<p>Thank you! But it ain’t over yet!</p>
<p>Lakemom…</p>
<p>Rising Junior = will be junior the coming fall
Rising Senior = will be senior the coming fall</p>
<p>And yes, I’ve noticed that some schools are a bit sloppy when it comes to notifying students about whether or not they have been selected. My niece is still waiting to hear from a handful of well-known schools, all of whom had March 1 deadlines for programs that will begin just a couple of days before the end of finals at her college. I suspect that some of the REU coordinators won’t bother to send out “we’re sorry” notices.</p>
<p>@snugapug - My DS is starting at Georgia Tech in the fall. The one piece of advice that
was given at a lecture by a faculty member was “Companies aren’t going to look how long it takes for you to get your Degree. However they do look at what your GPA is. Do not over load yourself with classes in freshman year.”</p>
<p>Sounds like good advice to me.:)</p>
<p>One more thing to remember–people enter engineering with very different levels of prep. Some have AP Calc AB, several AP Comp Sci and Physics B and C. They may be retaking everything again in college and affecting the curve in the courses.</p>
<p>Becoming an engineer is hard. When S1 was a freshman everytime I talked to him he was studying (whether that was true or not) but my friend’s daughter at the same U but in a different field of study told her mom that college was easier than hs. S1 is a junior now an although he was an A student/val. in hs, at his U he is happy with his Bs and, in thermal dynamics(?) was ecstatic with his C. He will get his mechanical engineering degree in 4 years, which is wonderful since many engineers at his school and different schools are on the 5 year plan, but he probably won’t graduate with honors as he doesn’t want to do a research project/thesis. When he tells me about his classes, I think he is talking another language sometimes!</p>
<p>S3 is a hs junior and planning to study mechanical engineering also. Rereading this post, I am starting to worry about his succeeding. He’s mostly an A student at an engineering high school so he has been exposed to some of the classes through Project Lead the Way, but he has not yet tackled Calculus AB or BC (whatever his hs decides to offer next year) or Physic C AP. I guess next year will give us an indication whether he finds these easy or not. Did any of your engineering students do well on these, but find they had a tough time when they went onto the next level in college?</p>
<p>I think doing well in HS Calc & Physics is a GOOD indication of ability to handle college level engineering courses, if the interest is there.</p>
<p>I have a sample of 4 at my house. All my kids got 5 on AP Calc BC. My D had no interest in STEM area majors, and would have found engineering laborious if she had been forced into it. My 3 boys have all done extremely well in college level maths, physics, computer science, etc. They tend to be the ones who destroy the curve for less well-prepared students. (Sorry about that.) ;)</p>
<p>It usually isn’t a problem mommusic. Students that are far outside the curve are removed from the curve calculation. The same is true for those who are really at the low end. Based on what I have seen so far, the professors already have a basic grading curve decided by score and the actual class curve may just shift it abit. </p>
<p>My son redid Calc BC or Cal 2 because his advisor said you really need to be solid in Calc 2 for the rest of the classes taken in Engineering. He did well in BC in HS and the AP exam and did well in the repeat of Calc 2. I asked him if he knew the math they were teaching. He said he knew the math but the problem sets were harder than what he had done in HS. </p>
<p>So even though he repeated a class he could have taken AP credit for, for engineering, unless you really have it down cold (a friend of his did go on), it is not a bad idea to repeat the last level of Calc taken in HS.</p>
<p>In HS, our S was only able to take AP Calculus AB (the instructor counseled him against BC). He also took the other AP courses listed above, which he found extremely easy and had absolutely no problems or any new material until 4th semester of college. He got his degree in EE.</p>
<p>His sister struggled with pre-calc both times she took it and we’re relieved her major doesn’t require any additional math. She can write much better creative pieces than brother, but his analytic abilities exceed hers. S did study quite a bit, especially when he started doing research in the lab and working on papers for scientific journals. He did get better grades in college than HS and actually was able to be present at more of his courses because he had a better handle on his chronic health issues. We and he were pleasantly surprised that he managed to graduate with honors–got a 3.51 or something close. :)</p>
<p>^^^Thanks everyone for chiming in. I guess we will see how S3 does in his Physic AP and Calculus AP classes next year and if he does well it will assure me that he probably will do okay in college. He is definitely an engineering type of guy (right now is working on his sumobot robot) so I am hoping that he won’t struggle in those math and science classes that some kids have problems with. He hasn’t yet in high school but you never know when material gets more difficult.</p>
