<p>The family makes sure that the community college class is not listed on the college app. </p>
<p>All the above is nice theory – and much of it I also agree with – (the reasons, etc.), but it’s actually not that complicated, imho. :D</p>
<p>Studies have shown that when the stakes are high enough, or perceived as extremely important (such as admission to an Elite U, for example), people will go to extreme lengths, including compromising any morals they might have had. (Thus, “leaving off” information from a college app; thus, as referred to earlier, cheating.) Everything is rationalized for the goal, which is seen as the ultimate Good, which becomes the moral absolute.</p>
<p>It can also be framed in the negative, and sometimes is: When the consequences for not reaching something are supposedly ‘disastrous,’ the above syndrome also takes over.</p>
<p>The perceptions may or may not be based on reality, but it is the perceptions that are the motivators.</p>
<p>Your question probed at what many posters are saying/implying here – because most kids don’t want to do this; the parents are forcing this upon them.</p>
<p>epiphany - I would not say that “leaving off” information from an application is morally compromising. Look, at the end of the day, a college application (like a resume) is a marketing tool. You want to present yourself in the best possible way. As long as everything on there is truthful and accurate then it’s fine and doesn’t compromise morals. Why would leaving off the fact that you took a class at a local CC be morally compromising - that’s just an inane comment. </p>
<p>By your standards then people who have a private tutor should list it on their application.</p>
<p>^It becomes morally comproming if the application specifically requires the applicant to list all college courses taken. It’s like not reporting to Yale all the SAT scores when Yale specifically asks for all of them.</p>
<p>Here is what I remember from DS’s applications from last year. For one app, you must sign the Honor Code, which applies to all students after they get to school. I would think that ANY college course taken, but left off of the application would be a violation of the Honor Code. Most colleges take their honor code very seriously, and I hope applicants would, too.</p>
<p>Now I haven’t gone back and reviewed the applications, but at the time, I remember discussing the importance of the Honor Code with my son. I guess I am just old-fashioned.</p>
<p>I feel quite confident that it does, indeed, all shake out in the long run. And that these endless comparisons of your kids to other kids are a huge waste of time, effort and emotion. </p>
<p>If Pushy Helicopter Mom gets Johnny Inc. into Harvard and your kid “only” gets into a Top 30 school, then what? Will the world come to a screeching halt? Will your kid be destined only to flip burgers? Of course not. And really, are any of you going to have any bit of contact with Pushy Helicopter Mom or Johnny Inc. the moment that high school is over? These people are <em>nothing</em> in my life. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they seem to loom so large for some of you, and why their comings, goings and successes are so important to some of you.</p>
<p>It used to be that students who were bored or had mastered the curriculum before entering the classroom were allowed or even encouraged to skip one or more grades. Nowadays, this does not happen. In our district, some who turn out to be highly intelligent are even held back a year because of poor performance in kindergarten or even pre-school,or for social reasons, and once held back they stay at that level.</p>
<p>Even in gifted programs and AP classes there is a wide range of ability and accomplishment, and there are students at our high school who are bored out of their skulls even in AP classes. If they are not going to be taking college classes, it only makes sense for teachers to suggest extra reading, or to refer them to mentors outside of the school if they have moved beyond the high school curriculum and are more knowledgeable or capable than their teachers in areas of interest.</p>
<p>Not every child who tests at the junior high school or high school level in reading comprehension while in second or third grade has had private tutors, BTW. Some just like to read and talk about what they have read. And, students interested in math or in programming computers or the like can generally get their hands on materials suitable for self-study. </p>
<p>I do have an issue however when, at the high school or college level, keeping up with a given course, as it is taught, requires a level of prerequisite instruction that is not provided in prerequisite courses or stated in the course description. </p>
<p>At the college level, it is possible to keep students from “pre-gaming” by giving placement tests and running classes to help students without extensive backgrounds to catch up (adding extra credits), or prepare for the next level by taking only part of the intro course (for fewer credits.) Or, schools can give pre-tests early in the summer for students intending to enroll in freshman calc, chem, or physics, and suggest on-line tutorials for those who scores below the mean on the test. Many schools are already very strict about enrollment in Mandarin classes and warn that students who misrepresent their level of knowledge to enroll in an intro class for an easy A can be dropped from the class.</p>
<p>There is a question asking to “List all colleges you have attended since ninth grade, including summer schools or enrichment programs hosted on a college campus.” However, it does not ask for th specific courses nor does it ask you to send a transcript from those schools.</p>
<p>I think that most of the apps that i filled out years ago required the same things. So in the Harvard example, as long as you list that you did take courses at local CC then you are fine. You dont have to send them a transcript from the CC or a list of the courses you took.</p>
<p>There is no need to report any classes taken at private tutoring centers like the one in my town, since it is not a college or university. However, they do offer accredited classes there too if a student wants to report having taken them. That way he can use the credit to skip x number of years ahead in math or science. When my son took AP Physics BC and AP Calculus BC in 11th grade, there were some seventh graders in his classes. They didn’t get there because they were little Einsteins or were exceptionally mature for their age. They got there precisely because of this practice. In this way, they can start taking AP’s and advanced college classes as freshmen (or earlier), rather than in junior or senior year as is typical. Therefore, their GPA’s will be higher because of weighting.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, everybody gets by now that you don’t get it :-). No need to keep repeating it.</p>
