<p>Cheers:</p>
<p>Are there many schools where freshmen must take only core courses or prereqs? S1 who went to Wes had a mix of classes beginning freshman year. Some were specifically designed for freshmen and he truly enjoyed them, and some were not. </p>
<p>My feeling is that as long as gen ed requirements are fulfilled by the time a student graduates, most colleges don’t care when or in what order they’re taken. Am I wrong?</p>
<p>At USC some of the Gen ed classes are only available to Freshman and Sophomores, so students have no choice but to take them early. Add the multiple math/ physics prerequisites for some of the majors- engineering for instance, which are offered once a year and must be taken in sequence and the result is there is not as much flexibility as one would hope for.</p>
<p>But is there a way to test out of some of those gen ed requirements? Most of my gen ed requirements as a UC undergrad were waived/avoided by the test scores I came in with or APs… and later on there was a procedure in place to petition for waiver of some requirements. I know my son has unfilled gen ed courses at his current college where he is a transfer, and he plans to go ahead and complete the upper division requirements for his major and then petition to waive the intro courses he missed. My d uses words like “petition” and “waiver” when discussing her college requirements as well. (Of course with my kids this probably simply comes from being raised by lawyers, and I am also the offspring of a lawyer – maybe we don’t interpret “rules” in quite the same way others do.)</p>
<p>thanks, menloparkmom.</p>
<p>I just want to add something. I think the idea of students who are so overprepared by their demanding prep schools that they are bored when they get to the top colleges is largely a myth. My guess is that there is a small percentage that is merely burnt out, and that there is a somewhat larger number who are unprepared for the freedom offered by college life and find comfort in the rationalization that their classes are “mostly review”. I mean, easier to say that than admit that they are running 1500 pages behind on assigned reading and haven’t been to class for a week, because their party schedule leaves no time for academics. I think the vast majority probably find their colleges coursework to present appropriate challenge.</p>
<p>To the extent that it may not, for an individual student, it seems to me that militates in favor of taking the scholarship offer at the “lesser” school: the perks that come with the scholarship, such as guaranteed research opportunities, coupled with more generous policies as to the awarding of AP credit may allow the high-end kid to leapfrog ahead at a faster pace. I mean, if the problem is that the kid is already too far ahead of the normal first year curriculum, the solution may be to opt for whichever school offers the most flexibility and opportunities for early advancement.</p>
<p>GE scheduling at USC can be a bit confusing. One course (1st semester freshman writing) is very, very strongly encouraged to complete during freshman year. Most students must take this course freshman year along with another affiliated GE course at the same time (some students are exempt for scheduling reasons) Then additionally, another GE requirement can be completed at any time; but most courses are open only to freshmen and sophomores, so the selection for upperclassmen is more limited.</p>
<p>So they don’t particularly care when you take GE courses, but they provide lots of incentive to take them ASAP, without making it impossible for people like me (engineering) to schedule all our major prereqs around GEs</p>
<p>edit: and no, here, they only let you out of 2 GE courses with AP, and only in certain categories (1 science, 1 cultures). Writing and all the others have to be done here</p>
<p>I haven’t read the rest of this thread, but I saw the topic and really wanted to put my two cents in!!</p>
<p>I think it really depends on whether the school offering the merit scholarship is right for the student. I was in that position almost two years ago – Brandeis had offered me a full tuition scholarship, and all the others schools I had gotten into did not offer merit scholarships, and gave me very little need-based aid. I didn’t visit any schools before I was accepted to them, so I didn’t get my hopes up anywhere. However, after receiving my acceptances, I set my sights on Brown, which, unfortunately, continued to be very stingy even after I pleaded repeatedly to their financial aid office. I knew upon visiting Brandeis that it was not the right place for me, but my parents could not understand how I could turn down so much money. Everyone else besides them told me to just take out the loans and go to Brown, but I listened to my parents (quite begrudgingly, I will admit) and chose Brandeis instead.</p>
<p>After a month of Brandeis, I realized I was miserable. Everything I hadn’t liked during my visit - and more - I was experiencing. Although talks about transferring were struggles with my parents due to financial reasons, I eventually convinced them to let me apply to Vassar (which I had also gotten into previously). Actually being in college made me realize that while I still love Brown, Vassar would be a better fit for me. I applied ONLY to vassar to transfer – which was quite risky! – and fortunately got in. I was originally offered very little financial aid, but after meeting with financial aid, my financial aid package was changed. Vassar is still quite a financial burden – my parents are paying far more than they did at Brandeis, I am paying part of tuition, I am taking out some in loans, AND I have work study – but it’s worth it. I am so much happier at Vassar than I ever was at Brandeis. In fact, I’m on break right now and really miss Vassar!!</p>
<p>Anyways, moral of the story: had I loved (or even liked) Brandeis, I definitely would have stayed. However, I was far too miserable to even consider that. And, I must add, I knew many others there who had chosen Brandeis only because of scholarships (as I had), and weren’t too happy either. It doesn’t make for a very happy population! Thus, I think it all depends on how the student feels about the merit-money-offering school.</p>
<p>It’s not a myth calmom. I’ve seen nearly three decades of students from one Harkness type prep school, and I’ve seen that ‘jaded’ scenario, over and over again, through the years–as well as a couple of decades of watching NYC kids. </p>
<p>B students from top prep schools cannot get into HYP top 25 Blah Dee Dah. They settle on second and third tier schools–where they are somewhat bored by their classes and their classmates in freshman and sophomore year–having grown up in classrooms with 50% NM scholars. Call me a liar if you want, but that’s been my long experience. Could it be that your experience in California is different than mine in the midwest and NYC?</p>
