Arguing over course selections

Parents Forum
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<p>We never had anything to do with course selection for either of our kids. We saw their course selection at the end of the term when they showed us their grades. We DID, however, tell them both that we were laying for the four year plan only. It was their responsibility to make sure they fulfilled all grad requirements within a four academic year timeline. Anything beyond that was on their dime (one of our kids did take sum,ER classes and one online class…and paid for it). </p>

<p>The OP to this thread should be clear that this student needs to fulfill their course requirements In whatever timeline they choose as a family. It will then be the STUDENTs job to make sure that the courses being twin will make this happen.</p>

<p>As an aside, this OP says their kiddo is a music major of some kind. He should ask for an advisor immediately within the,music department. Music majors have quite the sequence of required courses…and THOSE need to be included in the schedule first. At my kids school, music majors were actually given a schedule that already had them registered for the music requirements, and all the student did was fit on once core course requirement per term (that is all that was left in terms of time).</p>

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<p>Thumper, that has been similar to our experience. 130 hours required for a music major, and that really translates to MANY MORE classroom hours than that. Fortunately D had most of her core out of the way. </p>

<p>A lot of those students that still had core requirements to fill are taking them during the summer because their hours during the school year, especially in the spring are very grueling.</p>

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<p>Strongly disagree. Unless the kid is paying 100% of the cost of attendance, the 'rent has a say in the product completion.</p>

<p>Moreover, the cynic in me says that the public in question is over-enrolled in Frosh courses and thus new entrants are encouraged to take anything that they can get, i.e., whatever course has open space.</p>

<p>A Frosh taking college courses without the prereqs is not only a huge risk relative to GPA, but a potential waste of money.</p>

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<p>mythmom - I’m not advocating that everyone should skip out of English Comp. altogether, but rather that this particular mom determine options for her own kid. Mine had to re-take her college’s English placement exam because she wiped out on it the first time despite excellent grades in AP English Lit., and yes dragging her sad behind through the various English CLEPs was on the table for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, on the second try she placed into regular English Comp. Whew! We avoided a long, nasty summer of exam prep.</p>

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S is considering filling out the requirements for a music major in addition to his philosophy major. The requirements must vary by college because there is no way it is that much for him.</p>

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<p>Sylvan…is your son picking up a BA in music? If so, yes…those have fewer course requirements than music performance, music education, music composition majors.</p>

<p>I’m guessing this must be a BA double major because the others are not majors you can just “pick up” as they require an audition.</p>

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<p>Well, my ouch meant that there is more to English than comp. my school requires an intro to lit course as well. I’m very grateful.</p>

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<p>Is there an older cousin, college age family friend who is willing to go through your notes, your son’s major requirements and help mediate the situation?
Someone your son will listen to and has experience to tell your son about lower and upper division classes?
And that advisers don’t always give the best advice, that it is up to the student to know his options.</p>

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<p>OP, I think your best course of action is to be sure that your s knows the course requirements for his major, and any distribution courses he needs to graduate (like, one humanities, one math, one science, etc). He should find that in the school course catalogue, rip out the list and keep it in a binder he will keep for all four years. Any important papers from the registrars office will go into that binder (like grade reports, any notices about cancelled courses, etc). Beyond that suggestion, allow HIM to handle everything. My parents had never attended college, so they were hands off. I went through one rough patch junior year, but would have DIED of embarrassment if my parents had EVER called my college! I figured things out, asked questions when in doubt (of the registrar if the advisor wasn’t available) and knew that I had only four years.
I am doing the same for my responsible, but sometimes scatterbrained, formerly home-schooled d. She knows she has 4 years to graduate - if she needs longer she will have to pay for it herself. So far, so good!</p>

<p>I think when you have homeschooled, it can be very difficult to give up the role of teacher. You will have to be the mentor instead; ready to help when s comes to you with questions. Be that advisor; calm and encouraging a young adult to handle what he needs to. </p>

