<p>
</p>
<p>The former is OK in any place while the latter has to be in the right place.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I agree. My D1 is very ambitious, very capable, and sets her own standard. But she was incredibly tired of being in the front all through HS and was dying to have peers who would give her a run for her money. She’s been thrilled to have that opportunity in college - and her ambition hasn’t wavered, either.</p>
<p>D2, who is not a tippy-top student, also gets tired of being at the top (when she’s in regular ed classes), although she gets discouraged when she fears “everyone” is getting ahead of her in honors/AP. I think for her she’ll want to find an emotional hook as much as anything, where achievement isn’t the only thing people focus on. She’s in an AP class right now with the top kids in her class, a small group, like a seminar, and she’s an incredible leader - because finally no one is worrying about who’s in front.</p>
<p>This school she just got into will let her drift among all groups and pick and choose. I’m excited she could have that option - and safety net.</p>
<p>Bumping this -I think it’s going to be a very useful thread in the coming weeks.</p>
<p>“75th percentile” implies a peer group of a quarter of the school’s population, which means that there will be a large group of similarly (or more) qualified students. Furthermore, academically-similar students will often have more opportunities to encounter each other via more advanced classes, honors groups, etc. I wouldn’t hesitate to send a student to such a school, as it will likely present opportunities to excel (GPA, ranking, etc.) and perhaps get the attention of profs for things like research opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>The larger the environment, the more likely it is that there will be a substantial academic peer group. Even at a big state school known for sports and partying, there will be many excellent and motivated students.</p>
<p>Probably the only situation where I’d be concerned would be a radical mismatch, e.g., an Ivy-caliber student in a local commuter-oriented college.</p>
<p>The college where I teach tends to have students with relatively average abilities (wonderful students, though: I have always enjoyed them). And we invariably have a few truly brilliant students, who might have gone almost anywhere else, had they chosen to. Despite the apparent mismatch, these students typically stay here and LOVE the experience. They often regard their choice of this school as one of the best things they’ve ever done. </p>
<p>My own children are eager for more academically challenging classmates, but the best students I’ve taught here have done very well–academically and socially–without that support.</p>
<p>What conclusion can I draw from this experience? Nothing terribly helpful, I fear, other than the observation that a fine student CAN get an excellent education and be happy at a school where he or she is far ahead of most other students.</p>
<p>Our older Kiddo is at an academically mismatched university. She chose the school for its BFA program and we took the University folks at their word that their honors program would be very challenging and that they’d work with her to provide a stimulating and challenging academic component to the BFA conservatory program.</p>
<p>She’s now a second semester junior and there hasn’t been a single semester that she hasn’t had to beg, plead, and wrangle with the University folk to create an academic schedule that works with their required BFA courses. The BFA students (most of whom have the highest academic credentials of each entering freshmen classes) have very few courses they can choose from, are primarily restricted to the adult learning track, and especially have few honors courses open to them—and often those get cancelled.</p>
<p>It has become such a hassle to continue in the honors program (due to lack of course selection) that many of the BFA students simply drop it.</p>
<p>For the vast majority of her ‘academic’ courses, this Kiddo has been bored and can whip the top grade in the class out without hardly twitching a neuron—especially in the required courses. She has found a couple professors that are inspiring or interesting, so she loads up on their courses. But even those don’t require much mental flexing.</p>
<p>She does feel that she is losing some of her academic/intellectual prowness and feels a bit starved for intellectual challenge. Periodically, a course may include a ‘peer edit’ for assigned papers. Those are particularly painful for her. She’s shown me a few in an effort to get an idea where to start ----and I have to agree with her that there is just oh-so-much-wrong with these papers (grammar, spelling, lack of structure, voice) that it is really painful to read them and rather hopeless to start with suggestions.</p>
<p>So, the University and its academic component, social life, and honors program have been a HUGE disappointment (and unfortunately turned out to be just what her dad and I feared it might be) and we consider it to be a huge waste of private college tuition. The school really should be ashamed of itself. But it has a unique BFA program and it was the only BFA program this Kiddo really wanted. So that 's why she’s there. But, she laments quite often that she wishes she could have gone to a ‘real school’ and still had this BFA program.</p>
<p>^^please post the name of the college, so that others looking for BFA programs can be warned.</p>
<p>treemaven, is the BFA program turning out to be all your daughter thought it would be? I hope so!</p>
