Freshman Class Selection

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

First D has been a good student who managed 5 or 6 AP classes and varsity swimming, among other ECs in high school. To date, she never stayed up to past 10:30 due to exams or homework.

She is going for premed or CS or Econ.

For her freshman classes

General physics 4 credits…took AP Physics C this year.
General Chem 4 credits…took AP last year and got a 5 on exam and 800 on subject test.
Multi-variable. 3 credits… Took BC last year, 5 on AP test. High school doesn’t offer multivariable, so she took LInear Algebra this year.
Intro to Engineering 3 credits…she is going to try CS, Biomedical Engineering and Chem Engineering
Econ writing seminar 3 credits…she got 5s on AP two tests in her freshman year of high school and 5 on AP Lang. She hopes this fulfills both writing and Econ requirements…and had sent an email to confirm with her advisors.

Total 17 hours. How does it sound? Is this too much? She hassles and already planned out her days of the week with classes. Her plan is to drop one class and add something else if she believes she can’t handle one class or another. Thoughts?

2

Her study skills sound pretty good so she could do well with that schedule.

Also what does she want her college experience to be like? ie if she wants to join greek life that probably won’t work assuming she wants a high GPA (although it’s much easier for a girl to do well w/ a tough schedule+greek life stuff than it is for a guy). And, if she wants to be really involved in clubs right away it might be better to stick w/ less and do more in later semesters

3

Hi there! Your daughter sounds like she has done everything in her power to prepare for college level coursework, so congratulations to her. 17 credits is what I took first semester, and it looks like I’ll be taking 18 a semester for the foreseeable future given my own aspirations, so your daughter may find herself in a similar situation with any of those paths if she wants to pursue multiple majors or in depth econ, CS or pre-med coursework.

Now, multivariable calculus will be manageable if she is a math whiz, which it sounds like she is. The econ writing seminar will be a piece of cake if she is anything of a decent writer (the first year seminars are wonderful learning and writing opportunities with manageable standards in my opinion - fruitful discussion and contemplation without TOO much stress, although there will be a lot of writing so it may become demanding at certain crunch times throughout the semester with her other courses). Gen chem is brutal for everyone, whether you got a 5 or an 800 or a whatever. Period. She will be flat out studying and learning concepts all year, and there’s no way around it. Has she considered placing out of gen chem with her AP credit? I would avoid the unnecessary potential for grade deflation if she feels strongly equipped to pursue Bio or freshman orgo (also lots of work, but not too much more than gen chem I wouldn’t say). Physics I don’t know a heap about but I’d assume it’s a challenging course like any there introductory STEM class. I also can’t speak to engineering, but I’d assume similarly rigorous.

It will be tough, but it’s manageable. She will be busy as you could imagine. But it will be rewarding and it sounds like she’s as prepared as most other people would be to do it. So good luck to her! If she finds it to be too overwhelming when she begins it, she could a) place out of chem; b) drop physics to focus on chem, or c) just go on through it and work work work!

4

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback!!

She wants to repeat chem as some medical schools require college level chem. No, she doesn’t plan on greek life, but may gradually get involved in some clubs.

5

@SincererLove : I wouldn’t worry about her chemistry performance. There is a lot of exaggeration in how difficult general chemistry is there having looked at the materials. I imagine it to be a stressful environment like any traditional weedout class, but it is nothing too far beyond a standard general chemistry course at an elite school. If she has a 5 in chem and may be willing to take something like analytical chemistry later in her career (medical schools who claim they want some sort of inorganic chemistry all claim that they will take an upper division in lieu of a student using AP for the lower division course), then frosh ochem may be a good route, not due to the grade deflation or lackthereof, but because of what is likely a smaller and overall better learning environment than some very large lecture standard pre-health service course like general chemistry.

