<p>
And that was the purpose of this thread. Good job, alu. I’m trying to get us there.</p>
<p>Rock on dude.</p>
<p>the key to a fulfilling college experience is the ability and willingness to take advantage of the myriad academic and non-academic opportunities which colleges offer it students. Students can and do coast through four years of college on every college campus and miss out on opportunities which will never come their way again.</p>
<p>Regarding the discussion of coursework required for graduation, be it core or general distribution requirements, an assertive academic advisor can sometimes help the determined student navigate to more interesting waters. In my son’s major the department recently instituted a mandatory biology science requirement in order to expose students to the emerging field of bioinformatics. His advisor easily dispatched him of this requirement allowing him to substitute a course in global climatology.</p>
<p>curm : excellent suggestion to look at the research of the individual professors – I will suggest it to my kid to see if any of the profs at Penn State are doing what he thinks he wants to do and suggest that he meet them on a visit (duh, should have thought of that on my own – I know one well-known school we visited had a jerk for a department head - we introduced ourselves as he was in his office during a visit last year (he said no research until junior year as students were useless until then) - no application submitted after that visit - especially given the fact that other schools seemed excited to include all students at every level into research opps). This is why this board is so helpful –</p>
<p>“Yes, my bad. A 2.75 is a B-. I think it’s okay for freshman year. But I thought you were talking about graduating GPA. How would time and maturity factor into it, unless in a negative way? E.g., in four years of college, applicant has not managed to rise above a B-?”</p>
<p>I am talking about graduating gpa.</p>
<p>What if the 2.75 gpa doesn’t really reflect the person’s abilities?</p>
<p>What if the person was physically ill through college, or had mental or emotional issues that have passed after college?</p>
<p>Is there a place for this type of person in the graduate world?</p>
<p>What if a person had a 2.75 gpa in college and then 10 years after college, the person’s interests changed and he wanted to study something in mathematics at the graduate school lovel? Does this person have a shot?</p>
<p>(I really don’t know much about graduate school).</p>
<p>Alumother, you like “on average”. I don’t find it that useful. Who is that “on average” person? </p>
<p>USNWR tells me which schools are great financial deals. They use stats like average financial aid to show which schools are more inexpensive “on average”.</p>
<p>The problem is I don’t get the “average” financial aid so those stats don’t mean anything to me.</p>
<p>Your daughter chose Princeton because she felt that it was the best choice for her. She didn’t choose it because “on average” it was the best choice for other people. Did she?</p>
<p>You may not like or find useful the concept of on average. However, it still exists. No one person is that average person but ON AVERAGE the experience of any individual, i.e. any one data point, will be located in a larger pool of data points and thus on some predictive curve and thus ON AVERAGE the experience of any individual will be LIKELY to reflect the curve of the greater data pool.</p>
<p>Just because an anecdote exists that appears to refute the curve, the curve does not cease to exist. Outliers exist, they do not predict.</p>
<p>D did choose Princeton in part because, ON AVERAGE, the kids there are “smarter than”. In her case, it’s because she likes to hang with kids who don’t appear to be brilliant and studious if you judge by their social behaviours but she really likes it that most of them are in fact brilliant and studious.</p>
<p>I grant every exception to the rule. Just grant me the rule and its usefulness for those of us who like a data-based world. </p>
<p>Draw the picture, the predictive curve, the axes. Then take your life on a case-by-case basis. But I have found that I have more likelihood of being able to deviate from the norm when I first acknowledge that it exists. I cannot wish the world to be other than it is. I can wish my experience off the curve if I try hard enough.</p>
<p>Alumother, I’m not really interested if averages exist.</p>
<p>I’m more interested in whether averages are relevant to me or are important.</p>
<p>If your daughter chose Princeton because students are “on average” smarter than, that’s great.</p>
<p>I really don’t know what “smarter than” means. Really. I don’t. I like Marite’s post #161.</p>
<p>However, if your daughter does know what smarter than means, and that’s why she wanted to go to Princeton, great. (I’m not being sarcastic). It’s great that she found what she wanted.</p>
<p>But without averages, without some general measure, please excuse the philosophy but doesn’t one’s experience of the world degenerate into one where there is no memory? Where each moment all is forgotten and all that was learned must be recreated? Without averages don’t we enter into the world of magical thinking where because I like the sound of something I then make it so? To me that is the world of horrifying insanity. The world where I cannot put a foot down and know that down is down.</p>
<p>I am not kidding. That’s why some times these threads make me so crazy. Because it seems that in order to validate an outlier people are willing to trash simple and not very arguable facts. Cheerfully. Wilfully. And even when the facts are in no way destructive or shameful.</p>
<p>And didn’t you say that no one disagrees that there is such a thing as “smarter than”? Or was that a tricky locution to mean that no one disagrees …but they should?</p>
<p>But I suppose it’s good that I know you feel this way - then I won’t have to get all riled up trying to argue any more.</p>
<p>“I’m more interested in whether averages are relevant to me or are important.”</p>
<p>Fine. Then it is your job to find out if your child is similar to the chidren of many of the posters here. Even if your child is exactly like curm’s D or Marite’s S, his/her experiences at Rhodes or Harvard might be totally different than your child’s.</p>
<p>It seems to me that without divulging much info about your child, you are looking for a parent whose child is exactly like yours and you want a guarantee. What exactly are you looking for?</p>
<p>“The problem is I don’t get the “average” financial aid so those stats don’t mean anything to me”</p>
<p>Without that number the whole concept of making informed decision is useless.</p>
<p>Let us take two extremes which schools do you think is better?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>5% of student body receives financial aid that averages $500/yr</p></li>
<li><p>75% of student body receives financial aid that averages $35,000/yr.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>dstark?</p>