<p>My mother-in-law is a college registrar. I really do encourage you to encourage your son to contact the registrar about courses while things are sort of quiet. Waiting until courses start will just be a nightmare!</p>

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<p>I don’t consider this helicoptering. My son did the same thing. I suggested to him that the classes he signed up for would be very difficult, especially for 1st semester freshman year. He insisted he would be fine. I let it go. It ended very badly.</p>

<p>I think it’s wonderful when parents can be hands off; when the kid gets it mostly right, when there is decent advising, etc. But, when the kid is way, way off (whether the parent is paying or not) they do need direction. Yes, it’s appropriate to let them make mistakes, and they will. But, there is a whole spectrum of mistakes, from minor to serious.</p>

<p>I would strongly encourage him to email his advisor and confirm that the courses are appropriate, and that it is ok that he is missing prereq’s.</p>

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<p>*Cromette quote:</p>

<p>Nothing OP has said would lead one to believe her S is not ready to go into freshman English.
*</p>

<p>Here are the OP’s words. Yes, she did say that her son can’t go into Freshman English. He does have to take Remedial English first.</p>

<p>*
And on that note, if he did not score well enough on the placement test (everyone is required to take them), he will have to take a remedial English course in 1st semester before taking the Eng 100 in 2nd semester.
*</p>

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<p>IF he did not. She doesn’t know how he scored, which also seems weird, because one usually knows the outcome of placement tests prior to registration.</p>

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<p>Test Obsessed has nailed the issue IMHO. Great post.</p>

<p>Transitioning to an age appropriate way of communicating is the toughest part of the Freshman year for a parent in my experience. Telling a kid that his schedule is wrong/bad/a mistake and that he’s got to fix it your way is a recipe for more tension and anxiety through the summer. Telling a kid that his adviser is wrong is a bad move (even if the adviser is wrong.) And reminding a kid that Father (or Mother) knows best is not the way to go.</p>

<p>Your kid is going to make some mistakes in college. Until you accept that upfront you are destined to have a miserable year. The goal is not to eliminate the mistakes by your intervention (that’s what you do with a 4 year old). The goal is to make sure your kid uses the tools you’ve provided for him to fix the mistakes himself.</p>

<p>Self-advocacy, the ability to work with a bureaucracy, following up with an authority figure in a polite and appropriate way- these are the tools your son needs going forward. To have you map out his four year plan does not help, especially if he’s already chafing at your intervention. </p>

<p>My kids all ended up biting off more than they could chew Freshman year. Either too many courses, or too difficult/upper level, or a course where they hadn’t taken the prerequisite but where the adviser said, “if you aren’t afraid of a little hard work it shouldn’t be a problem”. Well guess what- when you’ve got a bunch of other hard courses to balance it most definitely was a problem.</p>

<p>Colleges have a drop period for a reason. You can suggest to your son that he review the academic calendar and note when classes can be dropped, which classes he could add to replace ones he might not want to continue in, and double back with his adviser on his schedule to make sure that he’s made appropriate selections in light of his placement tests and his desire to both stretch himself but not be in an impossilbe situation come November.</p>

<p>And then you have to butt out for now.</p>

<p>I don’t know what you do for a living- but imagine if you had a boss who didn’t say, “Hey, that’s a great idea. Make sure we’ve got the funds in the reserve budget before you try it” (which to my mind is how you talk to an adult) but instead said, “Your idea is most likely unaffordable and/or stupid and I’m going to sit you down and make flashcards to help you see just how stupid it is”.</p>

<p>One form of communication keeps the door open- you can go back and say that there aren’t enough funds- what else could we try. The other squashes any sort of initiative and makes you feel like a jerk for even trying.</p>

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<p>I completely agree with Blossom.</p>

