So our D just finished freshman year at a highly selective university. She took AP classes in high school, did well and thought she was prepared for her first year. First semester was fine she retook a couple of classes but then second semester hit… Granted she is in a tough major but did not realize that the next math sequence would be so hard! The professors, knowing that many kids were coming from very rigorous schools, made the calc mid terms extremely difficult… the kids who had already taken the class did fine but those who had not made the low grades… C, D, F. Crazy. The same issue came up in physics… even though calc I and II were the “required” math pre-reqs. the class was geared for those who had completed calc III. D wishes that at orientation or during class selection she had known what was necessary to really excel in those classes. She did alright but will now really have to dig out next semester. Definitely not a soft landing for the first year. She has already told us she will be taking two other core science classes elsewhere in the summer because of this same issue.
Engineering is very difficult at any school. Most highly selective schools will not accept classes taken elsewhere.
Thank you for your insight.
As a student at an Ivy League school, I feel compelled to make a couple of posts.
I will agree. But probably not unique to Ivy League colleges. The expectation for most is that the student will hit the ground running.
You did not mention the specific college (nor is it necessary), but at my college, and others, both Ivy and its peers, there are various levels in both math and physics. e.g. we have 4 different versions of MVC/LA (Calc 3 & 4) depending on prior preparation. They all still lead to the same next point in the sequence. I have known students who, against advisor’s advice. enroll in a level higher than they should. I’m not saying that was your D’s case, but it happens.
Regardless, anyone coming thinking this is an extension of HS, no matter how rugged the HS, will have an eye-opening experience.
Again, this may be school specific, but my college does not accept summer school credits from other schools, so she should verify.
Not just the Ivy League schools-a lot of elites practice weeding out of students in the introductory classes. My son says that at his Top 20 school, kids who took Calculus BC in high school and were retaking the class were doing poorly. At his school, Calculus 3 is much easier than Calculus 1/2. I have heard that Statistics is harder than the equivalent AP class.
I don’t think it’s professors deliberately making the tests difficult as much as making students adjust to a different style of learning. A lot of the STEM classes are focused more on the use of abstract concepts and in the case of Calculus and other higher math classes, the derivation of formulas and using proofs instead of plug and chug questions. The students who adjust quickly enough will do well.
And if the classes your daughter will be taking over the summer are General or Organic Chemistry, a lot of kids will do that over the summer. Cramming a year’s worth of science classes in 8-9 weeks is not the most optimal solution but some students feel that their home schools deliberately weed out students in those classes.
Especially for schools that have a high reputation for their pre-meds (Johns Hopkins and WashU come into mind), the introductory general and organic chemistry classes are structured in a way to try to reduce the number of students to a more manageable number. BME is another major where the attrition is high.
She did take the classes recommended by the advisors. However, she was used to using the book problems/homework to review when she should have only used released exams etc. learned this a bit too late. She thought she was doing well because her homework grades were so high.
^which is exactly why unfortunately a lot of students at the top schools don’t adjust quickly enough. The HW doesn’t relate much to the actual midterms and is not weighted as much.
Reading from the textbook/doing homework is not as helpful in high school when most professors rarely use the text or deviate significantly.
Another common mistake. The exams will rarely be problems out of the book. The concepts will have been taught, but the students are often asked to use these learnings in a new way.
It’s a bit of an eye-opener when the first mid-term grades come back and the median is in the 60’s. Thank God for curves.
This was the “aha” moment for me when I was struggling with engineering-level calc. In high school you can get by with memorization and recognizing what formula to apply where. That was the case with homework in my college calc classes, but when tests hit, especially midterms and finals, the questions suddenly became very abstract. I remember one midterm where the class average was around the 30-40% range, and this was an excellent STEM program. So it hit everybody hard.
The way I adapted was to actually learn the material in-depth, by which I mean taking the time to really think and understand the underlying concepts and reasons for why the formulas work in the first place, why exactly you use them, and how they could be used in other situations. I could bang out homework in an hour, but then I’d sit there for another 2 hours asking myself why I just did what I did on each problem. It was very common on tests to get a detailed series of questions where you reduce a problem. And then when you breathe a sigh of relief and move on, the next question would be, “solve it all again but a different way”.
