<p>My question was about tests and exams. Sometimes when the class as a whole does really poorly on a test, the teacher may curve the test scores so that not everyone has failed the assignment. What I was curious about, was if teachers will do the inverse. If too many students did well on the test, will the consider only a certain number of students to get an A and then the rest are bumped down accordingly. </p>
<p>I've seen a few colleges that do this, but I was curious if Purdue was one of them.</p>
<p>Dal, none of my professors have ever done that. I've heard from others, though, that the approach Purdue profs. take is to make the next exam/quiz inordinately difficult to bring the grades back down :D I heard that from pre-pharm friend, but it happens in engineering, too.</p>
<p>I know a little...lived in one my first semester. You should be able to access a list of all of them; I couldn't begin to name them! The categories are loosely based on majors, though I lived in an honors learning community. Some are more structured than others and the faculty fellows might sponsor activities related to the theme. The purpose of most of them is to allow students who are dealing with the same courses or have the same interests to live near each other. They can work together on HW or commiserate about lousy classes/profs :D</p>
<p>There wasn't much of an academic advantage for me, but that's because there aren't too many kids in the Ag college who are majoring in biochem :) Sometimes it works out that you live on the same floor as your new best friends because you share interests. The honors engineering learning community is thriving, and the people living there have a real advantage over those in other dorms where fewer engineers live. That's mainly apparent in the wintertime when no one wants to venture outside in the bitter cold!</p>
<p>"My question was about tests and exams. Sometimes when the class as a whole does really poorly on a test, the teacher may curve the test scores so that not everyone has failed the assignment. What I was curious about, was if teachers will do the inverse. If too many students did well on the test, will the consider only a certain number of students to get an A and then the rest are bumped down accordingly. </p>
<p>I've seen a few colleges that do this, but I was curious if Purdue was one of them"</p>
<p>Dal, I can tell you with abosolute certainity that Purdue will curve downward. It happended to me twice last summer alone. For Macroecon, I took it with a bunch of engineering students who made the average like an 82, the professor made the cut-off for a B an 84. Also for a particular math course, The average was a 87 on a test, the professor comes in to the class and says "I wrote a bad test, it was to easy" 90 was a B.</p>
<p>hi, i have a question.
since Purdue is on a rolling admissions policy does that mean admissions into the university gets more competitive later on?</p>
<p>And, after looking at several college info sites, I found that Purdue lists Geographic Diversity as an 'important factor'. How much of an important factor is it in making admissions decisions? </p>
<p>sorry guys...for some reason my computer hasn't been able to navigate to this site the last several days :(</p>
<p>jungjh...I honestly do not remember enough about the application to tell you whether there is a space...I think there was, and if not, you have an opportunity to write an optional essay to tell the admissions committee anything the application didn't give you the chance to say.</p>
<p>senluck...so far as I've been exposed, racism is not a problem here. That is not say that there aren't pockets of it, but for the most part, international students are treated like any other people...the fact that they are from different place makes them something of a novelty, especially to us midwesterners, so if anything they receive more positive attention from people trying to learn about life beyond the US.</p>
<p>Dal...I have to agree with mssales. That exact subject came up with a friend this week...she had an 87 cumulative in a math course and received an F in the class...I've never been more grateful to be finished dealing with the math department!</p>
<p>dude_guy...yes, rolling admissions means that you have a better chance if you apply early. At Purdue the different colleges and programs reserve the right to close admissions at any point if they fill their classes for the coming year. I do not have in-depth knowledge about what role geographic diversity plays in admissions, but my guess is that it refers more strongly to students from outside the US. Most colleges/universities actively compete with one another over who has recruited a larger number of international students. Being an OOS student probably helps a little if you are a borderline student because that means higher tuition and more money for Purdue...not a nice way to look at it, but that's why Ohio's State Troopers will pull over someone with an OOS plate who is 3 mph over the limit while ignoring an in-state plate going even faster...revenue!</p>
