<p>Generally there is a choice between stats courses. My d. took math through algebra II in high school, took a stats course at Columbia that did not require calc but was also NOT the easiest/lowest offering – griped about how hard it was to do the problem sets at 3 am and pulled an A… so I figure she had what she needed. (I personally think that it wouldn’t take until 3 am to finish problem sets if certain students were to start working on them before 2 am, but some mom-thoughts are best left unsaid). </p>
<p>I figure if my d. could find the “math” course that fit her appropriate math level at Columbia, then its going to work out for any student attending any university outside of a handful of engineering-focused schools – and obviously a student majoring in math or engineering should be ready for calculus. </p>
<p>My d’s strengths lie in areas outside of math. She’s done well in college and career thus far. I never took any math in college – not even a stats course – I have no clue why I didn’t have to – I did take an introduction to computer programming course and maybe that filled whatever requirement I might have had for math. The computer programming course required the use of punch cards, in order to put feed them into a machine the size of a couple of refrigerators, an get a printout about half an hour later on big wide paper from a roll on the equally-huge and very slow printer. The only thing I learned in that class that I have ever used since was how to draw a flow chart, which turns out to be occasionally useful in creating power point slides.</p>
<p>Anyway… math is good. It is but one subject among many that colleges and universities offer. It used to be that the entrance requirement to Columbia included a working knowledge of Latin and Greek. Times change, the expectations change.</p>
I would consider that to be 8th-grade ready, not college-ready. Most students need a lot more than coherent sentences and “passable” punctuation to do well in college. Maybe the math and engineering students don’t — I don’t know – but if the GPA is going to depend on the quality of the essays and term papers submitted, then a certain amount of literary eloquence is a huge asset.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if, at many universities, the remedial situation in English composition is as bad as or worse than the remedial situation in math.</p>
<p>I can assure you, calmom, that both of my engineering sons are more than "passable " beyond math-no need to knock engineering and math students. SAT’s in verbal for both 650, 700 with literally no prep(very,very minimal).Verbal Lower than math scores but more than passable for CR.</p>
<p>I wasn’t trying to “knock” anything – I was responding to post #38 which used the word “passable” to describe the level of writing needed for college. I was thinking maybe that own poster’s experience was different because of having studied mostly math-type courses that are graded based on working out the solutions to problems in problem sets and exams – as opposed to the experience that I had, and my kids had, where grading in almost all courses is based on written work.</p>
<p>And the SAT scores are irrelevant. My d. had a 620 SAT CR score; she graduated phi beta kappa. I’d be willing to bet that most of the student’s whose poor writing skills she found appalling had better test scores than she did – but the SAT does a poor job of testing written expression. (Even the writing test is weak in that regard, as the quality of an SAT essay bears little resemblance to the expected quality of a college paper).</p>
<p>Remember Turbo’s conspiracy theory… There’s a LOT of tuition dollars going to the Math department if they keep more people into precalc and other ‘remedial’ courses or if they flunk the daylights out of their calculus students or (if they’re like DD1’s college) require calculus for architecture students as a mystery elective.</p>
<p>Alternatively, it may just be that math calculus teachers are lousy in general, which would be no surprise whatsoever.</p>
<p>The conspiracy theory does not work for public schools – each additional course taken by an in-state student consumes more in-state tuition subsidy (i.e. it costs the school and state money), so the school has incentive to avoid having the student take extra courses.</p>
<p>I personally am more concerned by the poor writing skills of kids in college. Even back in the 70s when I was a TA, there were many SRs who could not write a coherent sentence. When I gently suggested they might be interested in a writing course, they bragged that their English teachers said they wrote extremely well. I don’t believe tie situation has improved much.</p>
<p>I also agree that scores on the SAT do NOT correspond with writing ability. S was penalized by his English teachers in HS because he does NOT enjoy writing & writes in a very terse, concise style. They expected due to his perfect verbal scores that he should be a perfect writer! (To me, it meant that he tests well, has a great vocabulary, reads quickly & has good reading comprehension. Our conference with the teachers did not persuade them. )</p>
