How do kids who got into top schools do so horribly at them?

Parents Forum
41

<p>"For example, I know someone who go into Harvard and is doing extremely bad. However, in HS she was the all-star student and never procrastinated, very smart and took the initiative. . .what happens with these really bright students who end up at the bottom of their class or flunk out?"</p>

<p>Something like 97% of Harvard students graduate from Harvard. Most of the rest graduate from other colleges. For instance, when I was at Harvard, I knew 3 people who transferred, one to Stanford (She was a California girl who missed her home state), one to GWU (She had a fiancee there).</p>

<p>Statistically half of the class will graduate in the bottom of the class. :) Graduating at the very bottom of one's class from a top school certainly isn't the kiss of death. (Heck, McCain graduated at the bottom of his class at Annapolis, and look at what he has accomplished!). Students from the bottom of Harvard's class can go on to illustrious careers in a variety of fields.</p>

<p>It's very hard to be kicked out for good from Harvard and similar schools. That's because the colleges selected students with excellent high school track records, and the colleges tend to stand by their students, viewing any problems as temporary aberrations. </p>

<p>One guy whom I knew flunked all courses his freshman year due to involvement in protest activities and partying, and was told to take a year off. I'm not sure if he ended up graduating from Harvard, but I do know that he's now a successful lawyer. </p>

<p>Anyway, students can go to top colleges and have mediocre grades due to partying, mental health problems, relationship problems, overinvolvement in ECs, or downright stupid mistakes. In general, though, the students who go to the top colleges graduate from those colleges, which tend to have the highest graduation rates in the country.</p>

<p>And even students whose grades were mediocre at places like Harvard can get into graduate and professional schools. I only knew one med school aspirant who didn't get into medical school, and she truly had dreadful grades due to partying. Typically, at Harvard, the question for aspiring lawyers and doctors was which professional school they'd gain entrance to, not whether they'd get accepted anywhere.</p>

42

<p>FYI: According to US News 2008 college guide, the colleges with the highest graduation rate are:</p>

<p>Harvard, 98%
Princeton, Notre Dame, Yale, 96%
Stanford, 95%
Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, U Penn, 94%</p>

<p>In general, the most competitive colleges in the country have the highest graduation rates. Some of the students who don't graduate also transfer to other colleges.</p>

43

<p>No one has mentioned yet the "video game flunk out," probably because you don't see it much at tippy top colleges, but this has been talked about in the media and on collegeconfidential before: kids (generally boys) who, with their first total freedom at college, play World of Warcraft (you fill in the game) all night long and then miss classes the next morning...</p>

44

<p>Along the lines of what NSM noted in post 41 above, I remember what the president of my S#1's top-20 school said at the matriculation ceremony....that more than 90% of the incoming freshmen sitting in the audience had graduated in the top 10% of their high school classes; and that 90% of them would not be able to do that in college, and that that was just fine...</p>

45

<p>I think binge drinking is a problem, but I also know that it is often too simple an answer. One fundamental, and crucial, question that should be asked is "Why is this student binge drinking?" Look below the drinking and there are often deep-rooted problems that need to be addressed (the school is a poor fit and the student is having trouble fitting in, the student has learning difficulties or serious psychological problems and is self-medicating, the student needs help with forging positive social relations, the student was not ready to go off to college yet, the student is having relationship problems with family or friends or a love interest, the student isn't actually interested in academics but is at college because it is the accepted next step in an American youth's experiences, the student is deeply homesick, etc.)</p>

46

<p>
[quote]
A percentage of students admitted to highly selective colleges have as-yet-undiagnosed or unmanaged learning disabilities or ADHD, because they were able to compensate with other strengths in HS.

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</p>

<p>So true (and one can add certain forms of mental illness to the things you mentioned). I saw this happen to several people at college. Nobody noticed that there was anything wrong in grade school, including them, because nobody will notice that a kid who is smart enough to be performing, say, three years above grade level, is only performing two, because of psychological problems/disabilities. The system doesn't know how to spot kids like that unless there are behavior problems. Then the same kid suddenly starts tanking classes at a top college, and doesn't understand what is happening, which just creates anxiety and lowers performance even more, until finally someone realizes what is wrong.</p>

47

<p>re post #43 -</p>

<p>You are so right! Not only that, you have bright, successful people wasting far too much time online when they have a report to finish - OH OOPS, that would be me right now.</p>

<p>Seriously, I also think some of these kids worked so hard in high school and for them the prize was admission to a top notch school. Once they are there, they allow themselves to loosen up and enjoy everything the place has to offer. It may take a while to find a balance and some may get a little too far off track, but overall it's probably a good thing that they relax a little.</p>

