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I don’t know about other families, but S1 is paying for his own education with scholarships, grants, loans in his name and money from an account his grandparents set up for him. Other than helping out with little things that crop up, we aren’t out of pocket for him at all. So I don’t see how we could claim to be a “client” of the college.</p>
<p>footballmom, hope your son stays in school and does not take the job. At 22 he decides what he wants to do, but a reminder from you that if he got a job now, he will get it after next semester is needed. Don’t be a helicopter parent, just a voice of reason. I have a 21 year old son so I get it.</p>
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<p>Don’t think you’ll get very far with that approach, californiaaa. Even in high school my kids’ teachers have strongly preferred to channel communication (except in parent-teacher conferences, obviously) through the kids and get parents out of the way. Same goes for sports coaches, dance teachers, etc. I don’t think you want to be “that person” that views the payment of tuition as an entitlement to excessive demands, unless you want to risk your child getting WORSE treatment because the administrators or professors find your attitude intrusive.
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<p>here’s another aspect to consider:</p>
<p>Many of your children in STEM and in the social sciences are going to perhaps at some point need a security clearance as part of a government job or contract. I’m a college professor, and when the teams come to my office to do a security clearance on your child, they ask a LOT of questions about things like maturity. They’re trying to figure out if your child has what it would take to stand up to someone who tried to get them to leak a document, take a bribe, etc. They want to know if your kid is courageous, can stand up to peer pressure, is weak, easily led or influenced by others, etc. Most of what we college professors and administrators know about your kid is based on our observations of your kids as they live on our campus. If I know that somebody’s mommy drives to campus every week to clean their apartment, do their laundry, put gas in their car, or that somebody’s mommy or daddy still grades their papers, talks to the professors about their grades, fills out their forms, etc. it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in me in terms of their ability to safeguard the nation’s secrets, stand up to someone who attempts to talk them into wrongdoing, nor does it convince me that they have great decisionmaking skills. The info I have about the student’s relations with friends, peers and parents can all factor into that assessment.</p>
<p>Can I just add that I have now heard of several parents who edit and revise their kid’s college papers. </p>
<p>Now I am self-conscious about sometimes helping my kid navigate administrative stuff, but it would have never occurred to me to help with coursework.</p>
<p>Totally agree with Jonri’s example of how a high school student ends up with a top-five Intel prize. The kids aren’t coming in to the labs in 10th or 11th grade with a fresh idea, fully formed. The idea has grown organically out of the experience of getting to work in the lab. </p>
<p>A coworker’s child was one of those top Intel kids, working in a research lab at a single-initial college. The student was told to contact a handful of labs at other universities to with some project-related request. All of the professors and postdocs that the student talked to assumed the student was a grad student or a postdoc. At the time, the student was a high school senior. So yes, you can have high school students who can perform at that level.</p>
<p>I am aware of some summer research programs, but I doubt that the sort of research that gets kids into top schools is the kind done at those. Jonri’s anecdote makes sense in terms of progression, but that sort of story is probably extremely rare.</p>
<p>Also, maybe it’s because I live in a litigious state, but I just can’t imagine our state universities letting high schoolers hang around their labs-- due to liability and insurance reasons if for no other.</p>
<p>“Even in high school my kids’ teachers have strongly preferred to channel communication (except in parent-teacher conferences, obviously) through the kids and get parents out of the way. Same goes for sports coaches, dance teachers, etc.”</p>
<p>Certainly. It is much easier for teachers-coaches-advisors to go through kids. Kids are subordinate to teachers, it is much easier to teacher to communicate to a student than to her parent.</p>
<p>My D’s HS counselor told my D that she can’t take all Honors classes that she wants to take. OK, I sent an E-mail to this advisor and asked her to put in writing that she discourages my girl from Honors in STEM. Guess what … counselor reversed her position immediately. </p>
<p>Don’t be afraid to “spoil relationship” with authority figure. Whatever.</p>
<p>Lab research in HS</p>
<p>How do you go around safety-liability issues? Most labs would not let students step into them and use equipment. Most Profs. worry about liability. IMHO, only personal request will open you doors to the lab, especially chemistry.</p>
<p>Much of the initial lab work is not, in fact, equipment based research. There are indeed HS kids doing research under the supervision of senior faculty at universities but their work is developing or refining algorithms, looking at huge datasets and developing (or disproving) correlations, etc. The last exceptional research case I heard about was a HS kid who figured out a mathematical formula which he thought would be predictive of a certain type of cancer’s progression.</p>
<p>He is in fact working “in a lab” but nowhere near the physical, actual lab where cultures are taken and grown. The researchers (the grownups) have given him access to patient and cellular data, but there is no liability other than his laptop getting hacked (same as any other university employee who takes work home with them.)</p>
<p>GFG- Jonri’s story is unusual because “Ah ha” moments in science are atypical. Researchers can spend years chasing a bad hypothesis, or chasing a good hypothesis but without the techniques to efficiently sort the data in a meaningful way. Some of these incredible HS success stories involve kids coming at a project as an outsider (i.e. without 10 years of history at their back) and therefore can look at the data in a new way.</p>