<p>How competitive is the UHP? I missed the preferential acceptance deadline (the letter was lost in the bunch of other letters I got :(). I emailed the program director to ask if there was still a chance of getting in but he's obviously not going to email me back over the weekend. Do you think I'm out of luck as far as that goes?</p>
<p>the numbers I have are from a couple years ago, but they mailed out ~1000 invites, accepted ~300 of those returned, and in my cohort, <100 matriculated. That was also back when they still had essays on the app....I understand they changed it to nothing but scores/grades. If your scores are high enough to be considered, it is possible that you might benefit from an exception. </p>
<p>I know Dr. Oseto, and he's a pretty awesome guy. I almost want to say that he is on sabbatical this semester, though, so you may need to e-mail someone else (try Catharine). It might help if you are able to make the case that you would almost certainly accept the offer of admission to the UHP if extended; retention is one of Purdue's priorities right now. Unfortunately, I do not know the exact screening criteria in terms of SAT scores/GPA, but my guess is upwards of 1450 (M+CR). Give Dr. Oseto a few days to respond and then e-mail the Asst. Director, since you are dealing with a time sensitive situation. And, if you are serious about Purdue, you should be able to petition for admission after your freshman year. Good Luck! :)</p>
<p>Thank you. The way they do the UHP now is to just mail an acceptance to those whose numbers they like from their Purdue app; there is no longer a UHP application. My scores are decently high but not amazing (31 ACT, 2310 SAT [800 V + 780 M + 730 W], 3.97 UW GPA after 1st semester this year). Should I email the assistant director tonight since there is so little chance of the Dr. Oseto responding or would that be rude? </p>
<p>On the web site it says they accept several non-member freshmen and sophomores. How selective about this are they? Also, does the fact that I was accepted into the freshman honors program help? Honestly, the reason I was not more worried about this was that I got my freshman honors acceptance a long time ago and I thought that included UHP.</p>
<p>Thank you for the prompt responce; I really appreciate it!</p>
<p>Your SAT scores are plenty high :) This have practically become a novel, and I didn't mean that to happen. Oh well :p</p>
<p>What deadline exactly did you miss? Is there a "reply-by" deadline for accepting their offer of admission, or do you have to fill out a form and send it back? If you received a letter you must have had a complete app. on file with Purdue by Dec. 15. Do they have a deadline after that?</p>
<p>You should definitely wait at least until Monday evening or even Tuesday for Dr. Oseto to reply. Some faculty tend not to answer work-related e-mails on the weekend, or he could be out-of-town just for the weekend. Plus, I'm not 100% sure that he is on sabbatical...I just remember hearing something about it, and he was around last semester.</p>
<p>I understand about losing track of it. It's like the mailbox just starts shooting missiles at you starting in the fall of your senior year. Congrats about both honors program acceptances. Being in a freshman honors program is great from the standpoint of the majority of your peers. However, you will find that most UHPers are in departmental or college honors programs, but the converse is not true.</p>
<p>Please, please do not take false hope from the following: The deadline for accepting college admission offers is still weeks away. Unless the UHP is requiring some sort of binding agreement long before you would have even received offers from some of the more prestigious schools (i.e. the Ivies and private schools, etc), you probably still have a shot. It's possible if they're trying to increase cohort size, but I doubt that's the case; their priority is making sure that we are happy and having a good experience...being stuck at a school you didn't want to attend is not the way to accomplish that. Because they will probably still be turned down by lots of student whom they accept as the May 1 (?) deadline approaches, and because even over the summer some people will change their minds, my guess is that there will be a spot for you.</p>
<p>If not, keep your grades up during you freshman year and start working on the 24 hours of honor credit that the UHP requires. Stop in and visit the staff in the UHP office; they're very friendly and love to see us students :) If you can juggle it all, find a club/activity or two that you truly enjoy and be active within them. But, above all, maintain a high GPA and take courses that say, "I am not afraid of working hard." :D</p>
