How to handle disappointing freshman grades?

<p>Sometimes you can get unlucky. My son was with the TA who gave out lots of C’s, the other one in the same course gave out A’s. My son was in a physics course where he never did figure out what his lab reports were missing, but he’s not the sort to fight for better grades either. He aced the tests and ended up with a B in the course.</p>

<p>My son had two “difficult TAs”. One was from an Asian country with poor English skills who didn’t know what he was doing. My son contacted the lab director and they made some large adjustments. It was around the middle of the semester and they made grade adjustments upwards to compensate for the problems. The problems were mainly that the lab directions were unclear and that the TA never graded anything.</p>

<p>I don’t recall what the problems were with the other TA but he took it up the management chain and got it taken care of. I think that this is just the way it is with TAs.</p>

<p>If I remember correctly, your son got a good scholarship to this school. Does it have a GPA minimum?</p>

<p>I didn’t realize how much “power” TAs have. They determine the grades and sometimes it seems pretty arbituary. My son took a class this past semester and he felt he knew the material completely. Certainly as much as anyone else in the class. But he was getting Bs and Cs, while his study buddies were pulling in As. When he asked his TA, he was told he needed to study more. Not very helpful. Eventually, he learned he needed to use the “keywords” in his answers and that made all the difference. </p>

<p>Maybe I’m completely wrong here, but my guess is that TAs give prefernece to those students they get to know. So, once again, it’s not about the knowledge but about the relationship. No wonder why quiet boys don’t do as well.</p>

<p>So glad my S doesn’t deal with TA’s, because from experience I can tell you they have their own agenda and it may not necessarily be teaching at all, let alone teaching for the time being.</p>

<p>Son got the first C of his life first semester freshman year. And yes he worked hard but he also had a lot of adjusting to do… making new friends, finding his way around campus, etc. Heck! Even fitting in the process of doing one’s laundry is an adjustment! So… I would definitely talk about expectations he has for himself. Those you have for him and try to find out if perhaps the tests, papers, etc (whatever was used in grading) was also a learning challenge. Face it, kids learn to write for their audience and by senior year they have a pretty good sense of the teachers and what they want. College is VERY MUCH about the LEARNING CURVE.</p>

<p>Also… I would not in any way rush to diagnosis a kid with ADHD - borderline or otherwise - especially if it might be because they’re not pulling all A’s at college. As someone who actually has ADHD and has two children with varying degrees of it as well, I honestly feel there is a rush to diagnosis when there are certain skills that may require simple maturation vs a medical intervention. There is something to be said for resilience and the ability to sustain effort… give your kid a chance to build both up to the level he needs it to be. </p>

<p>And by the way… my own’s son’s grades improved greatly second semester but it came totally from his own desire to push himself. This semester he landed all varying degree of the A and yes, worked his butt off.</p>

<p>Also, in honors classes, the bottom 1/4-1/3 of the class may drop down to non-honors after the first midterm. So even if you start in the middle of the class, you may find yourself well in the bottom half in the second half of the quarter/semester even if nothing changes.</p>

<p>Limabeans: </p>

<p>One of my kids was a TA and a head-TA in college for several professors. He told me that the TAs who grade papers are given a grading-instruction sheet for each graded assignment. The grading sheet contained the Professors’ grading guidelines, including key terms that the Professors expect to be identified. If a grading sheet had key terms that the professors were looking for (since learning the terms was part of the course), the students would get a point for using them. Likewise, there were points for issue spotting and for correct answers. The points got totaled up and were either provided to the Professors for final grading if there was a curve, or a grade was assigned based on the Professor’s grading sheet. </p>

<p>The TAs sometimes go back to the Professor - for ex., my kid once ran across a paper that was written extremely poorly. The paper was full of spelling and grammatical errors, and the student rambled incoherently about off-point topics. It was almost as if the student who wrote it was drugged or emotionally unstable, and my kid wanted to review it with the Professor. The Professor told my kid that they were not there to grade writing, but only to grade whether the student had identified the specific material in the answer-key. Aaaargh.</p>

<p>By the way, any paper graded by a TA can be appealed to the Professor.</p>

<p>I agree with everyone else about the surprises in college and the potential for dropping out of the honors college. One of my kids was in an honors college and had dropped out by Junior year. Aside from the housing option, it wasn’t a big deal at his school, didn’t affect his scholarship and dropping out relieved him from taking certain honors seminars so he could pursue other interests. I admit that I would have liked it on his diploma, but I understood his reasons. </p>

<p>Sometimes the study skills needed in college are very different than the ones that got students good grades in high school. The adjustment can be most difficult (1) for the really bright kids who floated easily through high school and may have to learn effective study skills for the first time, and (2) for the kids whose parents were very involved in helping them through high school, who are now on their own when it comes to time management and studying. Of course, there are also kids who can’t adjust to dorm life, enjoy the partying too much, hate their courses, are taking courses with curves (unlike high school) etc. First semester is often a huge wake up call for freshmen that they’re in a whole new world.</p>

<p>The professor manages the TAs as resouces and can give them little freedom or a lot of freedom. Some professors like to spend a lot of time on research and give their TAs a freer hand when it comes to grading. Students need to realize this - unfortunately you won’t find it in the student handbook but students will learn about it by the end of the first semester.</p>

<p>There are TAs who are less than professional and professors who grade in odd ways. But they are usually the exception, rather than the rule. I think that a student who averages one disappointing grade per semester could reasonably blame it on the TAs, but students who are consistently disappointed need to search for other causes of the problem as well.</p>

