<p>Happy to say mine has straight A's ...continuing on her HS record. And loves the school (UMDCP)</p>
<p>Mine is doing well. No longer straight A's but considering his engineering studies, we weren't expecting it. He will be home Wednesday, and I can't wait to see him.</p>
<p>Just got off from IM'ing her...she's finishing up a week-long take-home Math final...I can just envision how brutal <em>that</em> must be. Another class didn't have a final, I don't think...just papers and a third class should be a slam-dunk for her. Of the fourth solid, I have no idea. I would hope that neither ballet nor orchestra are any problem.</p>
<p>But when she was home for Thanksgiving, she was burbling away about schedule options for sophomore and senior years and said that she'd need to take either X or Y for Latin Honors...which tells me that she's gunning for them. Competitive 'R Us.</p>
<p>Home a week from Wednesday. Can't wait.</p>
<p>Found a great secret library to study in--but says that if he stops in on his floor--the guys all follow him to his secret study spot. </p>
<p>Downside of BMOC I guess!</p>
<p>D2 is doing well academically, straight A's . She's up to here in studies/diving/music, and is finding out the hard way that life doesn't have enough time to do <em>everything</em> you want to do. She had to drop a couple of EC activities, after much anguishing.</p>
<p>On the bright side, she seems to be having a great time in college, and is bonding a lot with D1, who's here at home before starting graduate studies next year. Nice to see the kids open up to each other, even if us po' ol' parents are kept out of the loop... :-)</p>
<p>Dunno! He seems to be doing okay but he was never a grade hound so its hard to tell what his first grade report will be. He doesn't know or seem certain of any grade yet but "thinks" he is carrying a B+ or A in each class into finals. He could have found out what his Psych grade was last week but didn't bother to pick up his final midterm exam. Same thing in his Minds and Machines course.</p>
<p>One thing for certain is he will not be getting strait A's. RPI requires an exam called Gateway for all Calc 1&2 students. It is an 8 question computerized test that students can take as many times as they want. To get an A requires 8 of 8 correct, 6 of 8 for a B, 4 of 8 for a C and less than 4 results in a D. A student can have a class grade of 100+, but will receive a C if his Gateway score is less than 6. Always the procrastinator, he finally took it last nite, got a 7 and happily left, leaving an open seat for waiting procrastinators.</p>
<p>Since most posts seem to equate grades with how someone's doing, I'll throw in that mine just said "Dad, grades are bullcrap. I'm not in high school any more."</p>
<p>Ummm I think grades certainly do indicate a lot about how someone is doing. I know from my daughters grades she is keeping the good work habits she had in HS. My girlfriends son is partying all the time and his grades are down the tube.
So yeah grades are certainly a helpful indicator of what my kid is doing.</p>
<p>Don't know my S's grades yet, but he seems to be doing fine. He seems content, though perhaps not as deleriously happy as some of the College Confidential kids seem to be! I thought once he got home, I would find out all the details, but he is not that chatty. Honestly, finding out what is going on with him is like some sort of weird game of 20 questions, every once in awhile, if I ask the right question, I'll be rewarded with a tidbit of info. So I'm not finding out all that much! But he'll be here for three weeks, so I'm bound to find out something eventually! There don't appear to be roommate issues. His professors are WAAY better than his high school teachers. The dorm food is terrible. That's what I know. </p>
<p>As far as grades go, I am not expecting straight A's, (though would be delighted and shocked if it happened, even if only for one quarter). He thinks he did well in math, so I wonder if he got an A there. . . He got an A- on his first paper in humanities, which he claims is better than his high school grade on any paper, so that put my mind at ease. I always thought he was a good writer, even if he never would stick to the five paragraph formula they pushed in high school. UChicago doesn't graduate many with straight A's. They're not as bad as Harvey Mudd, though, where I think I read it has happened once!</p>
<p>I don't completely know about grades but mine is working as hard, probably harder, though compensated by the asbsence of so many ballet classes. However, she is also working happier, with no busywork and every class being of interest.</p>
