<p>I wish I were a stem person. My strengths are actually in the humanities. -_-!</p>
<p>Last year, my S was accepted into a competitive program at one of his top choices. As a result, at the end of the year, his HS adviser asked him to speak to a group of younger students at the school who were planning to apply to that same program in subsequent years. The whole point of the meeting was to address the question: “How did you get in?” </p>
<p>Our HS community is pretty tight knit. Many of the parents are alums of the school, many have lived in this area all their lives. I’ve known most of my sons’ friends since elementary school, and some since preschool. My H coached them in Little League, I was the library mom who read to them every week. Do I care that the boy who was shy, awkward, and cut from the HS baseball team landed the boffo merit scholarship at his first choice school? Do I remember his name? Do I remember the QBs name, the guy who broke his leg so horribly senior year? You bet I do – we all do. We cheered for each others’ children, celebrated every success, consoled the disappointed and urged them to try again. I know we will be attending many of our sons’ friends’ weddings and celebrating the births of THEIR children. We’ve built lifetime relationships here; we’re not just passing through.</p>
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<p>That was certainly my experience and those of most HS classmates and those who attended similar academically rigorous public magnets and private schools…including those attending HYPS and top 30 universities/LACs. </p>
<p>Only exceptions were those attending schools like Reed, MIT, Caltech, Cornell, or UChicago where classmates reported the workload was equivalent. </p>
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<p>Some of us still procrastinated. Only difference was a matter of degree as it wasn’t until college and grad school that I started to see how procrastination and use of generous extensions by Profs could be carried to IMHO absurd extremes*. </p>
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<li>Know of several folks in grad school at the coursework stage who actually bragged about having extensions lasting for 2 or more semesters. No way would such students have been tolerated at my HS…especially if they had teachers like my US History/Government who’d literally shut & lock the door on anyone arriving even a second later than the start of class and mark them absent for the period. She had absolutely no tolerance for coming to class or turning in any late work unless it’s a serious documented case such as sudden hospitalization.<br></li>
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<p>Depends on the STEM student and the quality of HS & K-8 preparation. Most HS classmates and those from similar HS like TJSST found college STEM courses to be “more manageable” and reasonably paced than their HS courses. </p>
<p>Even the classmates who were C/D students who later aced undergrad at a public institution or private where they received a nice scholarship package/low tuition and transferred to elite universities/LACs like Reed, Columbia, or CMU. Most were engineering/CS type majors with a pre-med thrown in. </p>
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<p>I knew many kids like this at my HS and from friends at other colleges. A reason why many such STEM students make it a point to pick humanities/SS courses with as little reading and writing requirements as possible and why few would ever apply to an LAC*.</p>
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<li>Even the 100-level courses expected a minimum of 80-200+ pages of reading a week on average and a few “heavy” 5-15 page papers. HS classmates like that really hated the humanities/SS classes due to the writing requirements and really detested the 20 page English thesis required for our HS’ diploma.</li>
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<p>Always strikes me when it’s said college is easier. I went to a very tough hs and only found the first year of college easy. Same with grad school - only the first semester was easy.</p>
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HL is usually treated roughly the same as AP–the complaint that a lot of IB kids have is that the SL exam usually gets nothing, although it’s often equivalent to an AP as well. Some of the heavy workload of IB comes outside the courses, such as from the Extended Essay.</p>
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No, I don’t think that’s the main value, although it is a benefit. I think the main benefit is the well-thought out curriculum which (in my opinion) is very good for kids with broad and balanced interests–less good for kids with more specialized interests, especially STEM.</p>
<p>I’m an aspiring computer science major currently in AP CS, AP Calc BC, and AP Physics C: Mech/E&M and do better in them than in AP English or AP Gov (which are usually considered to be easy APs), but I don’t really feel like a STEM person, possibly because I prefer learning for its own sake over learning immediately applicable, practical skills.</p>
<p>My english teacher in high school had previously taught in college. She said she preferred teaching high school because the kids put more effort into their essays. Of course, this was a special magnet high school, but I think she thought that even talented kids mail it in a little bit once they reach college, at least in their humanities classes.</p>
<p>I know I spent a lot of time anguishing over which words I was using in an essay when I was a kid. I don’t think talent in humanities makes writing an easy process, even though it might be easier to “get” what is being said in class. In fact, I think it makes it harder. You see fine differences in phrasing and word choice.</p>
<p>I was in the “overstudying” group, although I think overstudying in “easy” classes helped me in the few classes that I needed to study in to get an “A”.</p>
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<p>Most math and science majors feel the same way, I think.</p>
<p>IB HL math has lot more than AP Calc BC.</p>
<p>IB HL economics has both Micro and Macro as well additional stuff.</p>
<p>IB English HL has both language and Lit.</p>
<p>IB Spanish HL has both language and lit.</p>
<p>IB is crazy. I can see why anyone in IB would think that college had less work.</p>
<p>^^S2 didn’t get any more credit from his IB scores than he did from his AP scores from the same classes. His IB SL Econ covered macro and micro since they knew that most kids were going to take the corresponding APs. That happened in a lot of classes at his IB program – they covered material for both AP and IB. </p>
<p>Pre-IB English in 9th grade was MUCH tougher than my older S’s AP Eng Lang/Comp. There was no question who got the better English instruction in HS.</p>
<p>The debate between AP and IB continues… My daughter will be in the full IB program next year along with AP Spanish. Most of her friends are doing full AP, however many chose HL / IB English.</p>
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Unfortunately, that “small amount of difficult work” seemed to take a very long time to do.</p>
<p>Yea, but I hate busy work that takes forever. >_<</p>
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<p>Indeed. The American embassies in London, Paris, and Berlin are constantly crowded with huddled refugees, selling their meagre possessions on the black market, waiting for a chance to jump the fence to freedom.</p>
<p>Those aren’t the countries that we’re supposed to mimic how to do things. Nice try.</p>
<p>I see. Precisely which countries did you have in mind? Iraq? North Korea? Somalia? And who says that the USA should mimic them?</p>
<p>I routinely hear people say that the USA should mimic aspects of European or maybe Chinese/Japanese/South Korean educational systems. But nobody is ‘fleeing’ those countries to go to the USA.</p>
<p>keepittoourself, you’re kind of coming in late to a discussion that’s been going on for years. The question is why people want to come here to get into selective US colleges, and then complain that admissions aren’t done the same way they are in their home countries (i.e., by a single high-stakes test). I don’t recall ever seeing this complaint from a person from Europe.</p>
<p>I think that so many applicants are close enough that the composition and mood of the individuals on an admission committee on a given day matters mucho. Long line at Starbucks not good for first 3 apps of the day. </p>
<p>They say don’t have elective surgery on a Friday since the people are thinking weekend. Similar concept.</p>
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<p>At least some European countries base university admissions just on high school grades or final exam scores, helped by having consistent courses and curricula across all high schools (so no need for external-to-high-school standardized tests like the SAT and ACT).</p>
<p>But could the difference be that even the most selective universities in those countries do not have more “maximum academic credential” applicants than they can admit, so there is no need for them to either use an opaque admissions process that considers non-academic factors (as the super-selective universities in the US do) or a very high stakes test designed to separate an academically elite group of applicants to admit (as universities in some countries in Asia do)?</p>