48

<p>For me personally it was lack of study skills and maturity. I breezed through HS, aced the SATs, had a very good GPA ... and had done virutally no homwork and zero study skills. I went to a tough school and got smoked and it took me through my sophmore year to grow up and to learn to study. When I started I certainly was capable of good work ... I was just way too immature and had no skills ... and was finally at a school where those shortcomings were quite apparent (and I always will be grateful for the life lesson)</p>

49

<p>"re:</p>

<p>Harvard, 98%
Princeton, Notre Dame, Yale, 96%
Stanford, 95%
Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Georgetown, U Penn, 94%"</p>

<p>You could just sort colleges by average family income, and you'll be reasonably close to a sort by graduation rates.</p>

50

<p>bessie, post#30--Your answer is spot on regarding this problem of pseudo high school intellectuals. Many times when these kids get to college (whether it's an Ivy or not), they have to actually think, explore, reason, create, analyze, persuade, etc. for the very first time in their lives and also succeed in these skills without the assistance of their sometimes/often overly involved parents. It's all too often when parents that view the Ivy leagues as the prize of their parenting skills, are too involved in their kids high school assignments and often times "help" too much. Also, the kids can't simply achieve by having mastered the format of the typical standardized/multiple choice type testing in high school.
There are of course many factors that contribute to the struggles of these students--new surroundings, more rigorous grading systems, first time independence/responsibilities, lack of sleep, pressure to succeed in the eyes of their parents, feeling of being a small fish in a sea of sharks, etc. Sometimes the school is just not a good fit in terms of environment rather than academics.</p>

51

<p>It seems to me that at very competitive colleges, very, very few students "bomb out" because the academics were too hard for them; it is almost always a personal problem or a poor personal choice. I wonder if this is as true when you are talking about schools with a more open admissions policy but "weed out" courses in certain majors.</p>

52

<p>I agree. I live near Yale, know many students, grads and professors and you don't bomb out at Yale or other Ivies unless you don't show up, hand in work well below standards or have severe emotional problems. (and those usually get time off) Grades are very inflated and one professor said she gave up trying to give out C's to students that really deserved it. You work hard, don't get me wrong, but for many, it's not quite as bad as they thought.
My daughter's high school offers classes there as well as other colleges and many of students do very well although they are juniors and seniors in high school. One girl didn't do her Intro to Psych paper until 2 days before it was due and got an A. Another girl though had a TA tell her her paper was "immature" and got a C which she brought up to an A next time. Their best friend was put into a higher level music history course because it was too easy. Of course many classes are extremey difficult but it take the mystery away a bit.
"Maybe" I will see in the next two years (depending on Psat scores and grades) if my daughters get to test the waters of a class or two themselves. Whether it's a state school or Yale, I'm glad for one FREE option for school with years of loans looming. : )</p>

53

<p>I have to agree with InterestedDad - sure - there are lots of reasons kids bomb out in school - but attack the binge drinking problem - or substance abuse problem - and the bomb out numbers would decline precipitously. </p>

<p>This notion applies all the more to athletes - although some get away with it - drinking and drugs kills more scholarship athletic careers than any other factor.
I am not sure what I would do if I were a Div. 1 coach - my instinct would be to treat every athlete like an adult and not hover over them - but at the same time, exceedingly tough drinking and drug rules - enforced to the hilt - would vastly improve my performance level of the team - at a cost, of course, of having a mean reputation.</p>

54

<p>
[quote]
...one professor said she gave up trying to give out C's to students that really deserved it.

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</p>

<p>That's pretty sad. It's not true at all top schools, though. It certainly wasn't true at mine.</p>

55

<p>That sounds a little urban legend-y. It's hard to imagine any Yale professor saying, "I have given up trying to uphold academic standards." It just doesn't fit. And it's not as though Yale has a superpowerful administration that grinds the faculty under its heel to make them behave. If a dean or any administrator so much as suggested, officially, that a faculty member change grading standards, we'd be reading about it in the New York Times for the next year.</p>

<p>I got a C on my first paper at Yale. Actually, it wasn't exactly a C. The professor -- Victor Brombert, who later defected to Princeton -- gave a whole lovely mini-lecture, in French, about how he refused to submit to a letter grading system, because it just couldn't carry the nuance that the 100-point scale did. (And Brombert was all about nuance. Wonderful teacher.) So I got my paper back, and I had gotten a 75. It was THAT mediocre -- I didn't even deserve any nuance.</p>

56

<p>I rarely hear kids who actually attend these schools say how easy they are. It's always someone "heard" how easy the classes are. But these same people never mention the cake classes at their own schools.</p>