Geez, I just have no idea why people there think general chemistry is so hard. It is not one of the harder sequences among schools in this tier and my friend who scored 5 and took it found it relatively easy in comparison to his AP course (which had I guess a more challenging instructor. He attended a top charter school in Georgia that was science focus…if you know anything about Georgia, I am sure you can figure out what it is). Either way, please do not let folks scare her about that class. It is a normal gen. chem course that goes at a faster pace because the students are smarter. They are not presenting content and problem types that are too hard if you do the practice from the book and whatever other problems (from recitation I guess). What I would more so worry about is what I bought up in another thread here where AP 4/5 students tend to experience a boredom/over-confidence and thus get caught off guard/stop studying as much as they should (there is a good share where of students where being over-qualified for the course works out and you score an easy grade but I have seen many, in the case of general chemistry at elite schools, where they are complacent or too bored so may have been better off in like a frosh ochem course that they anticipate to be challenging, so work harder from the get go instead of getting sloppy or lazy. Often the trend with the latter bunch is that they score high on the first 1 or 2 exams, get cocky or bored and then slip out of the A range and sometimes worse…). But from what I can tell, they do not appear to write curveball problems or super application based problems. Any harder problems likely resemble some of the “challenge problems” in the book (I am familiar with those Tro books because my alma mater uses it and I tutor the students).

6

That is a very challenging schedule that I would almost always advise against, but it sounds as though she’s exceptionally well-qualified. Good performance on relevant APs and SATIIs usually means that an A is possible (without a 5 a student is almost always capped at a B+ in the weedouts).

She could consider taking freshman orgo if she thinks redoing gen chem will be boring. She would just have to take an inorganic chem upper level at some point later if she wanted to fulfill med school requirements. Re-doing gen chem is fine though since it will be a little bit easier and lighten up the total difficulty of the semester. If she did switch to freshmen orgo, i would probably not take it with physics and multi-variable at the same time. Overall, I would probably say that the schedule is fine as is, as far as academics go.

I will say though, that schedule won’t play around. That’s a baller/shot caller schedule. I’ve known some intellectual prodigy CV scholars here who have taken tough schedules right away, and then done really well. But none of them breezed through easily like they did in high school; all of them had to work incredibly hard and were not having much fun in the midst of it. So she might do fine academically with these courses, but at the cost of a social/extracurricular life. Freshmen year is important for making friends/exploring the college environment, so it’s just something to take into consideration.

If she’s super academically oriented it’ll be fine as is; if she wants a bit more time for stuff outside the classroom (or wants to do something time consuming like an intramural sport) I might delay physics I until spring semester or the summer.

7

^The above advice is spot on. Seconded.

8

This schedule is TOO hard! I’ve seen people with 5’s on AP’s who’ve hard to work extra hard in STEM courses, which at Vandy suffer from grade deflation. Your freshman year schedule should be the lightest, and this is far from it. Take no more than 15 hours for your first semester.

9

New environment, new ball game. There will be other factors such as homesick, roommate, laundry task…that she did not have in high school. If she succeeds in taking 17 credits, she certainly will gain lots of confidence, but if the works are too much for her, then will she be able to handle the first ever defeat (physically and mentally)? That would be a question that you and your daughter should talk about before finalizing the course selections.

Heard many stories about kids bright enough to go to ivy schools ended killing themselves because they were surprised to not realized the pressure “they themselves” had put on since their childhood, so with defeat, stress, and depression, they could no longer handle it.

So why not lighten it up in her first year to have some fun? Mix up courses to not only with science, math, economic (all number related) but with language or music (after all they are also required to graduate) in first year?

Also when your daughter eventually becomes a doctor, a lawyer, or a Wall Street investor, the EQ (dealing with people: coworkers, clients, patients, or bosses) will be more needed than just IQ. The Ingram Commons is set up to force the 1st year student body to interact with each others, but your daughter’s current selection is seeming to defeat that purpose. I watched a few students of ivy schools talked about what they learned in their first year, they seem all to indicate they had learned so much from their peers due to their individual talents, those themselves lacked of; and therefore, humbled themselves to want to learn more from their peers. Without interacting with those equally or even superior (in other fields too) talent peers, I doubt the worthiness to go to the top tier schools.

Anyway, my D is also a freshman and currently selecting classes. She had managed to take 5 to 6 APs each year in her last two years of high school. She will take only the school’s suggested 4 courses in her first year (with mix of language, music, science, and writing) to slowly build up her schedule. After 4 years of compact HS life, I think kids need to have a detox year to slow down and relax a bit before going to the trench again. I do believe your D is super smart and talent.