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<p>Some actions have huge consequences not just for the student, but for the entire family. If you know that there is a good chance that your mother, husband, 50 year-old sister who is stepping into a new situation, could be making a large mistake you tell them. Do you go behind their back and change their decision? No. But if you are close to someone (and you are paying the bill to boot) it is completely reasonable to suggest that they get clarification. I don’t agree that the parent-child relationship is so fundamentally different from other relationship that the standards of courtesy and care turn off at the moment that college comes into play. I am a self-supporting adult, but there are still people in my life (including my mother) who care about me enough to say “I think you could be making a mistake here” and whose word carries so much weight that I will check.
Coming into college does require learning new skills, but not every new skill comes easily or is even completely evident at first glance. My girls are first generation students and had no idea about things like catalogs and prerequisites and upper level courses, which is why my daughter’s initial advisor was able to suggest the course load in freshman year that ultimately lead to her not returning to the college for sophomore year. My daughter didn’t know what she didn’t know, the advisor was confident that anyone sitting with her was completely prepared to make those decisions and it was a disaster.
I don’t think the mom should interfere directly, I don’t think she should scream and yell or threaten, but I do think she can ask her son politely to clarify the situation. Those are lessons to learn, too, to treat mom with respect and that there is no shame in clarifying somethig that isn’t clear.</p>

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<p>I work at a university and though I’m not an advisor, I do a lot of unofficial advising. I liked Test Obsessed’s advice very much. Parents can be very helpful during the registration/transistion to college process but they do need to step-back a bit and let their kids take the lead. (Said as a mom/step-mom who’s been through it with everyone living to tell the tale!)</p>

<p>About the 300 level courses . . . it REALLY depends WHAT they are and the student’s background. At my university, in specialized fields such as music, the 100 and 200 level courses are gen eds that are designed for non-music majors/kids who know little or nothing about music. Music majors go right into 300 level (or higher!) courses depending upon their background. That could be the case at OP’s son’s school as well. </p>

<p>I encourage OP to step back for the time being. It’s likely her son cannot adjust his schedule at this time even if he wanted to do so. Let emotions calm down and when the time is right, when you know how your son did on his English Placement exam so you know whether or not ne needs to fit remedial English into his fall schedule, and when your son has had a chance to look a bit more closely at the actual classes he registered for and can see whether, or not, he has the preparation for them, have a chat about his fall schedule and how you can only fund him for 4 years so he needs to plan accordingly. He can then take appropriate action, whatever that might be.</p>

<p>The transition to college is not easy for ANYONE - students or parents. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Good luck!!!</p>

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<p>

I was thinking along these same lines. Was the advisor somebody from the music department? If so, she probably does know what she’s talking about. If she was just a general advisor, then perhaps a peacekeeping (and facesaving) suggestion might be for the student to go to the music department to ask for more targeted advice.</p>

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The school doesn’t seem to differentiate the music majors - only the concentration chosen. It does require an audition and around 50 credits particular to the music department.</p>

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<p>@ Sylvan…hmmm…</p>

<p>At D’s school, for each of the music majors there are 44 core hours required (which would be for anyone of course), and 71-76 Music credits and if you’re going for Education, there are an additional 18 Educational credits.</p>

<p>26 credits is quite a bit of difference!</p>

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<p>Testobsessed - I like your advice.</p>

<p>Cromette - {quote}"Wondering if there was a MUSIC department assessment of your S’s skill and knowledge level, OP, since all the classes he is taking are in the music department. In music 300 level classes are often electives in the major and are often not more challenging than the lower level classes. In some cases, they are actually much easier and very enjoyable. It just depends on the program. Does your S currently compose? And has he received any training thus far in that area? In my music major’s school there was an audition PLUS an entry exam of their music theory and aural skills. They used the results, in part, to place each student. " {end quote}</p>

<p>My son has studied composition privately and submitted a portfolio of 3 recent compositions to be accepted into the program/receive scholarship, has taken several levels of music theory and ear training at the community college, studied trumpet privately, and played in an orchestra and community band for several years. So maybe they made the decisions based on his experience with the major. My concern is not that he is not capable. My concern is if they are higher level/more difficult courses, that he is adding more stress to the already difficult adjustment period.</p>