<p>D started off her Lit class with a C. Second paper came up. She wrote it, keeping in mind the comments on the first one, submitted it to a senior majoring in English, rewrote it , integrating the comments and suggestions to improve style and content, submitted it to a second senior in her house who liked it very much, and handed it in, confident that she had vastly improved since the first paper. C again!
D went to see the professor, who told her not to worry as many students had the same grade.
Nonetheless,D is downhearted, and I don't know what to tell her since everyone on CC seems to have GPA close to 4.</p>
<p>A lot of the people here who have GPAs close to 4.0 are high school students and while I have a sneaking suspicion that some parents here have Smithie Ds with perfect GPAs, no one has come out and said it. Regardless, I feel your Ds pain; my first paper was terrible. When you D saw the professor, did he/she explain why she got the grade that she did? It will be helpful to her in the future, even if she's downhearted now. I don't know how fluent your D is in English but a lot of style will come naturally as she learns the way American English is spoken in academic circles. I don't really know how to explain it but I've read a lot of papers for my friends (who are international students) and something about it hints at the writer not being a native English speaker.</p>
<p>Smith seems kind of different in that grade "deflation" seems to be more prominent in the social sciences and humanities rather than in engineering and the sciences.</p>
<p>LiT, sympathies. There are tutors for writers at a tutoring center and I'd encourage your D to seek them out. (My D was asked to do it but she got commitments to both TA and grade for Math classes.) </p>
<p>The writing at Smith is tough. Even D as a senior has some trepidations about suddenly having to write English papers this semester after having knocked out social science papers for three years and at least a couple of the Government classes had papers where the grading on papers was a *****. </p>
<p>D was a pretty decent writer in high school but Smith has improved her a lot.</p>
<p>She is certainly going to seek help. Basically, being unused to bad grades, she was hoping that they were due only to the form (poor writing), rather than the content, as she had spent a long time researching her paper. Unfortunately they seemed to be more linked than she thought. It's going to be a tough semester for her, since she hasn't taken one single easy course despite my advice to choose a French Lit class so as to feel confident in at least one of her classes. Grades aside, she loves Smith, the teachers, and her house! I miss her......................</p>
<p>LiT, there was one of the American comic strips ("For Better or For Worse"), which has gone into "flashback" mode, which yesterday had a line, "If you're allowed to grow up, I'm allowed to get mushy about it." Missing your D is an occupational hazard of this stage of life, I'm afraid. I'm glad that, grades aside, she is enjoying Smith.</p>
<p>And, yeah, one easy class, or at least "easier," like one of the First-Year seminars, would have been good. Is she taking a First-Year seminar this semester? Part of the purpose of them is to give a quick sharp immersion in getting student writing up to speed.</p>
<p>I have no idea about your D's education in France, but D observed that the writing assignments, in her opinion, really separated out those who came from strong American high schools from those who didn't, more than any other factor.</p>
<p>I think it pays for students (and some parents) to remember that the speed of the academic pitching is a lot faster at Smith than most are used to. There's a aphorism at Harvard that goes "Fifty percent of you will be below average for the first time in your lives." It's not that extreme at Smith but there lots of students who find grades bumpier than they expected. I think the average GPA is around 3.3, which isn't all that inflated compared to many places.</p>
<p>Yes she is, and she/I even have trouble understanding the assignments (see my post on the parents' forum whose answers could start an interesting debate on the ambiguity of the English language!</p>
<p>D submitted her first 2 papers this week. In each case, after quickly reviewing the work, the prof warned the first-years that none of the papers was A quality and that most of the papers were in the C+/B- range.</p>
<p>LiT, I saw that thread and was going to comment but was rushed. I'd interpret that "might" as "do this unless you have a darned good reason for doing otherwise." The American academic class often delivers itself in British understatement (cf., the exchange between Lord Uxbridge and Wellington at Waterloo). Quite.</p>
<p>I have no problem with "going outside the box" but it generally pays to prove that you can work inside the box first. Even Picasso did representational paintings before becoming, well, Picasso.</p>
<p>NYC, that doesn't surprised me. The up side is that when you do get the A, you feel like you've accomplished something.</p>
<p>Grading at smith is tough, especially in the English department. There are several english professors i know of that don't even give A's (does she have Michael Thurston, because that's his special quirk). I wouldn't say grade deflation is a problem, but it definitely exists. </p>
<p>She'll just have to keep plugging away at it, incorporating her professor's comments, using her friends as test readers, maybe sign up to have her paper's reviewed at the writing center. You have to make an appointment in advance, but they will read and edit it with you and they're pretty professional. </p>
<p>Smith is full of former straight A students from high school that now scratch and bite for B's. I wouldn't be too discouraged.</p>