10

If the OP likes that, let them try…if they do want to indulge a bit more socially than maybe not, but there are many schools including VU where students (though not usually pre-healths) take that type of schedule and are very challenged but remain socially functional and outgoing enough to keep their sanity. If she is going to be challenged, earlier in the career may be better because just to see what she can handle and then adjust accordingly. Given that med. schools look at trends, if she can get the challenging portion out of the way and still do decently, then other years may be relatively breezy as she can focus on the CS major and courses she may be really interested in as opposed to walk an ultra thin line of dealing with courses much more intensive than freshman year while also trying to maintain or obtain a stellar GPA. My friend there experienced a freshman year like that (they got like a 3.5) and then ascended nicely by the end of VU and ended up near a 3.8 even though he took a reasonably challenging courseload each semester. He basically “numbed” himself to being challenged academically (and often enjoying the more problem solving oriented courses that he wasn’t as perfect at in his freshman year) and perhaps having to sacrifice at times. I’ve noticed that many pre-healths starting sophomore year either a) to hold on to the strong performance of freshman year almost too strategically select professors (as in perhaps sacrifice quality for ease) or b) get caught off guard with how much more challenging some of the intermediate or upper division STEM courses and end up getting slapped in the face and punished with a sort of slump year (they were riding high off of a somewhat challenging but relatively breezy freshman year). For some, feeling a real burn freshman year pays off in the long run and sadly for some, it is more demoralizing (because they assume that being smart means they should be perfect or feel it is easy like HS. So they take getting less than As extremely personally).

Also, I do not understand the references to CV Scholars. Gonna be honest and say that I think there are likely many non-CV scholars at VU as intense or as capable (and perhaps in some cases more). I do not know how that has become a reference point. Maybe use credentials. Like, for example, IMO students tend to take math 55A and B at Harvard and many of them struggle…then I can say “wow, that class and schedule is tough!” not “this person is an X scholar so you know they are good”. I would rather know more about the academic backgrounds even beyond AP/IB performance. AP/IB is almost too structured and predictable to be compared to more challenging college STEM instructors who are challenging largely because they write less predictable exams and problem sets that require more critical thinking than a normal instructor.

Either way, some students want to sweat…they need to decide if they are “about that life” and at elite private and publics, there are a surprising amount who are.

11

Thank you for all your feedback. D wanted work life balance, and she is unsure if she can even get into Physics, so she might have to pick PSY or something like that.

Any suggestions if she can’t get to some of her classes?

12

Gen psych is quite easy (upper levels aren’t bad either, as I imagine she has AP credit for this one too and might want to skip ahead) and med school course recommendations are starting to include general psychology/sociology (as well as it being tested on the updated MCAT). So that might not be a bad idea. If she changed out physics for a psych class, I think that schedule would be very doable and give her enough time to have some balance.

She would very likely do well in gen physics and just fine in the previous schedule as a whole, but in my experience it sometimes produces “death by a thousand papercuts”: 17/18 hour schedules with classes that wouldn’t otherwise be that tough can become a lot more difficult than expected due to time constraints.

If a more conservative schedule turns out to be too easy, at worst she comes home with a 4.0, is still way ahead of her peers for comp sci/econ/premed because of being in multi-variable calc right away, and can then load up on hard classes for the spring semester.

13

I also had a high school swimmer who had to be at school daily by 7am for Orchestra as well, so I want to comment on “she has never had to stay up past 10:30pm”. I think you didn’t mean much by that phrase…or may have only meant that she is efficient in her test prep and memorizes well and doesn’t have to try to pull all nighters to do her work. But it got me thinking back, so I will reflect. I never worked this hard in high school myself and had tons of time to knock around with friends in my teens. so here are my thoughts from our experience

Sleep management is a killer skill that has to be renegotiated in the college years. Even within this subset of 18 years olds who already have proven high executive functioning…they each have new and undiscovered parts of themselves that they will explore in college. Our Duke son (swimmer, musician) whose high school life was very demanding suddenly became much more social than he had been in high school and this became time consuming. He just loved all the people he met and the new horizons socially. Rather than being intimidated by the savant student here and there he met, he just admired the heck out of everybody (this is a very functional attitude).

He found it very hard to fall asleep anytime before 1-2 am and then didn’t make it to breakfast very often (mistake). He also came down with mono which is not uncommon as many people are carriers with no symptoms. He ended up having to drop Calculus…too late to save us the $-- and an underload resulted. That required him to make an apt with the academic dean to make a new plan and get it approved.