<p>I’m at a school that I considered a ‘safety’ while applying. I’m academically above average, and I’m very happy where I am. Although I’m not in the honors program (yet, I can apply at the end of the first or second years) I am still eligible to take honors classes so I meet many people who are also above the average. My major is also mainly people who are above the average for our school, although there are some students that are average in my major. I think it really just depends.</p>
<p>DS will almost certainly be attending the same BigStateU that RobD’s daughter attends. As far as we can tell, the kids in the Honors College at this school are top-notch. I have a feeling DS will be stretched intellectually (which is a Good Thing!) by hanging out with these kids.</p>
<p>As for coursework: DS plans to major in History and minor in Classics. Presumably he’ll be taking Honors versions of the History core classes. As for Classics: If you’ve ever sat in on a Greek class, you’ll know that there’s no such thing as a huge, impersonal Greek class, LOL. Honors or non-Honors. :)</p>
<p>This particular BigStateU also offers Honors versions of the basic required core classes, such as frosh comp. I think DS will be fine there. (And we’ll be saving oodles of $$.)</p>
<p>“I can personally report that my science-oriented friends at State U are very happy and challenged. I haven’t heard either way from the non-math/science folks.”</p>
<p>I think this is a good point, and it does worry me a bit. Both of my kids are good at math / science but not spectacularly brilliant at either, and neither kid plans to major in a math/sciencey area. It does seem as if most of the brilliant kids we’re hearing about at BigStateU are in the engineering program or something similarly hard-sciencey. If Older Son majors in History, will he find kindred spirits? (Of course, he’d be perfectly OK just hanging out with the engineering majors…recently he got in touch with one kid who plans to major in engineering–a prospective roommate–and the two boys talked on the phone for FOUR hours. So, obviously, they had something in common, LOL.)</p>
<p>“whether a summer with Arabic immersion can make up for pretty mediocre Arabic grades now…”</p>
<p>LOL, mathmom! My DH took Arabic at Harvard – and said it was the hardest course he’s ever had in his entire life. If your son is earning “mediocre” grades in Arabic, that probably means he’s absolutely brilliant. 
Best of luck with the summer immersion.</p>
<p>I’m a second semester freshman in a very nice honors program. Even though KU is usually only regarded highly for the professional programs and basketball, I still love it here. I take part in a lot of the honors program events and sure, there have been survey classes with 200+ students, most of my honors program classes are less than half the size of the non honors program classes. I also live on the honors program floor of my dorm, and my dorm is regarded as the “scholars dorm,” so I’ve largely been happy here. I don’t feel that I don’t fit in academically, as i have had many academically competitive peers, students who turned down offers to “elite” private schools to come to a school where they are wanted. I know that a lot of students here picked it for a financial fit, due to the extremely generous scholarships they were offered, compared to less generous offers at other schools. The only part that bugs me about my school now is the size. Sometimes I feel like a number in a crowd, instead of being regarded as an individual, on my campus, but being in the relatively small honors program here really helps me remember that I am not just a number.</p>
<p>Thanks for the thread and I’m really enjoying reading the responses. I was somewhat worried about this very topic in my son’s case. He attended a rural high school that did a good job of giving the high-achievers a fair number honors and AP classes with some really great teachers. Though the numbers were small, these kids had great success getting into good colleges. My son was already used to being in the top few percent of students at his school, and I was hoping that he would go to a place that would really challenge his intellect and have him meeting people who would inspire him. I was thinking in terms of a place with stellar academics. It became clear as we attended admitted student’s days that he wanted a lot more out of his college experience than the academics; he wanted close relationships, leadership opportunities, competitive club sports, a nice town to walk to, etc etc. </p>
<p>As it has turned out he is attending a small LAC that was in the middle of the pack of colleges he applied to and he’s in the top 25% of admitted students. He ended up there because of a combination of social, academic and financial criteria and I worried that he would miss all the intangible extras that a more elite academic institution would offer.</p>
<p>Because he had so many AP classes, his new school had him take placement tests and put him into upper level classes where that was warranted. He went from Spanish 4 in High school to a 300 level spanish literature class, where they read El Cid in 13th century Spanish and talked and wrote about it it in 21st century Spanish. He was not bored. He says the other classes are also interesting and challenging. </p>
<p>I think that because he isn’t straining to keep up, he has the time and energy to play rugby, join a fraternity, hang out with a nice girl he’s met and join some clubs. As my husband points out, those other life skills, learned outside the classroom, are pretty darned important too. So I guess we can say he’s getting a wide ranging education and having a terrific time.</p>
<p>I graduated HS with a 4.3 GPA, and now I’m at community college. I’m slightly above the 95th percentile, with a solid 4.0 GPA for last semester. </p>
<p>I’m relatively challenged by the work. Not much.</p>
<p>OP: I think it will be important to understand few facts.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Do you want your child to be a “one eyed among blinds”?
