Good and easy

[SlitheyTove]

<p>

Or maybe these parents have kids who are not top of the class,NMF finalists, valedictorian types who still want to go to a nice college.
Maybe they mean, they have good kids who happen to be B or even B/C students but still want a four year degree that doesn’t include starting out at CC.</p>

<p>Maybe “not work too hard” is their way of saying (without really saying it)" my kid wants to go to college and get a degree but is not a top notch student so needs a nice school where his/her chances of success/being able to make it through are good."</p>

<p>The parents of these students (I have one of those myself so I can relate) definition of “good college” is probably different than the CC definition of “good college”.

</p>

<p>Requoting all of PackMom’s post because I entirely agree and identify with it. For those of you who think that the OP’s friends are on an oxymoronic quest, would you be expressing these same sentiments on any of the “B” student threads?</p>

[missypie]

<p>

And then there are the schools where the students have to write long papers every week and in every class, on top of reading hundreds of pages a week for every class.

</p>

<p>LOL, I think the OP’s friends would probably like the names of those schools to put at the top of the “AVOID” list.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>Slithey, being a B student, eager to learn and take on some challenges, imo, isn’t quite the same as actively seeking a school where you don’t have to work too hard and can still get a degree with oomph. Maybe I am missing a point in the requests OP got. Maybe they want their kid to grow without ridiculous grade deflation and arbitrary hurdles. And, I don’t know whether the pm’ers were parents of B students or slackers. Or, even A kids who are a little burnt out, plan to do their best to learn and grow, but want to be big fish in a less demanding pond.</p>

[TheGFG]

<p>I am of the opinion that there’s no substitute for hard work and that people eventually reap what they sow. So I was initially irritated at the idea that these parents wanted a short cut for their kids that bypassed the work part but gave them a nice diploma anyway. It was hard not to take the question personally also because I felt they were implying they didn’t want to make their kids work as hard as mean old me had made mine work. However, now I’m trying to take a more charitable view of the question.</p>

[mspearl]

<p>Maybe the parents are just scared for their kids and want to make sure they don’t get in over their head - could be? To be honest, I am a little fearful at times for my youngest daughter. I don’t advocate that she should work less but that maybe a less competitive atmosphere would be more appropriate to her style of learning. </p>

<p>She has indicated a few schools she is interested in - not sure I want to identify them for fear of offending others. I think they are good, fine schools that I would be thrilled for her to graduate from, but I also think they are not as competitive as say, Ivy League or uber selective LAC.</p>

[DeskPotato]

<p>

or putting on Aristophanes at the Adams House swimming pool (that guy got a MacArthur grant later in life…)

A bit OT, but first, that was Yale, not Harvard.

</p>

<p>Unless they moved Adams House, I don’t think so.
But was it not Anthony and Cleopatra? </p>

<p>If two people used the same route to the MacArthur, it’s surprising there haven’t been more swimming pool dramatic productions.</p>

<p>My experience was that one could skate through college if determined to do so–careful course selection (no labs, few papers), getting permission from professors to submit one paper to two classes, etc. </p>

<p>However, I deeply regret having taken this approach.</p>

[SlitheyTove]

<p>TheGFG, if you intentionally misunderstand the parents to all be of the first type (looking for a place for a kid who’s not highly academic) instead of the second (no normal person really works that hard :rolleyes:) that might provide some well-deserved private amusement. You can also stress that these are places where students often find the motivation to work even harder. Encourage them to check out the Colleges That Change Lives as a general philosophy, too (works well as both a serious suggestion or a snarky jab )</p>

[Marian]

<p>I think you can skate through college at a lot of places – it’s often more a matter of the major you choose than the college. </p>

<p>At most colleges, there are students who have huge commitments to something other than academics. It may be a varsity sport, or it may be an extremely time-consuming extracurricular activity other than athletics. I have noticed that these people often tend to be concentrated in just a few majors – but they’re not necessarily the same majors at college X that they are at college Y.</p>

<p>Even at schools that are often regarded as pressure cookers (and here I am thinking of my own alma mater and my daughter’s – which is Cornell), there are students like this and majors like this.</p>

<p>So maybe instead of trying to pick good and easy schools, it would make sense to pick easy majors at good schools. And you can get a hint about what those majors are by finding out what majors are popular among varsity athletes.</p>

[mathmom]

<p>That’s funny about the Adams House pool - I could have sworn it was the Frogs, but it turns out it was Anthony and Cleopatra. I missed the show and heard about it afterwards. I must also have heard about the Yale production at some point as well and conflated the two.</p>

<p>

But it was in 1978 that the pool’s singular future
was foreshadowed by the legendary aquatic production
of Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra” by
Peter Sellars ’80.
In Sellars’ inspired version, the audience was
arranged around the misty waters of the filled pool.
Cleopatra’s raft floated in the center, and actors
pranced in and around the pool. A Crimson review
explained, “[Sellars] pokes incessantly at the
perimeters of his playing area, his actors drenching
his audience, or leading it out of the room altogether,
into Rome (A-entry of Adams House).” Sellars’
innovative use of the pool space gained national attention

from <a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/HarvardGazette04.30.09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/HarvardGazette04.30.09.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I majored in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard and it did not seem like a lot of work to me, especially compared to high school. I thought in general if you were happy getting B’s you could get away with a lot (like writing papers based on doing very little of the reading), but if you wanted A’s it was a lot more work. I worked pretty hard on my 100+ page undergrad thesis, including spending the summer before doing the research for it.</p>

[jym626]

<p>Why would a parent want their kid to go to a slacker (easy) school?</p>

[Marian]

<p>

Why would a parent want their kid to go to a slacker (easy) school?

