word volunteer) who helped students having trouble in E10 and E20 (the basic computer programming courses back in the day) – but that’s about the only resource center I remember. </p>
<p>I don’t have any issue with the commitment to admit students who have met requirements through a community college degree – in the end, everyone still gets the exact same UCLA diploma whether you were there for two years or four (or five.) But the resources for students who need substantial basic support are a lot stronger at the CC level – as they should be. And a whole lot cheaper to boot.</p>
<p>Re to #53: Good colleges always encourage students to collaborate and learn from peers. They usually learn from people in the same class. Peer learning does not always require tutoring that has some kind of instructors.</p>
<p>Tutoring is probably better for middle school, high school, and community college students who don’t have the basic knowledge to complete the classes.</p>
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<p>Yes, most of the people that use it don’t really need it. It’s a nice fall back for people that are adapting to college and are in large lecture classes where there’s less access to professors, but it’s definitely non-essential. My impression is that a lot of people sign up for it just in case they need it then stop attending if they don’t. It’s also popular because it’s located in the residential area, and thus is more convenient to attend than office hours.</p>
<p>post #53 doesn’t even fit on my computer screen. :eek: Does anybody actually read those long posts?</p>
<p>UCLA has hollistics admissions since 2007, not 2 years ago, that is inaccurate information. But I thought we are staying out of politics on this thread. Hmmm!</p>
<p>I have no opinion on whether peer tutoring is a good idea or whether volunteers and study groups can do just as well. However, as the parent of a HS junior, who will be applying to colleges over the next half-year or so, it gives me pause that UCLA is making cuts in direct student services, and doing it at this point in the academic year and in this particular fashion.</p>