<p>SportsMama - being in an engineering program does not hold you back from the college experience at all. It's all about time management and how you are going to make the best of it.</p>
<p>I find it a blast due to the friends I have made through the engineering program. Going to class can be a great experience and a great opportunity to have fun as long as you make the best of it.</p>
<p>Plus, if she turned down a free ride to attend an engineering program it's pretty much guaranteed that she has a very big interest in engineering and will excel profusely.</p>
<p>Don't worry if she changes majors-that's part of the college experience. I'm certain that you wouldn't want her to stay in a major that she didn't care for. Just stand back and let things happen-many engineering majors switch out, at least she's giving it a try. At one university the freshmen engineering kids are called "pre-business" majors by the other students.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, retention rates in engineering can tend to be on the lower side. It depends very much on the particular university, though. There are some good questions to ask, like: what percentage of scholarship recipients keep their scholarships for 4 years? What's the probation period/terms on the scholarship? What percentage of people change majors out of engineering in the first year? Usually, there's someone at the university who can answer these questions, and help gauge what level of worry is appropriate :)</p>
<p>As a general rule, a scholarship recipient is probably one of the better students there, plus a genuine interest in the subject and a hard work ethic, is probably ok.</p>
<p>Here's the thing though - she should go to each professor's office hours the very first week and tell them that she has to make a minimum grade/GPA in order to keep her scholarship, and figure out exactly what she has to do to obtain that. I cannot emphasize this enough - while it doesn't guarantee anything, and professors can't offer preferential grading, it is still remarkably effective in improving grades. Professors are usually quite helpful in offering advise.</p>
<p>Plus, since many people who get in grade trouble don't realize it until far too late, frequent checking up with the professors and the TAs is in order to make sure everything's ok, at least until after the first few exams and she has better judgement about how well she's doing.</p>
<p>As for telling her to "put her education before everything else", I actually agree very much with this. It is a very different thing than saying "do nothing except schoolwork." It just means having the right priorities and sometimes sacrificing when things come in to conflict. It may be hard when, say, all your friends go out to a movie the night before an exam and you have to stay in and study, but honestly, there's usually still plenty of time for "other" activities besides academics - just not when academics needs time.</p>
<p>I share your concern SportsMama. My daughter is starting her freshman year in a few weeks and she needs to maintain a 3.5 in order to keep her merit scholarship. It's made worse by the fact that her university awards no grade points for "plus" and "minus" grades (i.e., a final grade of "B" in a course is factored into the overall gpa as a 3.0, no matter whether the numerical grade in the course was 80 or 89) -- so anything less than an "A" in any course will hurt. On the other hand, my assumption is that students like your daughter and mine would not receive these scholarships if their schools did not think that they were capable of maintaining the requisite GPAs.</p>
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It's made worse by the fact that her university awards no grade points for "plus" and "minus" grades (i.e., a final grade of "B" in a course is factored into the overall gpa as a 3.0, no matter whether the numerical grade in the course was 80 or 89) -- so anything less than an "A" in any course will hurt.
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<p>It's not necessarily that bad. There have been a few studies done by schools that have shown there is not a statistically significant difference in GPAs between schools that use a +/- system and those with a more traditional system. A +/- systems tends to hurt those at the extremes of the GPA scale. It will be harder to get GPAs approaching a 4.0 because an A- is a 3.7 (and in rigorous engineering courses, it's pretty darn hard to get a grade that would warrant a straight A). It also hurts those at the bottom, since a C- is now a 1.7, and puts the student in a lot of danger of getting kicked out. Anywhere in the middle, the GPA differences wash out.. As long as the student isn't consistently at one of the extremes, the use of a +/- system vs. a regular system isn't something to worry about. </p>
<p>A +/- system might add some subtle differences though. It might force professors into using a more rigid grading scheme, since now they have to differentiate between someone that got a 88 and another that got an 84. If you thought there was a lot of *****ing about grades before hand, it's gonna be a lot worse. While grade inflation isn't nearly as bad in engineering programs, professors generally will be lenient and boost a person to the next grade level if they are borderline and have shown a good work ethic. </p>
<p>But back to the topic at hand, maintaining high GPAs for honors programs or scholarships should not be terribly difficult. As others have said, it just takes good time management and a bit of dedication and sacrificing a few nights a week. It's important to have a good first year, since it usually sets the tone for the next few years. However, I think your concern is certainly valid. The average GPA in rigorous engineering programs range anywhere from a 2.7 to a 3.3 depending on the school. This means that most scholarships and honors programs require the student to be at least in the top half, if not higher, in their respective classes.</p>
<p>I have the quantized scaled at my school (no +/-). It's terrible. I can understand why universities want to abolish the A+ (students would study endlessly otherwise). But, I feel that putting an 89.4 and a 79.5 on the same level is hasty. The difference between an 88 and a 90 could be due to subjective grading errors, and knocking a student down a full grade-point for subjective errors is foolish. The only thing this promotes is argumentative students who want an extra point or two on their problem set. </p>
<p>This is the grading scale at my daughter's university:</p>
<p>Points
For each semester hour of graded work, students earn points, as follows:</p>
<p>A = 4.0</p>
<p>B = 3.0</p>
<p>C = 2.0</p>
<p>D = 1.0</p>
<p>F = 0</p>
<p>As I understand it, in this context an A is normally defined as 90-100, B as 80-89, C as 70-79, etc. So, for example, regardless of whether my daughter gets an 80 or an 89 in a given course, she gets 3.0 grade points multiplied by the number of semester hours for that course factored into her overall GPA. Although I think most professors abide by the 10 point scale for each letter grade as I've explained it, it's my understanding that professors have the latitude to set a different curve where, for example, a 92 would still be a "B" and worth only 3.0 points.</p>
<p>Grade deflation is a big problem at public universities. Not the cash with big privately funded schools - it's more like b-=a- c=b+ its really unfair sometimes.</p>
<p>gbesq - what school is your daughter attending? A 3.5 is difficult to maintain, but I'll bet she can do it. At most schools the honors program usually requires 3.2ish but a 3.5 is tough for just about any student to maintain.</p>
<p>She is going to Kansas State University. She is in the honors program in the College of Agriculture, but the primary reason that she is attending K-State is that she hopes to be admitted to a special program for freshman that will guarantee her admission to the D.V.M. program at the College of Veterinary Medicine. In spite of K-State's grading scale, I am hoping that her academic talent and work ethic will be enough to enable her to maintain a 3.5. She already has 32 semester hours of credit from AP and college courses that she took at the University of Connecticut while in high school, so she is starting as a sophomore and will be able to take a lighter load if she chooses to take her time and graduate in 4 years instead of 3. Based on her AP exam performance, K-State exempted her from freshman English (two courses) and Biology (one course) and gave her 10 semester hours of "A"/4.0 credit which is already on her K-State transcript. As such, she has a bit of a cushion to keep that 3.5 while she's adjusting to college academics. Her ACT of 31 was well above K-State's average of 24, so I'm hoping that her ability will translate into lots of "A" grades. We can afford to lose the merit scholarship, but she needs to maintain at least a 3.4 cumulative GPA to get into the vet school via the early admissions program.</p>
<p>Wow well best of luck to both of you. I wouldn't be too concerned. I'm sure the university's decision to apply her to that type of program indicates her ability to excel profusely in that type of environment,.</p>