<p>But what are the person’s abilities? Can a student go for 4 years without revealing abilities? And how are graduate admissions committees to judge a person’s abilities without evidence of these abilities? I’m assuming that the GPA is based not just on tests, but on term papers as well. It’s not like SAT or AP scores, and the person can say that s/he does not test well, had a bad day, blah blah blah… Not for four years.</p>
<p>Okay. So after goofing off for four years (or having a mental breakdown that lasted four years) a person eventually matures and now wants to attend grad school. In a totally different field. My hunch is that said person will be told to present evidence that s/he is prepared to undertake graduate studies in the new field. I know of one case of someone with a Ph.D. in math who, after teaching for 15 years, decided to study history. By then, he’d acquired the necessary foreign languages and wrote an application essay that showed he’d done a lot of reading in the topic he was interested in pursuing, and lived in the area of his research, etc… The graduate program allowed him to enter on an interim basis as a special student, so that the faculty could assess his abilities (plenty of people claim they’re fluent in one language or another, but these are inflated claims). Several months later, the profs who had him in their classes were convinced he was the real deal and supported his application to the graduate program.</p>
<p>It would be far harder to make a similar trajectory into math or science departments where life experiences do not count for much. Of course, a student who’d discovered a new algorithm might have a chance, low GPA, mental breakdown et al notwithstanding.</p>
<p>dstark, I think I know what “smarter than” means. It means my husband and sons regarding math or the physical sciences. They just get things in a way that I could never do, no matter how hard I try. I could eventually get it, if someone explains things to me in a very careful, step by step method. But my H and kids get it WITHOUT the step by step instructions. That’s what makes them “smarter than” as far as I’m concerned. But give me a written passage, or vocabulary test, and I’ll probably outscore all three of them. </p>
<p>“Smarter than” has meaning in terms of how much material is covered in a course, and the level at which it’s covered. There have been discussion of Math 55 at Harvard – those kids are smarter about math than most people, without a doubt. So I believe there is a difference worth noting.</p>
<p>If someone has a 2.75 cumulative GPA, and wants to study math at the graduate level, I don’t think it can be done. Unless the GPA meant Ds in everything but math. There is too much ground to make up, and some studies show that mathematicians and physicists peak in their mid to late 20’s. If they haven’t made some significant contribution by then, they probably won’t.</p>
<p>As I say this, though, I still ponder the notion that for some kids being the brightest kid in a less selective school might be a good option. Who knows? None of us have the ability to see what might have happened if we’d chosen different options.</p>
<p>“But I suppose it’s good that I know you feel this way - then I won’t have to get all riled up trying to argue any more.”</p>
<p>You never did. :)</p>
<p>We do measure. I think there are averages that are relevant and those that aren’t. There are averages that are relevant to me and I consider those. Those that aren’t, I don’t consider.</p>
<p>If I have numbers… 1,2,3,4, and 1,000,000 the average is a little over 200,000. If I am a 5, how is that average relevant to me?</p>
<p>Alumother</p>
<p>It’s a wonderful world where you and your daughter can value Princeton for its academic excellence and its eating clubs while my son and I can value Carleton for its academic excellence and its Druid grove. I love how there’s a place for everyone!</p>
<p>“Can a student go for 4 years without revealing abilities?”</p>
<p>Absolutely, a person can.</p>
<p>“The problem is I don’t get the “average” financial aid so those stats don’t mean anything to me”</p>
<p>Simba, you wrote, </p>
<p>"Without that number the whole concept of making informed decision is useless.
Let us take two extremes which schools do you think is better?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>5% of student body receives financial aid that averages $500/yr</p></li>
<li><p>75% of student body receives financial aid that averages $35,000/yr."</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Then there is me. I don’t get any financial aid.</p>
<p>So which school is better?</p>
<p>“Above all why”.
Son chose good state U honors college over other top 30 privates. Did not get into the one ivy he applied to. His choice saves over 150K. We’re saving some of the scholarship money to fund grad school for him. So far, he loves his choice.
We were very concerned about the size of the place - but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He WANTED big - his other top choices were also quite large.
A different kid might have led to a different choice. But it looks like this was the right one for him. He’s had mostly good classes and professors so far.<br>
Using the traditional definition of “smart”, he has some smart buddies and some not so smart. Will they all go on to be great leaders in our world? Maybe not. But he’s happy and has good, loyal friends. And lots of opportunities in front of him.
Any regrets? We’ll see - it’s too early to tell and it’s impossible to compare to the choice he didn’t make. He’s happy right now though… and that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>dstark:</p>
<p>Then I suppose same person can go for the rest of his or her life without revealing those abilities. The fact is that one has to convince adcoms that one can handle it. I could try to apply to a math department to do a Ph.D., but, hey, I never got past trigonometry and that was 40 years ago. My mathematical genius will need to remain well hidden.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Academically or financially? The percentage of students on finaid should have no bearing on their intellectual quality and performance. so if a student does not get any finaid, why would that student be concerned about the percentage of student on finaid? Unless the student believed, not inaccurately, that students on finaid have had different experiences, and that these experiences are educationally very valuable.</p>
<p>Marite, try not to be too judgmental. I am asking your opinion, but not your commentary because you don’t know all the facts and I can’t give them to you.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this person is even going to consider graduate school.</p>
<p>I’m wondering.</p>
<p>That 2.75 gpa, under the circumstances, it’s very high.</p>
<p>“The percentage of students on finaid should have no bearing on their intellectual quality and performance. so if a student does not get any finaid, why would that student be concerned about the percentage of student on finaid?”</p>
<p>I have no idea why those percentages or averages would apply to me. That’s kind of my point. ;)</p>