It’s tough, but IMHO a necessary mental adjustment for someone who wants to be a good engineer/scientist. You’re not just being taught math or chemistry, you’re being taught to think differently.
@cheetahgirl121 your D’s freshman experience sounds almost exactly like my son’s first year Calc at his school. He squeaked out a C in the class, cursed the upperclassmen who pushed the curve (mostly the engineering students) and chalked it up to the new reality. He’s learned how to adapt to the rigor and pace of STEM classes at his school and deals with it. He was so happy when Calc was over though! He came home for summer that first year with stressed out skin…poor thing
Not just the ivies, also. One of the smartest kids I know, who was a strong student at the top magnet school in our state, came home from CMU with two Cs. A level of hard he did not know. It’s like hitting big league pitching.
He loves it nonetheless.
“It’s a bit of an eye-opener when the first mid-term grades come back and the median is in the 60’s. Thank God for curves.”
Agree it’s not just the Ivies, but never understood the conducting tests so that the majority are failing it.
@doschicos, failing is relative. Under the British system, a score in the 60’s is a good mark and 80 is amazing.
Most non-Americans think that the typical American HS testing system (where the tests just aren’t that that hard so pretty much every kid who is above average in intelligence and hard working can get 90%+) is ridiculous.
They think there is virtue in separating out on the top end.
The only US HS testing systems I know that have tough grading are the AMC contests organized by the Mathematical Association of America. The mean score is 50/150.
Regardless of a country’s system, what exactly is the point of a class/exam where more than half of the students are getting half the test wrong? Find a better way to teach the material or alter the exams. The logic is lost on me. I’m not claiming that the average should 90+% either. There is a pretty huge gap there between 60% and 90+% and room for a happy medium and better coverage/understanding of the material. We’ve all taken challenging classes in our day. Oftentimes, it is as much the instruction as it is the difficulty of the material. It should not be some puzzle about where to study from for example - textbook, old exams, etc., that should be clearly laid out, IMO. A professor’s goal and the point of college, is students learning and mastering information. Not everything needs to be a competition or made overly difficult to reach that goal for those who are truly capable and putting forth effort.
“They think there is virtue in separating out on the top end.”
What exactly IS that virtue when we are talking about intelligent, hardworking students? What is the end game here at an institute of LEARNING?
^ To answer your question, we probably need to know what are the goals of college education and how HS students are admitted to colleges.
Which is beyond the scope of this thread.
The same thing happened to me when I went to UT-Austin. I was valedictorian at my rigorous high school. My unweighted GPA was over 98 (my school didn’t use the 4.0 system). I signed up for honors engineering at UT, confident I could handle the work. On my very first college exam, in honors physics, I got a 45! I don’t remember what the average score was, but mine was well below it. I got a C in physics that semester!! I was so discouraged. But I buckled down and ended up graduating with high honors. I learned that I needed to join study groups and do many, many practice problems. I went to my professors’ office hours and probably drove them crazy, I asked so many questions. But yes, it was a very rude awakening for an overconfident freshman!
@coolweather Our son did those math competitions last year and I think it was probably good prep for college to realize that you’re not always going to be perfect. You can get less than half right at some levels and still be in the top 25% of the country. I think it helped toughen him up when he got some scores that were way less than anything he had received before. Sometimes you have to place your trust in the curve and not freak out.
@doschicos:
“What exactly IS that virtue when we are talking about intelligent, hardworking students? What is the end game here at an instituTe of LEARNING?”
To tell how well students have learned.
Under the American system, so many applicants from HS have near perfect GPAs and near-perfect test scores that top colleges need to look at other means (ECs, recs, essays, etc.) to tell them apart. Plus this system induces overanxiety as kids may think a few mistakes here and there would take them out of the running (as the competition have near-perfect stats).
Compare to the UK where, other than Oxbridge and LSE (so even Imperial and UCL) have acceptance rates of 50% or higher (and Oxbridge acceptance rates are around 20%, I believe).
That’s because the minimum scores the UK unis set are high enough so that if you do well on those tougher tests, you know you’re pretty much guaranteed of going to some good uni.