<p>LiT, most first-years at ANY American university face the difficulty of integrating writing technique with sophisticated ideas. Unlike high school teachers, college professors expect the students to supply original analysis and insights that go beyond mere facts. The professors want the students to educate <em>them</em> when it comes to papers. Unfortunately, too many students confuse "insight" with a moral, and they pound the same point over and over instead of building their ideas. Your daughter will learn this as she becomes more aware of what her professors expect. By taking the time to talk to the professor, she will improve.</p>
<p>Don't worry. Many first-years have much lower GPAs than they will as seniors.</p>
<p>Piqued by S&P's comment, I checked D's English prof on RateMyProfessor. Gah. Last time I do <em>that</em>.</p>
<p>TD, Smith students tend to use the rating site for Smith students more than they do RMP. I'm sure SmithandProud can supply more details. My D found that Smithies use RMP only when they loved or hated a professor, but use the Smith one to express a wider range of opinions. </p>
<p>My D now uses the Smith ratings to choose labs and sections within a larger course and to help her decide between elective courses.</p>
<p>As a side note, she has taken both government and English courses. Although she had to work hard in those classes, she counts their professors as the best she's had so far at Smith. (Note: she's only a sophomore.)</p>
<p>MWFN, I'm aware of the limitations of RMP but I don't have access to the Smith site. But even for RMP, these were pretty negative specifically about the grading of papers compared to other professors. Karma. </p>
<p>Otoh, D has done a pretty good job of screening classes/profs by talking with her housemates, etc., and I think she really enjoys the subject matter.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, my first year I averaged under a B-. I ended up a junior Phi Beta Kappa with a fellowship to Oxford. It took me a full year to get my writing up to the demands of my LAC (Williams), and it was probably the most important year of my education.</p>
<p>I got a "C" on my first English paper at Smith, along with the comment "Where did YOU go to high school?" After such encouraging words, I did not become an English major, but I did become a junior PBK like Mini, and ended up going to grad school in French lit at the offending (to me anyway) professor's alma mater.</p>
<p>I still remember the shock on his face when he was there doing research one time, and saw me there!</p>
<p>Great stories! Shows that Smith knows how to keep them on their toes AND still turn out great scholars! Thank you ladies.</p>
<p>I agree with MANY of the posters above. Though I am at Colgate, there's a huge grade deflation. (Actually on the contrary, I experienced a bit of grade inflation in my first year at Smith...) and it's biting me.</p>
<p>But I have learned slowly over the semesters by working closely with professors and doing tons, TONS of reading for my academic research, I learned to note the writers' style and vocabulary. Currently, I'm working on integrating them into my papers and now I feel <em>grown up.</em> I always thought it was the content but my professors insisted that it's the writing that really mattered, not the content (thought it does...). It's how you come across- is it clear? Does it make sense?</p>
<p>Even I'm learning how to structure my papers and being more direct in what I say. Unfortunately, high school English teachers tend to teach very stylistic, ambigious writing to encourage the student to avoid the use of "I" and to use active sentences but don't teach exactly how to be direct and clear with the sentences. This is why professors can't find thesis statement in any papers. Seriously, I'd tell any first year to FORGET what they learned in AP English and just start from scratch in college. High school is there to teach you proper grammatical English, not the style of writing in academic English. There's a very big difference-I have gasped at my old papers, how juvenile! This is also why students need to learn how critically read articles and texts in order to skim.... essentially, a good paper should be easy to skim because it's filled with clear transitions and points.</p>
<p>So your D just simply needs to visit the Jacobson Center, perhaps read some of the seniors' theses in the library or articles on a favorite topic to get a sense of academic writing... and be all detail-oriented with her English professor in reviewing the papers. Then it's bye-bye-bye to the Cs.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, high school English teachers tend to teach very stylistic, ambigious writing to encourage the student to avoid the use of "I" and to use active sentences but don't teach exactly how to be direct and clear with the sentences. This is why professors can't find thesis statement in any papers. Seriously, I'd tell any first year to FORGET what they learned in AP English and just start from scratch in college. High school is there to teach you proper grammatical English, not the style of writing in academic English."</p>
<p>Thank you, TMP! It's always a pleasure when you visit the Smith forum, even though you've found another school that fits your goals.</p>
<p>ticklemepink, my AP English teacher must be preparing me well for college, because that sounds exactly like what she expects from us. This makes me feel pretty good knowing that what I'm being taught in English really is preparing me for college.</p>
<p>I second what SMP said about the Jacobson Center. The student tutors are usually good, but making an appointment or two with one of the professors working in the Jacobson Center can be very helpful. They really know what the other professors are looking for.</p>
<p>You can go to them at any stage of your paper -- from planning to final draft.</p>