<p>Was his very terse, concise style understandable and correct, grammatically and otherwise? If so, it may be appropriate for some situations, although it may not be what an English literature teacher would like.</p>
<p>Yes, it was understandable & correct, grammatically & otherwise. It did NOT have any fluff and was not the style the TEACHERS liked. They kept saying because he could get perfect scores, he should be able to write prose that was more to their taste and style. He did better with his college English instructors in his engineering class, which valued the precision and conciseness.</p>
<p>We could never get the HS teachers to buy in to the fact that perfect test scores and the ability to write in a style the teacher preferred sadly did not necessarily coincide.</p>
<p>“Terse” and “concise” is generally not what college professors want to see, because they want students to elaborate and expand on ideas in their writing. My d. learned that the hard way, getting a “C” on her first mid-term in a psych class despite the fact that her terse and concise answer to the question was also technically correct. Fortunately, my d. is an excellent writer and a quick study.</p>
<p>Yes, we understand that and tried to explain to S that HS teachers wanted him to expound more but he is very stubborn. On the other hand, his terse style was fine with his College of Engineering.</p>
<p>Perhaps this “cultural difference” in writing styles may be part of why some students who prefer math and science get turned off in high school (or some college) English courses (and possibly other humanities and social studies courses).</p>
<p>It may be that neither the students nor the teachers understand that this can be an issue.</p>
<p>H & I understood the issue, explained it to S & the teacher until we were blue in the face & ultimately gave up because neither was listening. </p>
<p>One of the teachers I cherished most in college was the ONE English teacher (actually probably one of the few teachers in ANY subject) I ever had that tried to help me & my classmates better express our OWN style and voice instead of trying to get each of us to be more like him! I nominated him for an award because I was so heartened by finally finding ONE teacher who had that rare talent. Wish S had found such a teacher to help him hone his writing–he does let D help him sometimes–she’s an excellent editor and creative writer.</p>
<p>IME as someone who minored in a social science field, has many friends who are currently social science grad students/Phd graduates, and from what I’ve seen…this is not the case in most social science fields except Econ. </p>
<p>Even at the graduate level…most stats courses for social science grad students aren’t calculus based unless the grad student’s topic/subfield itself is by its very nature heavily quantitative(i.e. Rational Choice Theory in poli-sci/Econ/Sociology) or the university is known for its quantitative emphasis…like MIT. </p>
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<p>I agree. From what I’ve seen during my undergrad in the '90s and afterwards, however, that’s a very high standard you’re asking from many incoming freshmen…even at the elite schools. </p>
<p>As an academic/writing tutor…I’ve seen several undergrad essays written with so little coherence it was as if a tornado sprang up and created an inscrutable wasteland of sentences, fragments, and ideas in various stages of formation. As for your D’s experience…it mirrors those of some high school friends/classmates who went to elite universities…including Harvard. </p>
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<p>I’m not sure it’s a “cultural difference” so much as being too inflexible/too unwilling to learn how to tailor one’s writing according to specified requirements. IME, it is also not an issue with the stronger and more open-minded flexible STEM student as the ones I knew in high school and college had no problems with this very issue. In fact, many of them…including a pre-med cousin ended up doing double majors with writing-intensive humanities/social science fields. </p>
<p>Instead, it’s a trait not too far removed from humanities/social science students you’ve cited in other threads who’d rather take “rocks for jocks” or “Physics for poets” type science courses to fulfill math/science requirements rather than more challenging ones for majors…especially notorious weedout intro courses for majors with lab.</p>
<p>Amazing the difference in perspective. Almost no one in my high school Ap Calc class needed to take 1 st semester calculus once they got to college. But…none of those students went to a school comparable to Arizona State. From what I read you only need a 1040 on the Sat to qualify. I can’t imagine very many people with that low of an SAT that would be ready for Calculus. The school also does not require students to have taken pre-calculus so it does not surprise me that a lot of students wouldn’t place into calculus. I am sure there are amazing math students there, it is just obviously not the norm.</p>