This scenario is not rare and is a great opportunity regarding learning how to manage your limits and to fix errors of judgement. He was not treating Duke like a 8-5 serious job yet. He took Calc again the next fall and did so much better! By that time he had also adjusted to the new intensity of his social life and he had figured out how to get offline, off his phone and off of socializing past midnight during the week. He went Greek (to my dismay–but not my life) but…this affiliation worked out very well for him back then and still does now as an alum.

In our generation we had turntables and radios and limited access to hall phones. We wrote letters and postcards home. Parental input was zilch. Our kids remain connected not only to the new people they are meeting and learning from --but to everyone they knew before including family. It’s a lot to manage! I would suggest that your daughter do exactly as her advisor suggests for her first semester–no heroics first semester, just good steady heads down work appropriate from someone with proven rote learning talent like hers. A GPA is a product of strategic planning. A college career takes off more or less in your upper classes but has its special foundation in required courses. I believe she will get a private meeting with her advisor over the phone or online before her schedule is certain. She will be given an upper class man or woman to consult with as well…encourage her to use them all. Both my Vandy and my Duke son really did get advice this way. Their nice, trained sophomore mentors would go ask other upperclassmen to get information for them if they didn’t have an opinion on questions of course selection. Have confidence that your daughter will figure all this out once she is on the ground.

your kid may not have any of our issue with what we can call “freshman follies” or any bad luck with her health. Drop Add --which you mentioned --is certainly a legit way to help decide when you are on the fence re number of challenges you can handle per semester. Our Vandy son even went to summer school to get one class done one year when he stumbled. Again, an appointment with an academic dean and a new plan. My guys used Drop Add more than once to stall a bit on how much they could handle to shake that out. My point is that although she may not have a social renaissance similar to our son’s first semester, assume she will not be asleep by 11 nightly and up at 7 ready to concentrate. Our Vandy son relished the courses in humanities after graduating from a hard science high school. Both sons went abroad junior year which is a great reset time before really digging in to getting your speed up when you get back. life gets very pre professional quickly enough. I agree with bernie’s comment re the reality that CV Scholars (who are outstanding in every way in high school) are not standard bearers or pace setters at Vandy. Instead, you will see that everyone in the class has pocket areas of extreme talent. They almost all struggle here and there, academically and socially. All to be expected. Honestly as the mother of sons who do not text daily, ignorance was bliss. Glad our sons would call to discuss the ups and downs but there are so many great people who will help make sure she reaches her potential on campus. Congrats and happy for her…she will be very fulfilled at Vandy.

14

D told me that she won’t be assigned any advisor until later, after she has selected the classes. In addition, she will be at a field trip (our school is not done yet) when the class selection begins at 800 am CT. Does she need to have fast fingers to get in all her classes?

D also loves Vandy’s kids, atmosphere and social aspect. She can see herself happiest there. She is a Chancellor’s scholar. She already has plans with her newly found friends to check out the city and some concert in Atlanta.

My limited experience with college in US…I was in my MBA program at Miami University in my 20s, carrying 16 hours every semester (19 in one) and with English as second language. D was the one who determined the schedule, and I thought she could do it if I, with broken English, could manage to get a 3.8 in the first semester with part time job and adjusting another country entirely.

15

@SincererLove - Fast fingers are very very helpful to get in the classes of her choice. I would suggest she be late to school that day or possibly give you permission to register for her. I had to register for my son his freshman year because he was away at boy scout camp.

16

Current schedule… physics, chem, sociology, intro to engineering, and that writing seminar if it counts for both econ and writing requirement. She decided not to take MC as she wants to see how she can handle premed before doing more engineering classes.

Thoughts?

17

You could register for your daughter that day, just have her put the classes she wants to take into her cart, and have you select “enroll” the day registration starts.

18

That sounds far more manageable and leaves more room for vital freshman experiences, like having a social life and enjoying yourself once in a while :slight_smile:

19

That is a good schedule.

20

@SincererLove The schedule looks good. Have your D keep an open mind though. Not everything should be calibrated versus whether or not she can handle pre-med. What if she enjoys her physics and engineering course work much better and decides to do something with that that ends up making an impact? Also, her schedule at any engineering (or engineering heavy) school would look more like an engineering schedule than a pre-health’s. Maybe she can try MC in spring. Just let her discover what she enjoys and what she seems to do well in (actually, if she enjoys something and does very solidly in it even if not an A grade. Take it seriously. For example, gen. chem may be somewhat breezy for her, yet it does not mean she loves chemistry so much as she could be well prepared for it via AP/IB for example).