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<p>Now that many colleges have old final exams of various courses on their web sites (or student organizations’ web sites with full knowledge and approval of the school and departments), a student with AP credit should be able to download some final exams of the courses that can be skipped and use them to check his/her knowledge of the material in the college’s course. How well the student knows the material tested on those final exams can give a good idea of what to do:</p>
<ul>
<li>Know material well, no gaps => skip it and enjoy a free elective (possibly later) in its place</li>
<li>Know material well, a few small gaps => self-study gaps and skip</li>
<li>Do not know material well, or large gaps beyond self-study capability => take the course in college</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, this applies mainly if the course is an important prerequisite to other courses. If the course is only a peripheral or breadth requirement, and the student won’t be taking any course that depends on it as a prerequisite (e.g. chemistry for some types of non-chemical/materials engineering), there is no real problem with using AP credit to skip it to open space for a free elective now or later (unless the student is also a pre-med).</p>
<p>
Lol, kjc, it’s thermodynamics. And it’s not an easy course! :)</p>
<p>sylvan, LOL. I guess you can tell that I’m not an engineer! And according to my S, it definitely is NOT an easy course!!!</p>
<p>usbalumnus, thanks for your your input on how to tell if the student should accept the AP credit and move on to the next course. Checking old finals and testing your knowledge is a great way to see if you have mastered the materials. I know for S1 his U told him as he got a 5 on is Calc BC to skip to Calc C, but they wouldn’t let him skip physics even with a 5 in that. I had no problem having him accept his english AP credit and as a STEM major, neither did he! When the time comes, this will help S3 how to decide when he signs up for his freshman courses what to do.</p>
<p>I am an an engineer… and when I was in college my friends and I referred to the course as “thermo-traumatics”.</p>
<p>“I suspect that some of the REU coordinators won’t bother to send out “we’re sorry” notices.” - My recollection from son’s REU apps is that he did not hear much back. Of course, that seems to be common on job apps these days too.</p>
<p>kjcphmom: Ha, my S"s engineering school said the opposite. As a state U they have to accept the AP credit but strongly advised against taking AP credit for calc but indicated that takeing it for physics C was fine. Go figure.</p>
<p>With regard to math they emphasized that they found a correlation between how well students did in their first math class and how well they did in the engineering program overall. They said it didn’t seem to matter what math was the first one that the student took, just that they did well in it.</p>
<p>As for only being able to take courses as they are given in sequence we are fortunate that my S’s school is more flexible with this. He is a freshman and had to withdraw this semester due to mono but had no problem getting all of the classes he withdrew from in the spring next fall.</p>
<p>
Seriously colorado mom? 2 years ago I spent an entire 6 hrs on a campus interviewing with everyone but the campus squirrel for a sabatical replacement position. Went home (100 miles) and never heard a word. How long does it take to clack out an email?</p>
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<p>Well, he is still taking the courses in sequence, just a semester delayed due to the medical withdrawal. Having the courses offered every semester helps – when the sequenced courses are only offered once per year, being offset a semester for whatever reason is a problem (being a semester behind puts the student a whole year behind, for example, and doing co-ops or other semesters off school is difficult).</p>
<p>Sorry Ucbalumnus, I misstated that. What I meant was that some schools do offer classes every semester allowing students to take a co-op semester, retake a class or whatever without beng set back for a full year or having to catch up in summer school.</p>
<p>…at least I hope that this classes continue to be given every semester as S moves up because otherwise he will be off a semester and may need that coop just to get back on track. However, if he can get all the way through Soph year that wouldn’t be a bad thing.</p>
<p>If students don’t hear back from REUs then how are they supposed to plan their summer? It is sort of rude. Not exactly the lesson you want being taught to college students. That if they aren’t going to use someone’s services, don’t bother to let them know.</p>
<p>^I agree it’s rude and not helpful but it seems to be common. </p>
<p>Son’s summer co-op session begins May 6. When he didn’t hear from the REU by mid-March he figured it wasn’t going to happen and accepted the job offer (which was a better match for him anyway.)</p>
<p>My son actually didn’t hear back from ANY of the jobs or govt internships he applied to online. I know they must get a lot of applications but still, they COULD send a form letter to all of them.</p>
<p>DS1 applied to three REU’s for this summer. He will be a rising junior. He heard back from all 3 by the end of March. He was declined for 2 and accepted for one. He is happily preparing for a summer of undergrad research.</p>