Evening exams (midterms) on FRIDAY nights??

<p>I’ve got to go with the What’s the big Deal crowd. </p>

<p>School and exams come first regardless and anything truly deemed more important (definitely not a Greek Week Event or Date or non-participant sporting event) can be accommodated. Neither outraged, disturbed, or even mildly surprised – I figured it was just Standard Operating procedure. </p>

<p>35 years ago I had more than a handful of Friday pm/Saturday am midterms, finals, routine labs, and special required extra classes. It was something you knew about from the 1st day of class so it was your responsibility to arrange your schedule.</p>

<p>Friday night is much better than Saturday morning! My son at Indiana has had exams on Saturdays and Sundays and one exam last year that started at 10pm… which I thought was ridiculous!</p>

<p>Just spoke to a Clemson freshman who ended up with FIVE final exams scheduled on the SAME day. TEN HOURS of exams. She’d have a half-hour between each, so they don’t consider that a conflict. She thinks she can get ONE of them moved. :eek:</p>

<p>Back in the day, I signed up for a particular class and on the first day was assigned a lab time for that class that was 9:00 PM - 12:00 midnight on Friday.</p>

<p>The class wasn’t required, and I couldn’t change lab sessions, so I dropped it. I was not giving up my Friday nights for an entire semester.</p>

<p>Once or twice during the semester, sure. Every week? No way.</p>

<p>Senior son has a required class for his major that is only taught on Friday night from 6 to 9. It often runs late, but since everyone of his friends is in the class, it is part of his social life.</p>

<p>Since it is Halloween, I’ll chime in to say I remember a physics exam given on Halloween night. The TAs handed out bits of candy and we sat in the giant lecture hall for the exam.</p>

<p>It marked the end of childhood ;)</p>

<p>Sophomore son has tests on Saturday for one of his courses. Same as last year. Why they don’t give regular scheduled tests during weekday class time is beyond me!!! I believe it is one of his science courses.</p>

<p>The (non final) exams my daughter has had that are not in regular class times are usually classes that have “common exams”. So usually lower level where there are several section of the class and they all have the same exam. Presumably they want them all taking the exam at the same time so they don’t tell someone with a later class time what is in the exam. Any classes she has had that do not have common exams the exams are in class time. (except finals which are usually longer than the class time).</p>

<p>At Ohio State we sometimes had evening exams for popular classes with multiple lecture/lab sessions. One was engineering dynamics which was given on a Wed evening as I recall. It was a difficult midterm and afterwards me a few friends went to the South’berg for a beer. In the ensuing discussion, one was convinced to switch from engineering to math which he did the following semester.</p>

<p>One unexpected advantage of evening exams. Tim did graduate on time with his BS Math degree btw.</p>

<p>This would be totally unfair to my d and she would have to complain to administration. See my d doesn’t take class in the evenings and won’t. Her adhd medication stops working about 7 or 8 pm at the very latest. So if a test was scheduled for any later, she would not do well.</p>

<p>My daughter at a LAC has regularly scheduled exams for a biology course that start at 7 AM. If you show up late, you are not provided additional time. I bet most of those kids would rather take these tests at 7 PM any day of the week.</p>

<p>But if these kids can’t sacrifice part of Friday night (recognizing most don’t go out until after 11 PM) they’re not cut out to do anything tough in life.</p>

<p>^^ Rescheduling morning and evening exams that conflict with medication or other medical issues is standard procedure here, as part of disability accommodation. I would imagine it would be the same elsewhere, but your D would have to check. Might want to look into that just in case an evening exam ever occurs, best to be armed with knowledge and a plan before you need it.</p>

<p>I have Friday evening exams from time to time. I prefer evening exams, and Friday is way better than Monday-- and my weekend social activity starts WAY earlier than 10pm, so it does directly conflict with any plans I might have. It’s not that big of a deal though to miss something for an exam, for any normal person priorities here are clear and socializing can be scheduled around it.</p>

<p>For those wondering why its done, read the thread. Someone explained it well.</p>

<p>For someone with a documented LD, accomodations can be made and/or some creative planning would work as well. </p>

<p>For those who think this is so unfair and over the top and worthy of complaint, I say get some perspective. Lordy, if this brings you down, I can’t imagine how delicate your life has been so far. Good luck there when you venture into the work world or graduate school.</p>

<p>See my d doesn’t take class in the evenings and won’t. Her adhd medication stops working about 7 or 8 pm at the very latest.</p>

<p>Ru Serious military mom?
Does real life end at 7pm? Do military commitments?
If medication is all that is keeping her to an adequate performance- perhaps now would be a good time to learn some additional strategies.
& I say this as a woman/parent on the " spectrum" more than casually familiar with ADD/ADHD.</p>

<p>Below is the link to the Northwestern Finals Schedule for this Fall. There are no Friday night Finals. My son is a Sophomore Chemistry major at NU and has had no tests, midterms or finals on a Friday night, though it may happen, I think it’s rare.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/registration/class_schedule/4400/4440_exams.pdf[/url]”>http://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/registration/class_schedule/4400/4440_exams.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>They exist.</p>

<p>I just sat a midterm from 4 to 7 last Friday.</p>

<p>Meh.</p>

<p>It seems odd that the OP created a screen name just to complain about this issue (and supposedly because he/she is concerned about son’s friend, at that). It doesn’t have the ring of a parent – I think it’s a kiddo masquerading as a parent because they think they will be taken more seriously. </p>

<p>Put me in the What’s the Big Deal pile, also.</p>

<p>She isn’t in the military. I am a military mom since I am married to a military man and my job is mom.
She is able to do some work in the evenings like reading fiction books. She can’t do things like analytical thinking very well. She has wonderfully tailored her life. She does work in the morning through early evening. Later evenings are for things like choir practices, reading not very hard or analytic works or relaxing. This is not a LD but just a matter of when her brain works well. In the daytime, she is working better than most people. In the evening, especially on some periods of the month, it doesn’t work as well. Her blood pressure problems tend to occur in the evening too and while we are working with a cardiologist to stop that, at this point, she often doesn’t get enough blood to her brain at times and needs to lay down.</p>

<p>Exercise has helped our family a great deal with concentration and focus.
I would agree that evening exams aren’t ideal ( but neither are early morning- in high school my daughters physics class started at 7:30 am)</p>

<p>Unlike K-12 school where students can have an IEP, college is limited to what is allowed under the civil rights law. However, students should be allowed to take untimed exams, exams in a separate room etc as needed.</p>

<p>[John</a> J. Ratey, MD](<a href=“http://johnratey.typepad.com/blog/]John”>John J. Ratey, MD) a prof @ Harvard ( and who himself has ADD) has found that exercise is critical to brain function.</p>

<p>Medication can only do so much and other strategies need to be learned.</p>

<p>Re: #70 “This would be totally unfair to my d and she would have to complain to administration.”</p>

<p>As a part-time instructor, and a full-time supervisor, I would have an extremely negative reaction if somebody immediately went crying off to the dean about an exam time. On the other hand, if they simply came up to me and explained a situation such as your daughter’s, I’d be more than happy to work with them. Only if I were a total jerk about it would I expect them to go the dean. I would hope that your daughter would actually take that tack, and avoid getting a reputation as a whiner. It’s not radically different from the chain of command that your husband deals with.</p>