upset parent

Parents Forum
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<p>I do not know about most schools. I was speaking about places like Rutgers (The State University of NJ), if that is the state university that njfootballmom’s son is attending.</p>

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<p>It is an engineering school outside Boston, MA.</p>

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<p>^ Eeep. I hope that was made in jest. Having gone through a school with an engineering program I can attest to graded homework. Problem sets are part of how you are evaluated, in engineering and in math.</p>

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<p>Including high school seniors, yes 720 is 95 percentile, 690 is 92 percentile. </p>

<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Math-Percentile-Ranks-2009.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;

<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sat-percentile-ranks-2010.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;

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<p>Yes of course, Erin’s Dad. BTW, different professors at different universities have different policies on how they grade problem sets. The same can be said about AP classes. There are schools where the class grade automatically becomes an A if a kids scores a 4/5 on the actual AP test, B for 3. </p>

<p>[Problem</a> set - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_set]Problem”>Problem set - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>Here is a link to a discussion on how 5 on AP tests can result in an automatic A at some schools, 4 a B, 3 a C:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/59020-ap-test-score-higher-class-grade.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/59020-ap-test-score-higher-class-grade.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>My point is not to suggest that this method is better than the other, but to caution people that there are different approaches to these problems.</p>

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So fascinating that your article contains a link to a problem set from MIT:

albeit from a course on Relativity :).</p>

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How High Schoolish.</p>

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<p>lol… And your point is? </p>

<p>It is a well known fact that MIT uses problems sets, which is why I provided the link. My point was that they (problem sets) are not always part of the grade. As long as students do well on the exam many professors at MIT don’t care whether you hand them in or not/ solve them or not. They are considered vital by **students ** for doing well on exams that come later, not because they are part of the grade in of themselves. It is the same idea behind why some schools will give you an A if you get a 5 on the AP test, regardless of what class grade you got.</p>

<p>Source is a good friend who graduated with a 4.0 GPA from MIT in Electrical Engineering.</p>

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My point is that you used an instance where there are problem sets and they ARE part of the grade to illustrate your point.</p>

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<p>Regardless, I’m not seeing what your son’s grades right now have to do with whether or not his college instructors collect homework. I would reiterate that any “who needs homework?” attitude is not going to serve him well (whether or not it gets collected).</p>

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<p>I do not recall ever saying, “who needs homework?” So, it is a bit of a red herring. So, what is your view on giving a student an A if he gets a 5 on the AP test, if the teacher had given him Ds for not turning in homeworks? What about the kids who get As for turning in homeworks, but fail the AP test?</p>

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<p>I don’t set up my (college) classes such that a student who gets A’s on all the exams and doesn’t turn in homework would get a D. Maybe a B or C at worst. I wouldn’t set up a HS course such that students who get 5 on the AP would get an A. I think this is up to the teacher, but personally I believe that if you make a set of criteria, the student can choose to follow it or not and to face the consequences of his choice.</p>

<p>S consistently got in the 70’s in his AP Calculus course. He also got 98 on the mid-term and 5 on the AP Calc AB exam. This apparent inconsistency did not disturb me.</p>

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<p>Can I ask, what grade did he end up getting in the class? Also, how many AP classes was he taking in that semester? thanks.</p>

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Why does it matter? Different schools, different states…</p>

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<p>By the way, it does bother me, especially if he ended up with a C grade. Also, how would you feel if there was a school policy that automatically raised his class grade to A for getting a 5? Thanks.</p>

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<p>I believe, that is a sign you know what you are doing.</p>

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<p>Did you ever ask the teacher to explain the grade given to your son?</p>

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<p>We’re talking about a high schooler. I think that would be the student’s job.</p>

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<p>^^^^Yes, but apparently that never happened. If my kid doesn’t follow up and I have concerns such as that expressed by the OP, rather than asking a message board why the school gave such a grade, the first thing I would do would be to call the teacher myself and ask for a conference with him/her. The student, parents, and teacher would then try to figure out the problem.</p>

<p>From the original post:</p>

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<p>^ Excellent idea.</p>

<p>My Post #11:</p>

<p>“If you haven’t had a parent teacher conference yet, schedule one and take a look at the work. The teacher should be able to break down the grade to see where strengths and weaknesses are.”</p>

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<p>Nrdsb4, Obviously, I am in contact with his teachers now. The low grades in mathematics that I was describing were in classes he took in freshman and sophomore year. I discovered he had some math skill after he finished sophomore year and took the SATs.</p>

<p>OM3000, I am in contact with his teachers now. However, what can they do for the fact that he has 5 AP classes in addition to Pre AP Pre Cal and Pre AP Physics?</p>

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<p>^^^Why is it “obvious?” This thread went pages and pages asking if you had spoken to the teacher and you never answered, at least as far as I saw. I probably haven’t read every page of this thread because I actually lost interest in it and just happened upon it again the other day, so maybe this came up somewhere in the interim, but initially, it didn’t seem you cared to speak to the teachers, and instead labeled it a problem of grades “the school” had given him.</p>

<p>If he is an automatic admit to TAMU, it seems the best thing to do is to keep him in the challenging environment. The admissions officers know these schools, and moving him from a high performing one to a low performing one is going seem an obvious attempt to artificially elevate the kid’s stats. I’m sure they are on to that by now.</p>