</p>

<p>So the kid would actually graduate?</p>

[thumper1]

<p>The parents need to stop worrying about what friends and neighbors think about their daughter’s college choice and focus on schools for the daughter. They should not care what the friends and neighbors think about the rankings and prestige of the college choice.</p>

[starbright]

<p>Cross reference this list with selectivity scores from USNWR: gradeinflation.com</p>

<p>Looks like tons of schools are ‘easy’ with average GPA approaching 3.5…</p>

[MizzBee]

<p>I have to laugh at the suggestion of CTCL. Of the schools that I know (DS attends one) they are writing-intensive, with small classes that demand participation and students tend to be in the library 5 nights a week. In comparison, my state schools have a great reputation but a student can go partying 5 nights a week and still graduate without issues.</p>

[qialah]

<p>Of course anybody can “not work too hard” if they just decide B’s and C’s are fine. After all, do employers (not the consulting companies or Investment banking) really care about GPA? My brother had a lackluster GPA but worked for the college paper and had no problem getting a job out of college.</p>

[Chedva]

<p>

That’s funny about the Adams House pool - I could have sworn it was the Frogs, but it turns out it was Anthony and Cleopatra. I missed the show and heard about it afterwards. I must also have heard about the Yale production at some point as well and conflated the two.

</p>

<p>Sorry! I had never heard of the Anthony and Cleopatra production. I wonder why they called it so “innovative” when Shevelove and Sondheim had done it in 1974?</p>

<p>

The Frogs is a musical “freely adapted” by Stephen Sondheim and Burt Shevelove from The Frogs, an Ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in Yale University’s gymnasium’s swimming pool in 1974.</p>

<p>Dionysus, despairing of the quality of living dramatists, travels to Hades to bring George Bernard Shaw back from the dead. William Shakespeare competes with Shaw for the title of best playwright, which he wins. Dionysus chooses to bring Shakespeare back instead, thereby improving the world, and its political situation. This original production is most famous for having Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver and Christopher Durang in its ensemble. Sondheim compared the acoustics of the original production to “performing in a urinal.”

<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frogs_(musical)[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Frogs_(musical)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I bow to superior knowledge of swimming pool theater! (And I will not even swear that Shevelove won the MacArthur, given the new information.) Thank you, DeskPotato and mathmom!</p>

[jnm123]

<p>Although the initial post might be a little tongue-in-cheek, it does provoke thoughts about what is the best tack to take in choosing a school, with the end goal being GETTING A JOB.</p>

<p>Some random musings on the subject:</p>

<p>‘Slacker-ism’–spending 4 years at college taking easy classes to get a 3.5 GPA with no overt skills will probably not provide immediate employment & is pretty much a waste of the student’s or parents’ money. We may have gotten away with it 30 years ago but not now, not a chance.</p>

<p>I think alumni networking is becoming bigger all the time in employment circles. And yeah, a good number of those dreaded ‘prestige’ schools have killer alumni networks. The key is to winnow out some non-prestige schools that have success here.</p>

<p>Any student spewed out of the college system with a BA or BS MUST have at least decent writing / public speaking skills. Although those talents are sometimes God-given, they can be learned with a lot of work.</p>

<p>RE: qialah’s post, yes, employers care about GPA’s, but only to the point that it doesn’t raise a red flag. Tons of research/job/club experience but a 2.6 will probably put the resume in that ‘other’ pile, the bad pile. IMO, anything in the low 3’s and above will at least keep you in the ballgame.</p>

[mihcal1]

<p>

they think the really academic schools are for kids who are crazy or socially stunted to want to work so hard

</p>

<p>This seems to be a rampant meme in my corner of the world, especially among certain socio/economic/cultural groups. The ethnic and cultural correlates are fascinating!</p>

[SlitheyTove]

<p>

I have to laugh at the suggestion of CTCL. Of the schools that I know (DS attends one) they are writing-intensive, with small classes that demand participation and students tend to be in the library 5 nights a week.

</p>

<p>I recommended them as a general philosophy–the roadshow presentation is especially powerful in stressing that there are colleges that will want what any particular student has to offer, and that you want to find the right school for any particular student. Absolutely true for the student who’s not a superstar, but won’t work for students who are looking to just slide through four years. Sounds like the OP had one friend who was of type one (in which case the CTCL message is right on target), and others who were type two (in which case CTCL wouldn’t work except as a shaming exercise ).</p>

<p>Entirely agree that many of the CTCLs would be entirely wrong for some of these kids. Reed and St. John’s and a kid who just wants to do nothing for four years? LOL!</p>