<p>This thread is to follow up on one from a year or two ago in the Parents Forum. I'm wondering what the differences and similarities are among writing classes for first-year students at the eight Ivy League </p>
<p>colleges and how well you think those classes do in preparing a student to be a writer. Pretty soon I'll be attending a pair of regional college information sessions </p>
<p>at which representatives from some of those colleges will be present, and I'd like to ask them up-to-date, informed questions about how their writing programs compare with those at peer colleges. </p>
<p>What has been your experience? What news have you heard from friends and colleagues? What approaches are Ivy League colleges taking in teaching freshman writing courses and guiding students to become better writers? Do the writing programs have good teachers? Do they have enough resources to provide adequate attention to student writing development?</p>
<p>Dartmouth really does focus on getting every kid to where they need to be where writing is concerned. They have three tiers, depending on CR and writing SAT scores. The weakest students take 3 intense writing courses freshmen year, the middle and largest groups takes two and the quarter of the class with a 770 or above takes one.</p>
<p>DS, in the last group moaned all freshmen fall about his writing intense first year seminar. Small classes surrounding interesting subjects of choice, they write and write and write. He had excellent high school preparation and was already a strong writer, but he would tell you this cemented the skills that will allow him to perfect college papers.</p>
<p>His roommate in the middle group took an intense pure writing class, also very small classes, and then the first year writing seminar.</p>
<p>There is no such thing as a first year writing classes at Brown. There are intro level classes than anyone can take as well as various other ways students work on writing throughout their time here.</p>
<p>It’s hard to apply this question to Brown because we have no required classes.</p>
<p>Student’s have their writing assessed upon entrance based on the letter they write their advisor/essay about the summer reading and if members of the Writing Resource Center view them as deficient writers at that point we have some special meetings with those people to discuss their options to improve writing at Brown.</p>
<p>We offer some unique programs through the WRC like the Writing Fellows and some very strong courses that provide feedback on the writing process in the Literary Arts department as well as within concentrations in various courses.</p>
<p>My S, like Hmom’s, was in the 770CR-and-up group at D. He chose to take a seminar with a 2-term format. While he liked the reading list, which was formidable, I don’t have the impression that the writing component was particularly strong. He was not the only kid to register disappointment with this class–his roommate was one of a number of kids who dropped the required second quarter and took another seminar instead–but I think that it suffered from being staffed from multiple departments rather than owned by one professor with a strong vision. Probably somewhat of an anomaly.</p>