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<p>I start having the same feeling. Why learn above AP level courses in HS not in college? Are HS teachers better than profs at Caltech? I’m not talking about this particular school btw.</p>
<p>The students are kids who are intense about math and/or science and who thrive in the extremely challenging environment. Most are passionate about the school and grateful for the opportunities it provides them. For a kid like my D, coming from a small, underfunded, crummy rural school, it’s been an enormous blessing; even though she’s had to work here tail off to keep her head above water, she loves it, and it’s opened enormous opportunities for her and broadened her horizons significantly. </p>
<p>But you’re right, PG, it’s not for everyone.</p>
<p>Toughyear, that list of majors and minors at Caltech makes my point upthread: that really isn’t a full range of options at all. No fine arts (music, art, theater), no foreign languages, and really, very few non-science majors. I wonder if those majors like English and History are really used as the second major in a double major as well.</p>
<p>This is just another example of what annoys me about all these rankings–they all include elements that matter more to some people than to others. If you’re pretty sure you want to be a Physics major, you don’t care if CalTech has a Theater Arts major. And if you want to be a TheaterArts major, the ranking of CalTech is (or should be) totally irrelevant to you.</p>
<p>lake42ks, For some kids it’s their EC. They seem to need the intensity for release. My D has a friend like that. I don’t sense “racing.”</p>
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<p>We know that. That’s why we keep them on life support. Forever. We would like to continue the life support. It gets increasingly difficult if the unemployment shoots up. The only sector that’s expanding is in science and technology at the moment and probably in the future. We could write STEM off as uncultured, not universityee and they smell. Like it or not, we will all sink together without them.</p>
<p>What a narrow world you must live in if you think that humanities are just on “life support.” There are real, vibrant jobs out there that don’t involve STEM. Honest. Believe it or not. Sometimes I think some of the STEM people can’t conceive of anything in the real world that doesn’t take place in a science lab. </p>
<p>As a math major myself, I was considered “not serious” in math because I was a girl who (horrors) wore lipstick and joined a sorority and haad a boyfriend and went to dances and enjoyed art and theater productions and wore fashionable clothing and listened to the music of the day. Even though my grades and understanding were top of the class. I thought I left that behind in college, but apparently it’s alive and well.</p>
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Would you tell a gifted skier that they can stay on the bunny slopes until they are older? My son was begging for more interesting math starting in first grade. In 15 minutes a day using a self paced math course from Stanford (EPGY) he was able to do 3 years worth of math in 1 year. These kids have brains that are wired differently, it’s not pushing them they are pulling us. It takes very little effort on their part to breeze through math. When my son was doing BC Calc, his teacher didn’t assign them homework - he told them to do as many problems as they felt they needed to, in order to be sure they were comfortable with the concepts. For my son, that wasn’t very many. He got a 5 on the AP, took Linear Algebra the following year, and did fine in his more advanced math classes in college. The fact that he had those advanced classes (plus all the comp sci he did) made him very employable - he graduated last year and has a dream job for comp sci majors.</p>
<p>And while Caltech may not have arts majors - the arts are recognized as a valuable part of the curriculum: [Caltech</a> Music, Theater, Art I home](<a href=“http://www.music-theater-art.caltech.edu/]Caltech”>http://www.music-theater-art.caltech.edu/)</p>
<p>PG, this is beyond absurd. Who said it has to be awkward to be in STEM? Just that being awkward is no reason to slight them.</p>
<p>I am still wistful sometimes that older one did not go to Caltech. He was, of all things, a recruited athlete at Caltech. It was surreal. He had never played beyond jv in high school and then the summer before senior year he got a phone call from a Caltech coach! We had not really thought about Caltech for him but when he looked closely at the different majors, the program with UCSD medical school, the interesting business major – it looked quit good. Also, a nice size of school and a lovely campus. Terrific job recruitment. What’s not to like? </p>
<p>My current hs senior is probably going to apply. She likes physics a lot. Also, social sciences, maybe economics. I’d be fine with her going to Caltech, except so far away.</p>
<p>Don’t want to hold anyone back at all, Iglooo and mathmom. I was thinking about 20more’s comment that he/she didn’t do CalBC before Physics.</p>
<p>Really appreciate mathmom’s music link 2 posts up.</p>
<p>sewhappy - is your older kid going to be doing medicine?</p>
<p>mathmom - I look at caltech’s music program as a diversionary tactic to relieve stress! </p>
<p>Several major cities including Houston have the orchestras completely manned by medical professionals, some of them specialist doctors. The fact that they don’t measure up to newyork philharmonic or houston symphony does not make them slouches. They are very very competent but just chose not to become music majors.</p>
<p>Talking about this thread with a coworker who’s a Caltech alum, she laughed and reminisced about the year that Caltech topped the USNWR rankings. Applications, unsurprisingly, zoomed WAY up, and the yield rate also went sky high. Which was a problem, not only in terms of finding housing for the freshmen (who are required to live on campus) but also because at least part of the school’s endowment is tied to a requirement that undergrad enrollment stays under 1000. The schools was apparently quite close to violating that clause.</p>