<p>Same here, TheDad--one of the tidbits of info that I wheedled out of him was "no busywork." Isn't that wonderful? His refusal to do busywork in high school (except for those times when it became obvious that he was in danger of failing a course if he didn't do some of it) was a big factor in his less than stellar gpa there.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Honestly, finding out what is going on with him is like some sort of weird game of 20 questions, every once in awhile, if I ask the right question, I'll be rewarded with a tidbit of info. </p> </blockquote>
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<p>Isn't that the truth! I have definitely come to the conclusion that "20 questions" doesn't work. I think it's simply a matter that our kids are living a whole new world and it is not easy to distill their experiences into short answers.</p>
<p>BTW, I disagree with Angstridden about grades as a measure of how a freshman is doing. That's one small slice of the puzzle, but the college experience is about far more than that. To be perfectly honest, I am more interested in learning about the kids my daughter is hanging out with, her thought process on choosing courses going forward, etc. </p>
<p>Of course, that better be my outlook because I don't anticipate many "straight-A" semesters at Swarthmore. Pass/fail first semester is a great stress reducer for incoming freshmen....</p>
<p>Spent this weekend celebrating my daughter's ED success but lamenting the lack thereof of my boyfriend's freshman son. He is at a large State school where he is having little fun and getting little attention. He is one of very few blacks, and even white kids are few at this Asian majority school with no diversity. It is not at all social as many kids commute. I'm having trouble thinking of solutions as I think he just chose a bad fit. To further complicate, his grades are dismal, so the tranfer options will be limited. What now?</p>
<p>The only comment we got on finals/grades was that "the calculus exam was 15 pages long and I am pretty sure that I didn't flunk." </p>
<p>I have to admit that I was more interested in the roommate stories and other activities too. It is interesting to see how he is spending his time without any supervision. His little sister was trying to interrogate him about his new friends and possible girlfriends. He just smiled. We didn't get too much information yet, but after a few days we will! </p>
<p>I am sure that when his final grades are released he'll share them. We have no idea when that will be.</p>
<p>Umm...agree with the "Dads"...D did very well in high school...worked her behind off...finds college work "challenging"...'specially in her best subject, math! But...it's good to be challenged "together" with the great group of friends she has connected with. Yesterday, she made another one of those random phone calls when I was running off to pick up her sisters before dinner...was taking a break from writing a 10 page paper...and studying for her calc final scheduled for the next day...but, for a change of pace, bunch of them did find the time to get up in the wee hours to walk to IHOP for breakfast that morning. Oh the grades...probably not straight A's...she's doing fine. She was more excited about getting into the classes she wanted for next semester...</p>
<p>Kirmum...UC Irvine by any chance?</p>
<p>That easy to recognize, theDad? This is certainly not college as I knew it! UCSD, where my oldest is, is often accused of having no social life, but it's Disneyland compared to Irvine. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>i am not a frosh but i have gotten grades in three of my classes so far. A, A, and A. I am still waiting on three grades. Final projects were just handed in today. So far in those three classes I have a B, B+, and A.. so hopefully my final projects are decent :)</p>
<p>kirmum, he has to join a club or two which interests him.
My next door neighbor goes to Irvine and he is having a good time and finding the school challenging. He is not Asian. He is now a soph and living in Newport Beach with a few friends in a house. Not a bad place to live. You are not going to get the rah-rah of a school like Michigan, or a college town feel like Berkeley, so you have to take advantage of what the school has to offer...great beaches, beautiful people, fantastic weather, many businesses to find internships with, and all that LA has to offer (it's not that far).</p>
<p>Happy to say yours has straight A's? Is that really how you measure success in your Frosh year these days? I have seen a lot of people here who have straight A's, are utterly miserable, and end up transferring. At first when I saw the title of this thread, I thought it would be a discussion on how your frosh is liking it at the college, not how high the GPA is. That is high-school talk.</p>