<p>Recently read UoWisconsin-Madison data re: enrollment stats. There’s a high GPA for freshmen entry class, but also a relatively high percentage who require remedial math (HS-equivalent) classes. Likewise, UIUC has a “general studies” category for weaker students to gain entry to Illinois’ flagship though scores are relatively low. Many of these kids are “solid B+” and even “A” students. Grade inflation is rampant. Then at college, same kids can enroll in “rocks for jocks” classes and graduate w/very decent GPA despite lack of academic progress. There’s a recent study regarding this issue of 'lack of learning" at college-level which is periodically tagged on CC.</p>
<p>So they are hiring students that they feel are hungrier for work than the students from top schools?</p>
<p>I feel kids are more savvy and better prepared now than I was 30 years ago. They are also more serious about work because they know how hard it is to get a job. D1 works with some kids who are very well connected, families with vacation homes and such, but those kids wouldn’t think of getting time off. They work just as hard as everyone else, and do not want to be an embarrassment to their parent. I don’t understand what’s all this entitlement stuff. </p>
<p>We have a lot of parents here. I, for one, am probably more of an helicopter parent than others. Who has ever called a kid’s boss or HR? I certainly have never received a call. I don’t believe it happens that often, when it has, it’s overly talked about. 30years ago, I remember my co-worker’s father called my boss because he was let go. We all got a good laugh out of it, but it was one case I have known in 30 years, and the kid was weird.</p>
<p>Thanks for the nice post, higgins2013. This exact phenomenon is what I was trying to highlight, but people seem intent on turning it into some elitist rant. It’s not. We have a serious deficiency in math education in particular in our middle schools and high schools which the universities and colleges can’t adequately cope with.</p>
<p>PS–Just saw the question to me about what the redmedial students are majoring in which require calculus: economics majors need calculus. Econ and poli sci are two of the most popular majors at many schools.</p>
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<p>Me too.</p>
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<p>I have not done that and can’t imagine doing that. I have never seen an admission in CC from a parent doing that either and parents on CC admit to doing a lot of things!</p>
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<p>I do not recall any such calls in my years of working but the severance process at
most of the companies that I worked at may have minimized this sort of thing.</p>
<p>higgins2013–how are these kids scoring high enough on the ACT/SAT to get into Madison yet need remedial math??? Are those tests flawed as well? I’m just trying to grasp this. DH and I have both commented that our kids’ math program is easily a year beyond what we ever had an option to take in high school, 2 years if you consider AP CalcBC or the college level classes the kids can take at our high school. </p>
<p>How are these kids even being admitted? I’m missing something here.</p>
<p>The SAT doesn’t cover much math.</p>
<p>So, the MATH section on the SAT covers what…housecleaning techniques??</p>
<p>oldfort
so are going to helicopter when your Ds get married?</p>
<p>Haven’t you taken the SAT?</p>
<p>MNcollegemom: if you goggle around you should find the same report I’ve read within the last few days re: UW-Madison. It was a university-based research summary, not parent ancedotal posting. Not everyone at Madison was an AP-Calc HS student.</p>
<p>My D was able to score 740 on the SAT without really being good at math relative to her AP-taking high school peers. In fact, she entered college a bit behind due to poor calculus preparation (had some calc but not AP level) and this delayed her ability to jump into the college courses in her major. That is why she was astounded that kids who were 2 years behind her in the middle schoo / high school math track are allegedly acing college math.</p>
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<p>If the Komen debacle has taught us anything, I would think it would be that companies ought to be paying a lot more attention to social media skills.</p>
<p>higgins2013–I am not questioning what you are saying, I am just trying to understand how it can happen. Maybe it’s just hearsay around here about who gets into Madison. If you ask people around here if you don’t have a 33+ ACT you aren’t getting in. I haven’t really looked into it that much but I did a quick check and that seems to be on the high side as they report an average of 26-30. That makes more sense now. Makes me wonder about the parents reporting that their child didn’t get in because their ACT was too low…and how they had over 30 on an ACT—user error, sorry.</p>
<p>They do report a middle score of 620-750 on the math portion of the SAT, which isn’t horrible so obviously those kids know how to clean their houses well.</p>
<p>Also–define remedial math–I don’t see needing to take calculus in college as being remedial, especially for a non-math major…Algebra I would be “remedial” to me. Maybe I am off base there.</p>
<p>Higgins, can you provide a link to the UW Madison report you referenced in #71? I can’t find it. I did find some links to documents showing 1% of incoming freshman requiring math remediation(in 2008), compared to a national average of 16%. There was also a report showing 17% of students in the whole UW system requiring remediation in math.</p>
<p><a href=“Redirect Notice”>Redirect Notice;
<p>Often times these types of surveys contain a lot of ‘…to what entent do your new employees…?’ When they aggregate replies to a series of generalized questions, they can jump to all kinds of inaccurate conclusions. In a large company, top executives rarely interviews entry level applicants, that is done by those closer to whom they will work for and probably also the HR department. All new employes regardless of their college backgrounds will need training on how that specific company operates. No one really learns that ahead of time, regardless of where they went to college.</p>
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<p>I never took AP calc…or any calc for that matter as I decided to take a year off from math in my senior year to take some science/computer electives. </p>
<p>Despite that, did fine in the standard calc course at my LAC and was shocked along with my HS classmates at how many high SAT math scoring college classmates at were flunking/doing poorly in calc and other STEM courses my HS classmates and I found to be quite manageable. </p>
<p>Then again, I’ve also known plenty of kids who scored mid-700s-800s each on the verbal and writing sections and yet, couldn’t write a coherent paragraph using SAT vocabulary to save their lives. Something confirmed by many friends who served as Writing TAs/Tutors at our respective undergraduate/graduate institutions.</p>
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<pre><code>Numbers and operations (20–25%)
Algebra and functions (35–40%)
Geometry and measurement (25–30%)
Data analysis, statistics, and probability (10–15%)
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<p>I don’t recall logs and trig on the SAT though I took it a long time ago.</p>
<p>My son tutored University science, math, computer science and some social science courses for four years. He said that the biggest problem that STEM students had is with algebra - they didn’t have a good foundation in algebra. Many don’t have a problem understanding calculus but their underlying algebra is weak.</p>
<p>I’d consider algebra 2, pre-calculus, and geometry to be remedial but it would vary by school. MIT doesn’t have anything below calculus. Son’s school has pre-calculus courses but STEM students don’t get credit for them - so they may be considered remedial. I don’t know if non-STEM departments give credit for pre-calculus.</p>
<p>At my daughter’s community college, they have classes for elementary school math, pre-algebra, algebra I, etc. I can’t imagine what those classes are like.</p>
<p>I go to a large state university and we have liberal arts math, finite math, and college algebra alone before pre-calculus. Non-STEM majors can take these to fulfill their math requirements so they aren’t actually considered remedial here, and even plenty of engineering students start out in pre-calculus instead of calculus.</p>