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<p>This may not be enough to ensure an A for several reasons:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Homework assignments in college are usually fewer and farther between than in high school. There may be a substantial amount of course material not included in the problem sets that students need to learn on their own.</p></li>
<li><p>Many college tests are essay-style. Students who have difficulty with writing may lose points because their answer isn’t sufficiently coherent or because they don’t know how to respond appropriately to an essay prompt.</p></li>
<li><p>The sophistication expected on college papers is often much greater than what was required in high school. </p></li>
<li><p>Some material is just plain difficult. Going to class and doing the reading may not be enough. Students may have to seek out extra practice problems, go to the TA or professor’s office hours, work with other students, or even seek tutoring to master some subjects.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Limabeans…D also discovered this past semester (her 1st) how much effect a TA can have on your grade. She had a TA for a psych lab. (Psych was supposed to be her “easy” class FWIW.) Anyway, she had A+'s on all her tests in the lecture (taught by professor), but the TA gave her a B and B+ on her papers. The papers, at her school, are not returned but rather the grades are merely posted via the Internet. She was completely stressed out because she knew she had to make a 97 on her final to pull an A-; she got a 100. At her school, A-'s are worth 3.7 and A’s and A+'s are both worth 4.0 (something we didn’t bother to ask about when reviewing schools – not that it really matters, though). It does make me wonder, however, if all colleges weight grades the same. I know high schools certainly don’t. </p>

<p>OP…That first semester is a huge adjustment for MANY kids (speaking from my own experience). Your S will most likely improve next semester; if not, then I might start having frank discussions. I would suggest giving him space right now, though. It’s tough and scary for some kids to all of a sudden be on their own, and part of that adjustment might mean lower grades their first semester in effort to “figure it all out”. Good luck!</p>

<p>In my grad school days, I TA’d in two different departments at two UC’s. In one department, the professors I worked with never saw any student work; the TA’s evaluated all the papers and also prepared final grades. We were not given any guidelines about grading; as graduate students, we were just supposed to know what good work looked like. In another department, one of the five or six professors I worked for liked to help grade the final exam. But other than that, the professors did not see student work during the term and with that one exception, they didn’t help with exams either. It’s not surprising to me that the feedback students get from TA’s is all over the map.</p>

<p>I’m amazed at some of the stuff I’m reading here concerning the latitude TA’s have in the grading process. My H is a math professor at USC and there’s just no way he would be giving the TA’s as much free reign as I’m reading about here. Further, H spends long hours HIMSELF grading the mid-terms (usually two a semester) and the finals.</p>

<p>^^i’ll add that I’m amazed parents know their kids grades. We stopped asking in middle school. And in college we never asked and she never showed us, although we would get calls about academic accomplishments she was proud of. She’s now applying to graduate school at Stanford, USC, UCLA, and Cal.</p>

<p>maybe the problem is that our generation of parents is way to involved with our children’s performance.</p>

<p>I’ve heard of parents calling college professors and parents who have gone on job interviews with their kid…unreal.</p>

<p>My way of thinking is more in line with pacheight’s at this point, although it wasn’t always so. D is now in her second year in college, and first year was definitely a challenge for her. I did ask her about grades regularly. Then I realized that she was working hard, she was pushing herself, she had a difficult load in a major she wasn’t entirely wed to and that ultimately, success or failure depended upon her. If she got an A in a course or a C in a course - well, it wouldn’t impact me. Yes, I want her to be successful, but for herself, not for me. I jokingly ask if her grades are good enough to return and yes, they always are. She’s in her school’s engineering honors program and didn’t necessarily have the advanced background many of her classmates arrived with but she has persevered. She’s found her way to a major she likes and is enthusiastic about; no, it’s not what she intended when she came to college, but it’s what she’s enjoying the most.</p>

<p>Spreaking of TA’s , and Asian TA’s. I was one of them over 25 years ago. I was good at my English back then. In addition, grading is a matter of knowing your class subject matter. I am sure there are bad TA’s. But there are plenty of good ones. There are tougher TA’s , in terms of handing out A’s. In my case, the Prof. always watches over our shoulders. We were, afterall, a bunch of 20 year-old kids at the time. </p>

<p>On the topic of GPA and grade inflation, or lack thereof, here are two papers talking about it.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/education/26grades.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/education/26grades.html&lt;/a&gt;
[The</a> Truth About Harvard - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/03/the-truth-about-harvard/3726/]The”>The Truth About Harvard - The Atlantic)</p>

<p>As far as I can tell, there are well-known tough schools (in terms of getting an A in class)like MIT, Bekeley and there are well-known “easy” schools like Harvard. Interesting stuff!</p>

<p>My son had disappointing grades his first semester, got a D- in Philosophy, which put him on academic probation, and only allowed him to proceed with 12 credits this semester. He appealed, and actually was allowed to go back to taking 15 credits. My question is, should he retake it in the summer, even though it is passing? I don’t believe his major need’s a masters degree, so should we just move along? Hopefully he has had a wake up call, and puts academics before social. He loves his university.</p>

<p>Of course it is up to him, but it sounds to me that philosophy was not his cup of tea. If his other grades look all right and he is not under pressure to have a certain level of GPA, I would not suggest that he retake philosophy.</p>

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<p>We don’t ask. The kids tell us. They are well aware of what it takes financially to go to college and they are happy to tell us they are succeeding even if they passed a class by the skin on their teeth. It’s just one type of family dynamic…there are many different families with many different dynamics.</p>

<p>I’m hoping he would not have to retake Philosophy. His GPA was just short of a 2, which is why they put him on probation.I would think this will be his lowest scores, now that he knows what to expect. He probably won’t make it into his major this year, which is pretty disappointing, these large gen eds take a lot of focus.</p>