“High Achievers” is a misnomer as it’s relative because you can be a high achievers among a peer group just because the peer group is of under performering children and so your normal performance becomes the high achieving.</p></li>
<li><p>Unless you find your match group; growth is not possible.
It is theoretically possible to work in isolation and still produce awesome results but in general most everyone is benefited by a strong peer group. </p></li>
<li><p>Children personality is the key.
Everything is related to each person personality. Some people need validation otherwise they feel insecure. So if some one have such a personality then they might thrive in low competition as they are able to satisfy the psychological need that they are performing their best.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So in essence:
If you really wants to learn then go to a school where you have to work hard to compete as you learn a lot more from your peer group than from books or from professors.</p>
<p>If you want to pat your back for getting all As then go to the school where you can achieve that without much effort.</p>
<p>In real world it’s the knowledge that matter and not the grades but for medical school, law school and other grads school admission the grade does matter. So tread carefully one way or the other.</p>
<p>“you learn a lot more from your peer group than from books or from professors”
Oh really? based on this faulty “assumption”, why go to college in the first place?
Joke, but still…</p>
<p>I have to disagree with POIH. There are many strong, gifted students that have always sought out and learned more from the adults around them, the internet and the books they read than from their peers. They are also the kind of students who are more likely to seek out Profs in college, asking for chances to do research for them, and end up achieving far more than most students . IMHO.</p>
<p>@riku–what are your plans? Will you be transferring to a four-year school eventually? Will you get your AA and then transfer? Or do you plan to segue into a four-year school next fall?</p>
<p>My (home-schooled) older son took a CC class last semester and definitely benefited from it. This semester he’s taking another one and also benefiting. Super-challenged? No. But he is learning new stuff. I think many CCs are underrated.</p>
<p>Younger son may go the CC-to-four-year route. Although he is a bright kid who scores well on his practice SATs, he has OCD, and he is slightly socially delayed (not to mention shy). Our local CC could help ease his transition to a four-year school. It’s a good option to have, IMHO.</p>
<p>@menloparkmom – I agree completely. :)</p>
<p>^^^In response to POIV, I’d like to distinguish that one can find your “match group” in both a top tier, ivy league university, large state flagship, or small personalized college. It’s not just about statistics and who has the highest ACT/SAT and GPA scores coming out of high school, but also about the student’s ability to adapt to different environments in accordance with his or her personality. </p>
<p>My background - I’m a college junior attending a gigantic public school out-of-state. I was in the top 5% GPA and test-scores wise in high school so this school was my “safety school” persay. But I chose it because of scholarships, school spirit/friendly students, its special residential college program, as well as honors college. I am a social science major (international relations) and I have had nothing but great experiences in terms of academics at my school. Granted, this does not apply to all majors across my university - the fact that I am in the HC and residential college attests to this. But let me just explain why my experience has been so great: first of all, I came in with 24 transfer credits which helped get rid of some of the Gen eds I would have to take. Being part of the Honors college, my general education requirements were also infinitely more lenient (I didn’t have to take the integrative studies requirements - generally gigantic, unchallenging survey classes and instead, ie for my science requirement, I could take almost any science class - lower or upper level - that interested me). </p>
<p>Also being a part of a residential college in public & international affairs, they offered a specialized curriculum for freshmen, having to take yearlong intensive writing and public affairs courses. I then was able to take 300-level courses with an average of 25 students by the second semester of my freshman year. I can take as many honors options in any of the courses within my major as I want, which is essentially an extra class session held weekly where we discuss a book or two with other honors kids and then have to write an additional paper. I am currently undergoing an honors independent study project for credit where I am writing a 30 page paper on my topic of interest, with the assistance of a professor that shares a similar research interest. </p>
<p>In terms of my peers, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find that so many of my classmates (particularly within my residential college) have been so intelligent (often more eloquent and hardworking than me). My best friends are people I can hold serious debates as well as lighthearted conversations with. I guess I feel like there is just that much more opportunity out there when you go to a large state school, and that it takes just a little effort to seek out things that can help you become challenged intellectually/academically even in a place abundant in 300-person classes & boring TAs (which I fortunately have had few experiences with). Even not being in the honors college at my school, you can be part of the residential college’s honors program and choose to take honors option classes through that - and anyone can choose to take an independent study with a professor.</p>