<p>Thank you very much again. Hopefully there will still be a spot for me. If not, there's nothing wrong with joining the masses for a while. After all, that's part of the reason I'm looking forward to college.</p>
<p>The deadline I missed is the "preferential deadline." The UHP invitation letter reads like this: "The preferential deadline to accept the UHP invitation is (bolded) February 1, 2008 (unbolded). To accept this very special invitation, please complete the enclosed information sheet by (bolded) February 1, 2008 (unbolded).</p>
<p>Not exactly encouraging, but oh well. I'll be fine just getting away from high school!</p>
<p>I understand. Well, you'll just have to cross your fingers...let me of the outcome, if you please :)</p>
<p>Small high school, I take it? You'll have a great time, and it's very likely you'll make friends with UHPers and not even know it, even if you are both in it...that's happened to me several times. In any case, you are quite right, college is a lot of fun and a wonderful change from high school. The only time I miss those days is when it's raining/snowing/really windy and I have to hike from building to building all day long :p</p>
<p>Actually, my high school isn't that small. Not huge by any means, but I'm in a class of 470 and there are over 2100 people in the high school if I remember my statistics right. </p>
<p>I got an email from Mrs. Patrone (Dr. Oseto forwarded my email to her) with the acceptance form attached. I signed it and my counsellor faxed it to the UHP office tuesday morning. I'm not sure if that means I'm in or not, but at least I wasn't ignored :)</p>
<p>Thank you for the help and the interest. I would have been slightly panicked if not for your advice. My parents sure were :p Thank you.</p>
<p>Your school is over twice the size of mine! I graduated with ~200 classmates, and my class was the largest in years.</p>
<p>Congrats! I'm glad to hear that all is well. My bet is that you will be a UHPer this fall if you choose Purdue :) Since it was an acceptance form and not an application, Catharine (students and UHP staff are on a first-name basis :p) would have just nicely told you "Sorry, apply again next year," if the UHP could no longer hold a place for you. What is your major, if you don't mind my asking?</p>
<p>ROFL about your parents....my mom is a worrier, too. My counselor didn't have a reputation as the most responsible person on Earth, so when I trusted him to send in my application to the UHP, she freaked. It was fine in the end :)</p>
<p>Are you from Indiana? Which high school, if you don't mind my asking? I'm at Columbus North. I sure hope I'll be in next fall. I'm about 80% sure that I'll choose Purdue. The ivies haven't sent me anything yet and my offer from U of Michigan stands, but Michigan is expensive and cold and the ivies will probably reject me. And I'm not sure I'd want to go to a private school anyway. I'm keeping all of my options open but Purdue is looking good. </p>
<p>I'm majoring in biochemistry, so if I go i'll probably be spending a lot of time at Lilly. Hopefully not near the ebola in the basement :p My parents are definitely worriers. I completely forgot to ask for letters of reccomendation for my ivy applications until about a week before deadline and they totally flipped out to the point where I couldn't go near them. It all worked out in the end, but they don't miss an opportunity to worry if they can help it :)</p>
<p>I thought I read somewhere that you were in biochemistry too, no? If so, how is it?</p>
<p>I am from good ol' Indiana :p I went to high school in Delaware County, but I don't want to post anything more specific than that online....probably too little too late, but I might as well start. I don't think we competed against your school much...too far south.</p>
<p>Nothing beats in-state public tuition! The scholarships from Purdue are a major reason why I turned down a private school...the fit was terrible, too, but that's another story. You have probably been offered the Trustees or Presidential scholarships, no? Those two are amazing! If you are biochem through Ag, you will find Ag is particularly generous with money. Good luck with the Ivies. If you choose UMich, I hope you like snow :D</p>
<p>Wooh biochem!! Yes, I lived in LILY during my first three semesters. The ebola in the basement won't hurt you; a year of exposure to the dungeon air working in a different lab didn't hurt me :) Before I can answer your question about life as a biochem major, I must ask whether you are majoring through Science or Ag. The experiences are completely different. I am in Ag but have several friends in Science. What I can tell is that I LOVE my major!!!!! Not once have I considered a CODO (change of degree objective)...the biochem staff and faculty as well as the College of Ag in general are integral in the good quality of my experience so far.</p>
<p>If you want them, I will give my opinions of the two programs; they are decidedly one-sided, but even most of the Science students will agree with me.</p>