<p>I think the "my mommy drives me to my grownup research project every day after school so I can get into a good college " phenomenon is not very common. Research is boring as all get out… hundreds of dead ends, thousands of attempts to do something that doesn’t work, dozens of people in endless meetings to review minutiae. I think HS students who can get staffed on an assignment doing research are the ones who are really in it for the right reasons-- either a love of science, or a personal mission to find a better diagnostic test for Parkinson’s, etc. The frauds can’t keep up with the boredom factor!</p>
<p>“S1 is paying for his own education with scholarships, grants, loans in his name and money from an account his grandparents set up for him. Other than helping out with little things that crop up, we aren’t out of pocket for him at all.” </p>
<p>You have great son!</p>
<p>It is tough, but I hope I won’t be a “snowplow” parent! My spouse is a professor at a liberal arts college and our only child has just been accepted into his top college choice (out of state). I’ve been pretty good about letting our kiddo do everything related to his college application, testing, and scholarships so far, but do occasionally have to reminded by my professor-husband that it’s up to our son now!</p>
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<p>californiaaa, in your pursuit of every possible advantage for your kid, you are missing the bigger point: that teenagers are supposed to be working their way toward independence. The teachers and coaches don’t prefer kids because they are more subordinate–they are trying to teach them to advocate for themselves and solve problems on their own. This is an important part of growing up.</p>
<p>I’m guessing you don’t know many teachers. I do, at several schools in several competitive school districts. They can’t STAND parents who strong-arm them in ways like you are suggesting, and although they are professional about it, I am sure they view those parents’ kids less favorably in class. (Remember too that you are not sitting in the classroom every day with your daughter. The kids who are more independent and mature in dealing with teachers are making a more positive impression EVERY DAY while your child is depending on your aggressive tactics outside the classroom to get what you/she want.)</p>
<p>Sally, I completely agree. S attends a school where the students are strongly encouraged to resolve their own issues and advocate for themselves. This isn’t so the teachers/administrators can take the easy way out but done as a means to help students become more independent and prepare themselves for leaving home. BTW it was not easy for S to do this initially, but he has now developed the skills and confidence to do so thanks to this approach.</p>
<p>momzie- I had not considered the security clearance factor, but that is a very good point.</p>
<p>Agreeing with Sally and FallGirl. I feel the same - that it’s important for our kids to advocate for themselves. Both my boys are deaf so perhaps they had a head start on self-advocacy because of it. They often were the only kid in their school with hearing loss and always the only one in their grade. As I told them both “I’m not sitting next to you making sure the teacher puts captioning on for you”. We ultimately had them both sit with the resource teacher to learn how to turn captions on in case a teacher didn’t know how to do it. </p>
<p>Their high school encourages that the kid works things out. I think now that they both are in college, it’s a huge strength as - again - I’m not there to make sure of their accommodations. It’s important that they do that for themselves in all aspects. I think the fact they <em>are</em> comfortable asking questions and letting professors know what they need is important. I’m glad it was fostered early on. The fact that both are at small LACs has been beneficial - much easier to be in a class with 15 students vs. 400.</p>
<p>Thank you, Californiaaa!</p>
<p>Some of you clearly have a very idealized view of teachers and must not have dealt with lazy or overwhelmed or plain nasty teachers and school staff. These sorts of “professionals” want to deal directly with the student because they can more easily intimidate or put off the student if they’re busy or don’t feel like doing anything. Also, they don’t care as much about looking bad in front of a kid if they’ve made a mistake or been incompetent. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a concern for the child’s ability to self-advocate. </p>
<p>Recently my friend’s son attempted 3 times to resolve a simple issue at the high school and got nowhere. He told the teacher: “I’ve tried 3 times to solve this problem. Now you’re going to have to deal with my mother.” Guess what? Mom got on it and the problem was solved within a half an hour.</p>
<p>^^^^^In the example you gave, it was still good that the son did try very hard to handle it himself rather than going to you first. It’s practice, and that’s how they learn. Some day he won’t be able to call Mom to close the deal…He’ll have to call his attorney. ;)</p>
<p>Yes, it’s good he tried, but why didn’t the teacher address the situation as a result of just the student’s repeated advocacy? In the end, the school always holds all the cards because even if you “win” a battle, you can lose the war through backlash of some sort, like lower grades or being passed over for positions and honors. It happens. They are government workers who, in our state, can not be fired unless they commit a crime. This reduces somewhat their motivation to keep their clients happy.</p>
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<p>If a given high schooler or younger demonstrates a high level of maturity and interest, they are likely to be allowed access to such labs.</p>
<p>A family friend’s 13 year old son was doing lab experiments at UH-Manoa with a senior Professor and this was commonplace among HS classmates…and not only state universities, but also private ones like NYU and Columbia. </p>
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<p>If they happened to attend a college with an academic honor code like UVA, Oberlin, etc, that would constitute cheating and if found guilty, likely to result in a suspension or if severe/chronic enough, being expelled. </p>
<p>One thing classmates and I had to do is to write out the statement “I have neither received nor given assistance” for that given exam/project/assignment and sign our names below. Having parents edit/write papers would clearly violate that pledge. </p>
<p>Only exception to this is before the final paper is written up, we’re allowed to workshop our papers…but only with classmates and Professor well before the final writeup.</p>