<p>Anyway, the funny story in all this is my coworker talking to one of the new freshmen the following fall, who said he was going to be a literature major. :eek: Yes, of course you can major in lit or english or history, but that’s generally a decision that people make around their third year. Since you have to do the core curriculum regardless (which is essentially a physics major at many other schools), it’s kind of unusual to have someone show up on day one as a lit major. My coworker often wonders what happened to this fellow, and what the graduation rate was like that year. I think this is a great cautionary tale for anyone who uses ratings as the sole basis for college admissions and matriculation decisions.</p>
<p>“What a narrow world you must live in if you think that humanities are just on “life support.” There are real, vibrant jobs out there that don’t involve STEM.”</p>
<p>Most of the STEM jobs are going to end up in India and China. Happening already. There are entire companies (I met the CEO of one just last month) moving from North America (with all their employees who want to go) back to India. Engineering grads in South India are staying put - they can save more money in Bangalore or Chennai, with higher quality of life, than moving to Bellevue (which will end up with the dregs).</p>
<p>Look where the growth in employment is for Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Accenture, etc…</p>
<p>Mini, my STEM kid was contacted by a recruiter from Kenya this week - don’t forget them!</p>
<p>Last night 60 mins. did a piece on GE’s job program, and featured Obama’s new job czar, who is the CEO of GE. Piece is probably online. They are opening factories in the US, but their major place of factories is Brazil.</p>
<p>Not surprised. I work in Kenya as well, and the brain drain from the countryside where I work (western Kenya) simply isn’t enough for Nairobi’s needs (and burgeoning industry). </p>
<p>He might be able to live much better there (though Nairobi is far from my favorite place!), and the future opportunities are vast.</p>
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<p>In these magnet schools, some of these “HS teachers” have been college professors, and almost all of them have PhDs, including in the humanities classes. As such, it is more similar to a small, elite liberal arts school like Swarthmore than Caltech. Teaching is the priority there.</p>
<p>And the “AP level” classes are not taught the same. Rather than material being presented, often you have to either experimentally derive results in lab. It is a completely different approach…</p>
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<p>I so hope you are right that Arts are not on life support and we have a vibrant job market for humanities. I’ll take it. I’ll be glad to know my bleak world of high unemployment at over 9% is an exception, narrow. In fact, I would love to see journalism in the list of ten promising future jobs, not among ten jobs to disappear in near future. My kid was comtemplating to double major in arts and journalism.</p>
<p>is it for the common good?</p>
<p>[Tuition</a> Coach - Paul’s Corner](<a href=“http://www.tuitioncoach.com/blojsom/blog/default/?permalink=AP-Courses-Another-View.html]Tuition”>http://www.tuitioncoach.com/blojsom/blog/default/?permalink=AP-Courses-Another-View.html)</p>
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<p>And from a different article:</p>
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<p>Sample of one - my D had a 5 on AP Chem and a 770 on the Chem SAT II and the way her college does it for incoming potential chem majors, she had an option to “go low” or “go high.” I advised her to “go low.” Never hurts to repeat the material and get it fully under your belt, and besides, this is her transition semester from high school to college and there’s simply no point in pushing herself to the limit just to prove something to someone. The general transition from hs to college has enough associated with it that I don’t see a need to load yourself up on the very hardest classes you could possibly take. It’s not a race. </p>
<p>Besides, I think there’s a bit of bravado and bragging on these threads about how very truly gifted our kids all are that they just would be soooo bored to tears with even honors classes in their fields of interest. I have no problem saying my kids aren’t gifted but they are normal-bright. And that’s just fine with me. Normal-bright, hardworking people do just fine in life.</p>
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<p>Exactly. At my D’s school, half the teachers have PhDs, heavily concentrated in science, math, and history (the entire history department, as a matter of fact). Many do have college teaching experience. Teaching is indeed the priority.</p>
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<p>That describes the approach to teaching science at my D’s school perfectly. And in math, the teaching model is to give a group of four a problem and have them figure out for themselves how to work it out, with the teacher providing assistance when they get stuck. In history, the model is to pose a question, direct students to relevant source material to research the question, then propose answers. English and foreign language instruction seems to be more traditional in approach.</p>
<p>I’ve been told by alums that the method of teaching is closer to what they experienced in graduate school than in undergrad. They also say they are better prepared for undergrad than are their AP-course-heavy peers.</p>
<p>With all due respect to Dr. Octopus, I don’t think the graduates of these magnet schools have any trouble in college. In fact, I know they don’t. I think MIT chem professor (and TAMS graduate) Alice Ting would agree. And if Stanford wants people who don’t have trouble in orgo, maybe they should start taking the smartest people they can get rather than saying that everybody who can get high SAT scores and/or AP’s is the same academically because they can all “do the work.” Seriously, orgo isn’t hard at all.</p>