<p>The D needs to figure this out, she was there for 5 weeks and mom STILL has to step in?</p>
<p>D should slow down, take year one as it it not rush and chill just a bit and mom does not need to be encouraging burn out</p>
<p>And AP classes in HS are not the same as in college, so if she really is interested in an area of study, it may not be worth opting out of some class</p>
<p>I called my Ds school ONCE, and that was to whine about slowness of information...and to make some general suggestions about putting more stuff online and to give examples of what happens at our end- ie telling us about a fun program D may have been interested in but found out about a month after many westcoaster make plane reservations</p>
<p>It wasn't to fix anything for my D, bu for All Ds and Ss out there</p>
<p>BTW, hate the word prestigious when a person decribes a school, sets of warning signals for me...</p>
<p>D D D needs to get on the phone herself, and ask the questions, not mom</p>
<p>There certainly isn't anything wrong with a parent weaning her daughter by taking a middle of the road approach. That's what I was trying to express by post #35. Find out what steps a student takes to get schedule changed, and encouraged D to follow up.</p>
<p>If D is having a hard times getting things done, taking the approach, "yer on yer own kid" may not be helpful.</p>
<p>I vote for lovingly helping child to start to do things on her own.</p>
<p>One other thing I want to mention, for the op to ponder.
Sometimes when our kids can't get things done in a certain way, particularly if that way is something that means more to me than to them, it's because they don't really want to.</p>
<p>Are you sure that this schedule of the "three major" approach is truly what your daughter wants? Just asking.</p>
<p>Majoring in business, education and english?! Sounds like a student who can't make up their mind what they want as a major. If it's a scheduling nightmare first semester of freshman year, I can't even imagine what senior year with student teaching will be like. </p>
<p>Every family/kid dynamic is different. Obviously our family's approach will not work for your child (student's responsiblity since middle school). </p>
<p>IMHO, if you have a student who's maturity level, organzational level, or confidence level precludes them from negotiating their own schedule in college; parental helicoptering maybe should center around guiding them to a path towards graduation they can master themselves.</p>
<p>Isn't it just a little weird that educators attempt to teach students problem solving skills, but parents don't seem to want to let the student do it on there own?</p>
<p>ASAP "Sometimes when our kids can't get things done in a certain way, particularly if that way is something that means more to me than to them, it's because they don't really want to."</p>
<p>Bingo. I notice that when my boys really want to do something -- hmmm -- somehow it gets done! Even stuff that's not easy or straightforward.</p>
<p>07DAD & weenie, I agree! It is hard for some parents to let their students to do what they are supposed to do. These parents feel better by doing things for their kids. Somehow it makes them feel they are better parents because they made their kids' lives easier. I think this thinkiing really hinders their kids' growth in every way.</p>
<p>I would definitely helicopter if my son was having a physical health or mental health meltdown. Other than that--I sort of feel that he has moved beyond my realm and I would not try to control his college from the outside. Maybe I'm not understanding.</p>
<p>When DH was in academic administration, his attitude (and the attitude of his staff and co-workers) to parents who called was: unless this is an extreme situation, if a college kid cannot sort the problem him/herself, the college kid is not ready for college. </p>
<p>I'd be worried that your calls -- repeated calls, at that -- would affect your D negatively by sending the wrong message to departments about her abilities to deal with the realities of school.</p>
<p>This thread had died a natural death, so I'm not sure OP will return. And I somehow missed this when it first ran.</p>
<p>However, it's hard not to respond. </p>
<p>I think it is a big mistake to teach kids to hedge all bets -- i.e. business major but education major, too. These are both vocational and going in opposite directions. Freshman year is way too early to seek second directions if the first is not appropriate. And if it isn't, time enough to drop it and make a commitment to the second.</p>
<p>I haven't intervened once since either kid stepped on his/her campus. Yeah, it's hard. The hardest was not to call Res. life when D had her mice problem. She said the office was not very responsive because Barnard did not own the building they had housed the girls in. It is a regular apartment building that they rented X number of apartments in and assigned them as dorm space. I believed her.</p>
<p>DS is so unproactive (has made only very minimal attempts to get work/study job) that instead of intervening, I told him if his efforts don't improve no more music lessons, an added expense.</p>
<p>It's not the money I'm after; it's only a minimal amount. I want him to learn that people MUST provide for themselves.</p>
<p>I'm not saying that everyone needs a job in college, but he has never really earned money.</p>
<p>Learning to negotiate bureaucracy and financial issues is as useful and course work IMO.</p>
<p>We want them emerging from college ready for the world, grad school, prof. school, job, whatever their destiny mandates.</p>
<p>There were so many misconceptions in this thread from the OP. A triple major in business, education, and Spanish because she could fit all the classes in with careful scheduling? Even putting aside the basic arguments about taking on too much and lack of focus, there was no accounting for all the out of class education major requirements. Education majors are required to do over 100 hours of observation in area schools. They also must do a semester of student teaching. How on earth would the OP's daughter fit that in? Also, the OP hoped her daughter would only have to spend one year in grad school instead of two if she took the right classes in undergrad. That's not the way grad school works. Grad schools take NO classes from undergrad and apply them to grad.</p>
<p>This is why parents really need to leave most of the advising to college advisors. The OP's daughter needed to sit down with her advisor early on and say, "Look, this is what I want to do - help me figure out how to do it." The advisor could reasonably say whether this was doable or not. And schools absolutely, positively want the students to do this themselves. I won't even go into how academics describe helicopter parents. It reflects badly on the student - basically, when the parent makes those phone calls, he/she is saying "My child is not mature." Is that really the impression you want them to get? Especially since these are the people who need to write letters of recommendation for your child's career or graduate school?</p>
<p>Unless it is a life-threatening or legal emergency, parents must step out of the picture. Advise from afar if you like, but please send the kids to the people that can help to do it themselves. And please do it without calling to find out who to talk to, etc. Your child can make that phone call. Let go. It's time. Really.</p>
<p>
[quote]
That's not the way grad school works. Grad schools take NO classes from undergrad and apply them to grad.