<p>My son at Brown has said he's never seen kids work so hard (study so much and so often). Now I concede that probably isn't EVERY student and maybe he just happens to only know focused kids who are there to learn. His friends at other top schools are definitely finding the workload difficult, more than they're used to (and he had 9 or 10 APs in HS). OTOH, his very capable friends at state schools aren't complaining about the workload in general, although they have encountered some tough courses. But I wouldn't say state schools are easy just based on those few opinions. There are probably easy classes or easy professors at any school. Just depends on how many and the number of students are choosing them.</p>

<p>I'm sure there are teachers who give Cs at top schools. He has kids in his classes who are failing. In fact, one kid has posted repeatedly about how badly he/she was doing (had a 6% I think I read on the last exam - the avg was a 40. An A was an 85+ I believe). </p>

<p>We know kids at different top schools and I'm just not seeing the grade inflation people keep speaking of. Perhaps some kids are getting As because they are self-motivated, intelligent students capable of getting As. How else would they have been accepted?</p>

57

<p>I laughed when I read this:

[quote]
you don't bomb out at Yale or other Ivies unless you don't show up, hand in work well below standards or have severe emotional problems.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ae you claiming that there are lots of colleges where kids who show up, hand in work up to standards, and have no severe emotional problems still flunk out?</p>

<p>The idea that Yale is grade-inflated is nonsense. You might want to wander over to the law boards. To determine grade inflation, law schools use the actual median gpa of law school applicants applying from any given undergraduate college calculated by LSDAS (law school data assembly service), using the same scale for everyone and compare it to the actual median LSAT score earned by those same applicants. </p>

<p>Poster bluedevilmike went through the work to figure out which colleges were grade de-/inflated using this test. Yale is one of the schools on the grade DEflated list. </p>

<p>Somehow, some people think that the distribution of grades at Rockyquarry Community College and Harvard should be the same. If Rockyquarry, where the median SAT score is 850, gives out more Cs than Harvard does that make it less "grade inflated" than Harvard? </p>

<p>If the median GPA at your local high school in the IB track is a 3.4 and that in the regular track is a 3.1, is the IB program "grade inflated?" Would the kid who has a 3.1 in the regular track have a 3.4 in the IB program? </p>

<p>Yes, certainly there might be a kid --maybe more than one--at Rockyquarry who could get a 4.0 at Harvard. However, there are going to be a lot of students like those describe by a prof at a lower tier college in that article which was recently the focus of another thread on this site. So, the fact that Rockyquarry CC has a lower median gpa than Harvard doesn't mean the grading there is more rigorous. </p>

<p>And how does the fact that a kid didn't write a paper until 2 days before it was due --in intro psych of all things!--and still got an A prove that the course was easy? I assure you that at every college there are kids who write papers the night before they are due and get As. It's hard to do that when the paper requires extensive research, but most papers aren't of that type. And when it's an introductory course--in other words, one with no prerequisites--in a subject that most kids don't study in high school, why on earth would you think that a junior or senior in high school couldn't do well in it?</p>

58

<p>I didn't say all the grades were inflated, and of course Yale is a great school, but I know there is grade inflation there and at other universities/colleges. It isn't just Yale. I actually thought it was the NY Times that had a great magazine article on this subject a year or so ago. I can't find that one but this article touched on it. The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Is It Grade Inflation, or Are Students Just Smarter?
Carnegie</a> Perspectives: Grade Inflation: It's Not Just an Issue for the Ivy League</p>

<p>Smart students will do well, but there are many reasons for the trend to have students look better on paper. I guess hearing it often over the years and working at Yale, it didn't surprise me, but to say it doesn't exist at all is wrong.</p>

<p>Many students work hard and want to do well, and they graduate and are well prepared, at all colleges, but others, sadly, just like in high school, are given the paper saying they did well, but they didn't.</p>

59

<p>jerzgrlmom - I agree. I found undergraduate work at a top 10 USNWR school very challenging and very competitive - and except for a few - most worked very hard. This was over 25 years ago, but still...it likely has only become more intense. </p>

<p>Graduate school (Tier 1 law school), on the other hand, was easy. I was bored and looking for things to do (so I worked a job after first year along with law review stuff). I realized it had little to do with intelligence - rather - the honors program at my undergrad school, prepared me so well that it was easy.</p>

60

<p>My brother's godson got a .9 average at Cornell and they did not kick him out. The young man's outraged mother withdrew him and stuck him into a comm college part time with a part time job, as she did not care to spend $45K a year on those kinds of results.
Now more than 5 years later, he still does not have his degree, take a course here and there, works here and there, now and again. My brother said that other kids who had the same situation at the school just continued on their way and graduated, albeit a year or so later. Somehow they worked it out with the school. And Cornell has a pretty tough rep as the hardest ivy to graduate from.</p>