<p>Also, you mention college being for the top 25%…at my HS more than 25% of the students were taking 4 years of math. Many of those kids got C’s all the way through, we all know that although they “passed”, they certainly would not be ready for Calculus. I think “back in the day” only the very very top students took pr-calculus (at least that’s what my mom told me) and that was enough to get into Cal. Now a huge percent of kids are taking it.</p>
<p>I think all the classes are just now inflated, the smart kids are in calc ab, super smart in bc and above. That leaves pre-calculus for well, the average kids. And if you don’t take pre-calc in HS then you would be considered slightly below average.</p>
<p>When you account that the university admits a large number of students who have no intention of majoring in anything STEM or Liberal Arts related (I think only 85% of undergrads study Engineering, Liberal Arts, Business, or Architecture. Many of those Liberal Arts majors will not need to take Calculus), the fact that’s an easy way to get some credits for the “quantitative reasoning” requirement, and the fact that the university is supposed to give students from all parts of Michigan (including Detroit, Flint, and Benton Harbor where high school students may not receive a standard education) a chance, 19% is not unreasonable. </p>
<p>Further, that only says how many seats there are. In a few hours when wolverine access opens, I’ll give you a better estimate of how many people are actually sitting in those seats.</p>
<p>It’s certainly not surprising to me. Remediation has been going on in reading, writing and math since I was in college in the mid-80’s. I remember the shock when I had to take foreign language, math and english/writing placement tests at how many students had to take a semester of remedial classes.</p>
<p>And now look around, kids really aren’t smarter than when we were younger, there is just way more grade inflation and more are going to college who probably woudn’t have a generation ago.</p>
<p>And look at some of these colleges now, they’re like high school plus for 4 years. My nephew is going to a college I call country club university. (not out loud)</p>
<p>It was a huge battle for my son as a strong math student. His private school willingly put a huge group of them in algebra 1 in 7th grade, yet in 11th, after straight A’s was reluctant to allow him into AP Calc. The head of the school, head of the high school, head of the middle school all said, with no remorse or embarrassment, I’m not really a math person. Really? Why is that okay in society to just say, we don’t like math, it’s just for nerds. People give themselves a pass all the time on not understanding math. And, it can be said laughing and joking and a slap on the back. However, if you hear my son is dyslexic and has a challenge reading for meaning, it’s like eeewww… that kid must be an idiot. But no one gives him a pass and says, you don’t need to read. Of course he does, he had to figure out how to accomodate for that. But society gives anyone who doesn’t like math a pass and says nevermind, math is hard.</p>
<p>The choice of not taking calculus is not giving “math a pass” – it’s choosing not to study a higher than needed level of math. </p>
<p>I never studied calculus, so I’m a little vague about what role that knowledge or skill might have played in my life or career… but I never studied Russian or French either, though my offspring respectively studied 4 years of each. I actually have frequent occasions to use both languages in my work – only 2 days ago I receive an important work-related letter entirely in Russian, for example. Fortunately, Google translation software now enables me to communicate at a rudimentary level in these languages … but the point is, no one would fault me or either of my kids for foregoing study of those particular languages. </p>
<p>I think a foundation in math is important, certainly through algebra and geometry. I took trig in high school, which is also something I have never had occasion to use since. But I just don’t get why calculus seems to have become the sine qua non of a college education in some people’s minds. </p>
<p>I actually think that part of the “problem” may be a society that is now trying to push too many kids to take too much math too early on. Algebra in 7th grade? Fine for the kids who are strong in math… but what about the kids who really don’t have the underlying concepts. A lot of students who are struggling when they hit the pre-calc level have problems because they didn’t really get the underlying concepts in the first place – they memorized the formulas and the right steps for solving various types of problems, but they never understood the <em>why</em> of it. And without that understanding, it really does all come tumbling down at the higher levels. </p>
<p>I think math is important, but I think it is far more important that students are able to truly grasp and understand the math they are taught than to achieve a specific level. For example – we encourage students to take 3-4 years of a foreign language in high school… but we don’t expect fluency. Why should people who aren’t interested in studying calculus be treated as if they are somehow falling short?</p>
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