[/quote]
Small quibble I actually did get credit for a number of classes I took as an undergrad for architecture grad school. They had to be graduate level classes and ones I took beyond the minimum required as an undergrad. Since my undergrad required 4 courses a term, and I usually took 5, and all the architectural history courses were crosslisted with the architecture grad school of my college, I got quite a few credits. This was a fairly unusual situation however. I can't see it working for teaching.</p>
<p>As to the original question. I have no interest in helicoptering. My son is a legal adult. Of course I'd step in for life threatening health issues, but that's it.</p>
<p>Arch school may be slightly different because of the applied nature and the smaller number of grad schools. This definitely wouldn't work in the humanities and, I believe, most sciences. In fact, most PhD programs won't take more than 6 credits, if any at all, from a masters program - and those are grad classes!</p>
<p>I called my son's university ONCE. When my brilliant son was within a hairsbreadth of flunking out, and I wanted to know what services on campus I should direct him toward. I confess. I called the dean. I did not ask her to intervene, or anything like that. I explained that I was worried about my son, and why, and that I needed to know where to suggest that he go for help.</p>
<p>I got some good ideas, passed them along, and a year (and a diagnosis of ADD and mild depression) later, he's doing great. SON made all the appointments, etc., etc., etc. (and there was a lot of etc.) with me in the background asking him what was going on, providing support, etc. But he dealt with the dean of students, and an appeal to get some courses dropped, and all the rest. He was 19, and I think, on balance, I stepped in just the right amount.</p>
<p>amazon, I am amazed that your student has had such a difficult time with her first semester schedule at a prestigious, private university. And the attitude of her business major advisor is abysmal.</p>
<p>Colleges typically allot ample seats in required courses to accomodate a very high %age if not all of prospective majors in the department. To be closed out of 3 or 4 her first semester is very unusual.</p>
<p>Our son is not a college senior and has never been closed out of a class that he wanted to take. Fall freshman year, incoming students scheduled their classes in four orientation groups and 25% of the seats were allotted to each orientation session so that the last group had the same chance of getting a desirable schedule as the first group. And for the biggies like calculus, physics, engineering principles and chemistry they scheduled enough class sections to accomodate every student. The only problem which some incoming students had was scheduling the first choice Frosh Seminar class if it happened to be one of the more popular ones.</p>
<p>This is what our son did at my suggestion and what every student should strive to do. Before meeting with his advisors(he had 2 being in a dual major program) he carefully reviewed the suggested academic program in the college catalogue and worked out an entire four yr program, accounting for courses which were not scheduled to be taught every semester or every year. During the first meeting with his advisors he briefely reviewed his 4 yr program and his proposed first year semesters in detail. After getting his first term courses approved, he worked out a tentative schedule of class sections including possible options if a first choice section was filled. Finally he was at the computer terminal the minute(and I mean minute) he was able to begin scheduling his classes.</p>
<p>There have been about 3 or 4 instances where classes were closed at the time tried to schedule them. Each time he monitored the master schedule during the intervening time to see if a seat opened up. It did on one occasion and he pouncced on the opportunity. In the other instances he merely met with the professor and got on the wait list and fortunately, every time a seat opened up. It is not uncommon for upperclassmen to over schedule courses and then drop one before or during the first week of the semester. In one instance the professor was able to increase the seats in the class section.</p>
<p>In summary: 1) develop a 4 yr plan frosh year; 2) meet with your advisor to get the first term schedule approved; 3) work up you term class schedule in advance with several options in case a first choice section or class is filled; 4) be at the registrar or at the compute terminal at the earliest possible time to get first crack at each class; 5) if you do get closed out of a class meet with the prof asap to get on a wait list and go to that class on during the first week.</p>
<p>BTW, I did all these things as an undergrad at Ohio State and was never shut out of a class either!!!! It can be done!</p>
<p>I would guess at most smaller institutions it's not all that hard to switch advisors. Typically I think they are assigned to freshman If there is no connection between the OPs daughter and the assigned advisor I would guess that it's pretty easy to change advisors.</p>
<p>I have a little 'insider' experience with closed-out prerequisite classes, since my son is going through this molar-grinding experience with a lab that he needs to move ahead in his major. It seems that some of the large, prereq classes are treated like airline tickets- flights are overbooked, and so are the classes. Meaning less seats available than students who want them. What happens is that between registration in November and classes starting in January, a significant number of students will fail a prerequisite class, or do poorly enough as to cause them to change their minds about their major, or to cause their parents to change their minds about paying for another semester. When this happens, all those "reserved" seats suddenly become available. The students need to keep checking the computer throughout December and the holidays, and if worse comes to worse, contact the teacher. Their school also has the policy that if a student doesn't show up for the first lab (which apparently many do not)- the teacher can unilaterally drop them from the class, no questions and no appeals. Many students simply show up to the lab they want into, and when a student on the roster does not appear, the teacher lets them stay. Sort of like flying standby.</p>
<p>PS my son is not double or triple majoring and would be more than happy to just get into the classes he needs for his one measly major.</p>
<p>I am also an advocate of second hand helicoptering. I have never called either high school or college admins. to advocate for my daughter. When she has a problem, I counsel her on how best to proceed, but I think she would be mortified if she found out I interfered. In fact she said the others in her program were upset by the concessions they saw for a student whose parents had called to complain about the stresses she was being put under. This only alienates the student further and adds to the stress. If there's a medical or mental problem, that's different of course, I'd be on a plane in a heartbeat.</p>