<p>marite, do juniors really take core classes chock full of freshman? My son didn’t. Most students seem to want to get through those core classes and out of the nursery!</p>
<p>Cheers, read my post again. I said that I thought it was a myth that the student who were attending “top colleges” were bored. This in response to Kirmum’s post, citing the NY Times article, which may or may not be “The Incredibles”, which I posted extensive quotes from.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that by “top colleges” I do not mean “second and third tier schools”. I don’t know where to draw the line as to what is a “top college” - but it definitely would be within the US News first tier. </p>
<p>Again… as to lower tier schools, getting AP credit and waivers of most intro level course requirements is usually pretty easy, at least among the publics which have no financial incentive to keep students in classes they can easily test out of. There may be a handful of general ed courses that can’t be waived, but I know that in California the universities pretty much give credit for any AP with a score of 3 or above, and in most cases the credit is treated as the course equivalence. (That is, it exempts the student from the requirement of whatever course the AP gives credit for).</p>
<p>jbusc – I have no idea what is involved in a USC freshman writing course, but I do think a first year writing course is valuable for students. I saw my daughter’s writing transform from very good to exceptional and amazing within a matter of weeks with her first year writing seminar at Barnard – and I think that the research paper she wrote at the end of the semester is near publishable quality in terms of the quality of writing. So even for a student who started out as a very strong writer, I would not consider the first year writing course to be too easy or a waste of time. (I think part of the purpose of the course may be to break the kids of the terrible habits they picked up in high school, when their AP teachers tried to drill them to exhaustion in the art of AP-formatted essays – at least that would be the case with my daughter – we had a running battle with the AP Lit teacher because I really felt that the repeated AP “practice” did more harm than good).</p>
<p>Probably 1st semester writing here is similar to other universities - it along with the other GE courses are supposed to be similar to a LAC (i.e., the 6 GE courses and 2 semesters of writing would correspond to a year at a LAC) Of course this is all irrelevant if you do USC’s honors GE sequence, but I digress :)</p>
<p>I agree with the whole HS/AP writing thing you’re saying (I did AP eng. language and got two A’s and a 4) since basically they expect an “AP essay” format that is absolutely nothing like real writing…</p>
<p>Basically I think that AP english did nothing to help prepare me for college writing…though I did take 9th grade english through UC berkeley and actually I think that helped me more than any other english course I took in HS or middle school…</p>
<p>cheers:</p>
<p>But that’s the point. The CORE classes are not full of freshmen because students can fulfill the requirements over a four year period, and most do. So there are indeed classes that have seniors. And what one student will find dead easy, another one will find hard. There are certain classes that are full of freshmen; they tend to be the prerequisites for certain fields.</p>
<p>S1 at his LAC was still fulfilling one GE requirement in his senior year. It’s possible S2 will do the same.</p>
<p>Back to OP, - how does one decide between Penn State honors (with a nice merit award reducing expenses to 1/2) and MIT (no $$ or aid) - nice dilemma to have, but have 4 kids and kid at issue is kind of quiet, not an outgoing partying kind - likes quirky things/humor and smaller size - kid has said that if we want him to go to Penn State, he will (parental guilt if it doesn’t work out) because kid “gets” that we have 4 kids and he is oldest. Kid eventually wants to be a professor - does superficial “cache” of MIT name matter w/ regard to goals?</p>
<p>by the way, any help here is much appreciated. This thread struck such a cord with us as much of it weighs the factors being considered, by folks with much sage advice. Thanks to curm. for starting it!</p>
<p>
Such a sad commentary. This is NOT a flame against kirmum, who posted that thought. It is just, imho, a sad commentary on… on the state of the higher education selection process, I guess. But probably more. No missteps allowed. No pulling yourself up from lesser preparation, overcoming obstacles. </p>
<p>Not a good thing. Were I able to identify them on an application, I do believe I would be more impressed by those who started shaky and worked it out… over those who had it all under control from the get-go. At least, I wouldn’t hold it against the former group. Why are they seen as less able?</p>
<p>Momcubed, I sent you a PM.</p>
<p>jmmom and Kirmum:</p>
<p>It depends on the graduate program. For those which are GPA driven, missteps in the freshman year may be hard to overcome. For Ph.D. programs, admission committees generally look at performance in the intended major. A prospective Ph.D. in English will not be penalized for having done poorly in intro Calc. and other gen ed courses not likely to be related to English.</p>
<p>I’m only on page 22 after getting up this morning, but, geez, so much of this discussion (and similar discussions on CC!) seems to hinge on kids WANTING to make a ton of money…Wanting to be in the “top” law firm or hospital…Wanting to live in the fanciest town/schools/peer group…Yale club?!</p>
<p>Maybe it’s my rather humble background, but I honestly don’t think my kids have that sort of life in mind. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it - it’s just that people have different visions of their futures I guess.) Maybe it’s just the part of the country we are from. I don’t even know people who aspire to own a Jag.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree, now get off that nocturnal motorcycle and back onto the couch with us other taters where you belong.</p>
<p>" For those which are GPA driven"</p>
<p>Marite, if I want to do graduate work in economics or English or whatever, and I don’t have the need to get into the top programs, can I do it? For want of better words, can I do graduate work at a tier 3 school regardless of grades?</p>
<p>I think marite was referring to law school or medical school as “GPA driven” graduate programs.</p>