<p>To the OP - a friend of mine has kids at Monte Vista HS in Cupertino. The phenomenon you describe is very present there and it has been an eye-opening experience for them. Sometimes my friend’s older child is one of only 2 or 3 students in the class who has not taken a full load of pre-courses during the summer. Sometimes these private, small-group courses are taught by the very same high school teacher who will be teaching the students in the fall. The impact on my friends’ kids was that it led them to doubt their abilities and aptitude in certain subjects, since the work seemed to be so effortless for everyone around them while they found it challenging. Even though they understand what’s going on now, it’s still a demoralizing situation. It’s hard to participate in the tutoring regime and also hard not to participate.</p>
<p>whartongrad, if you enter a college’s name and then don’t send a transcript, I think Harvard will figure out that something is missing. What they would do with that realization is anybody’s guess. And I have mine. ;)</p>
<p>But if Johnny Inc. (love it!) pre-loads with college courses over the summer, but doesn’t submit the CC transcript, then that means the summer can’t be filled with unique and exciting summer programs. How do the Johnny Inc. CEO and CFO work around that issue?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl–the problem is that your kid might not even get into a top 30 school, because some of admissions comes down to relativity. First of all, when freshmen are taking multivariable calculus and your kid is only on the normal advanced track such that he has algebra 2 as a freshman, and so on across the entire curriculum, then your kid does not have a rigorous schedule by comparison. Secondly, his class rank won’t even come close to top 10 or 15. For example, my S was on the regular accelerated track in math and science (took calc as a jr.), and was a year ahead in his foreign language. He took as many honors and AP classes as was possible given the pre-requisites needed, got straight A’s with only one exception, and wasn’t even in the top 15 of his class. It got worse by the time my D got to the high school. I don’t think she broke the top 25 group with a similar record.</p>
<p>Slithey Tove, Johnny Inc. has numerous well-heeled friends of mommy and daddy who will offer him internships to fit around his class schedule, and will attest to his marvelous accomplishments in said positions. That is so not a problem for Johnny Inc. One friend of mine has connections to the local university. You can’t imagine how many “research” opportunities her children obtained!</p>
<p>I can’t figure out what’s a worse problem to have …
my problem of being in a good but not OMG-great school district where most kids go to the state schools and don’t have ambitions beyond, and hence the GC’s are not really poised or knowledgeable in terms of sending kids beyond the same-old-same-old … </p>
<p>or your (collective) problem of being in such highly competitive school districts that if your kid isn’t being tutored in calculus by 6th grade, he doesn’t stand a chance against the Johnny Incs of the world.</p>
<p>And I’m being serious. It seems that no matter what, it’s always something, as the noted philosopher Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say.</p>
<p>I would think that all this double-learning would become counter-productive after a while. My son (who I admit is a statistical outlier) found that SKIPPING required prerequisite classes (with special permission), like honors chemistry and honors physics, allowed him to do his best work in the subsequent AP classes. Why? Because he wasn’t bored and daydreaming and thus missing random little details that might be important on an upcoming test. His natural learning speed for new material is about the speed of a teacher’s “quick review.”</p>
<p>I would think that smart students who had already learned the material would also be prone to daydreaming and perhaps overconfidence and thus that the supposed “edge” of pre-learning material is not nearly as great as many anxious parents would like to believe.</p>
<p>On a related theme: what’s the benefit of a high A vs. a marginal A? Do all these super-competitive schools place their students on an A+/A- system? Because otherwise this pre-studying is a huge waste of time and expense!</p>
<p>I laughed when I misinterpreted this to mean whoever needs tutoring is a LD student. Maybe it’s an insult to the 36.0 ACT kid (LoremIpsum’s son) if he’s viewed as well-tutored.</p>
<p>If a kid needs to cover a course twice to get an A, then he/she must not be effective in learning. Where does he/she get the time to do many things? His/her records simply cannot be compared to that of the 36.0 ACT kid. As an example, how many NMF kids (let alone 36/2400) are there in the SF area, everyone-has-a-private tutor HS?</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - the problem with Johny Inc. (and I love the corporate analogy) isn’t even that he will get into an Ivy while your DIY kid goes to a state flagship -the real problem is that Johny Inc. will be on the honors/AP track from middle school on and - in affluent areas like mine where AP is strictly limited to those who qualify - DIY kid runs a very real chance of being kept out of the most challenging curriculum in high school. Which pretty much means limited options for college (not just which college, but which programs within the state college options that he/she will be prepared for).</p>
<p>A friend talked to a local AP teacher about the pace and lack of depth in covering certain topics; the teacher explained that since his students all had outside tutoring, he needed to move the class forward at that pace to avoid boredom. In short, he taught the way he did because he could - due to his perception that “everyone has a private tutor”. DIY kid loses out, can’t keep up, is cut from the class.</p>
<p>It’s wonderful if the kid without an entourage can keep a positive self image and move forward, realizing that life does not end just because your mommy and daddy couldn’t afford the bushel of psychologists necessary to get your into the gifted group in third grade. But they can see themselves as less capable, and choose accordingly, lowering their expectations at a very young age even though the real difference has nothing to do with them or their true abilities.</p>
<p>The bigger benefit to prelearning is to have familiarity with the material so that you aren’t struggling to grasp the material under time pressure. In college, you might have three or four tough science and math courses with lab and a lot of time pressure and your time is limited. Prestudying actually spreads out the course for you.</p>
<p>The course videos from MIT, Yale, Berkeley also cover a lot of things that could be considered enrichment at a high level. Yale’s organic chem class for freshman students is 50% history in the first five classes. I believe that it is assumed that students will learn a lot of the material in the course from the textbook leaving the professor the luxury with providing unique insights into the discipline.</p>
<p>Walter Lewin at MIT is highly entertaining and really encourages the experimental side of physics.</p>
<p>Margaret Anderson at Berkeley does a very nice job with artwork to explain European History. The course lectures, of course, are only a small part of the learning but there are star professors out there that provide a lot more than a generic university course.</p>
What they would do with that realization is anybody’s guess. And I have mine. ;)</p>