Speaking of becoming a better student as one grows older: I got just above a 3.0 in high school (just barely in the second tenth of my fairly large graduating class), flunked out of college, landed at a community college where I got my associate’s with honors, and then got my baccalaureate with Latin honors (and a 4.0 in my major) followed by a PhD at one of the best colleges for my discipline.
The idea that past performance is indicative of future educational achievement is silly, to put it mildly.
(And stories like mine, which aren’t really very uncommon, are one of my main arguments against early tracking systems—e.g., Germany’s—and in favor of systems like the US’s, despite the latter’s horrible inherent inefficiencies.)
It may take a few years to become clear if it will be permanent, but it seems likely that the pandemic may have led to another burst of grade inflation. At many colleges students were able to switch to pass/fail much more easily and later in the semester/quarter when they had a better idea of their likely grade. Some professors also dropped high stakes final exams that had previously accounted for much of the grade, or made them open book. There have also been reports that cheating in remote classes was easier and more widespread. So it became easier to massage your GPA upwards if you were inclined to do so.
This was obvious in my S’s graduating class in 2022: in his major nearly 15% were summa cum laude despite this supposedly being for the top 5% of the class (based on average graduating GPA over the prior 5 years).
I’m pretty sure it did, actually, but there’s a backlash to it setting in, too—there’s a pretty solid chance it’ll be a blip rather than an actual change. (Though I don’t pretend to be able to predict the future.)
My daughter is always complaining about how much work she has to do to stay alive at UNC and how much free time her friends at other schools have to do fun stuff. I tell her that no one forced her to go there and hopefully, it will be all worth it someday.
My daughter’s bf goes to school 3 days a week for business at denver, never seems to have homework and skis all the time.
Maybe it’s him - he’s just one of those that gets it. Maybe it’s the major? I mean, you won’t have long papers in finance like you will in Psych or Poli Sci - at least not with regularity.
But some may be the rigor of the school - but I bet there’s more inputs into this equation as well.
My daughter was among the top of her HS class (public, well-funded suburban), but she ended up spending crazy hours with little sleep. It was hard to watch, sometimes.
Then came college, and also ended up among top of her Ivy class. Always had some papers due, thus balancing chill time with deadlines that she kept close tabs on, etc. Even during breaks.
But…
she’ll be first to say college was appropriately heavy workload - but manageable, while, looking back she is in awe now, how she had ever pulled off the crazy HS workload for years.
So - as long as the HS does a good job preparing for college academics, students have a reasonable chance to “keep it up”, even if the material becomes increasingly more specialized/sophisticated.
3.0 is an requirement, kind of like specific courses in HS. Colleges do look at grades and much more, like research, publications, work experience, reference letters, Resumes, Statement of intent, portfolios and even samples of work completed during UG
.
Beyond that, I suspect that high-achieving HS students with good study-habits, time-management, discipline, analytic/memorization skills, etc. will find those same traits/skill combination as useful in college.
She is now in touch with former HS peers of different years, some attending (different) grad school in same professional field, and those above factors still seem be relevant as to the individual experience.
So there’s hope for your own smart kids, even if their HS itself might not have pushed as hard as they could.
specifically for Barnard, it’s in their CDS ($0 for non-need based institutional aid). We don’t qualify for need-based FA since our EFC is generally as high or higher than total tuition+R&B. Though, to be clear, we only have 1 acceptance so far (OOS flagship) for which we have no aid offered – but who knows when the LACs and privates come in.
Major-related! agree with you on that. I worked my a$$ off in physics. I did a minor in creative writing and – though writing was hard and took time – it wasn’t nearly the same mental/physical workload.
Correct, the Ivy’s don’t offer merit aid (neither do several other highly selective colleges) - if that’s what you mean. Kinda makes sense, because essentially all admits would likely qualify for merit?
So the focus is on supporting those with demonstrated (financial) need (and I realize that that doesn’t ease the pain for anyone in a full-pay scenario.)
We got a bunch of those emails (2 kids applying this year…) After having them check back on the portals day after day I finally called a couple of the financial aid offices. They looked up the files and said they did have all of the forms, they just hadn’t been synched to the applications yet. They took care of this while I was on the phone, and the next day the portals showed the updates. I asked if this would have happened eventually anyhow, and they said yes, it just takes awhile. That’s all fine, but then why are they sending emails to freak out my kids?
My daughter was similar to yours in HS. Her junior year she took 5 AP classes. To do this she had to continue playing her two sports so she could get out of gym class. So in essence she lost time.
It was tough watching her spend long nights studying. I think it led to burnout to some degree.
Sometimes I think all the AP classes are overkill for HS kids. They do help someone graduate early or double major. But there can be a cost for sure.
Yup - mine enrolled in a formal physical activity (not a team sport) at a local studio with x sessions, and was able to use that to get out of gym class. In addition she had before-school and after school-practices in different performing arts at the HS, that further extended her day.
But, while WE saw those as added stress-factors, she was adamant that she absolutely needed those non-academic pursuits as a counter-balance and to maintain her overall sanity.
And dark rings under her eyes… But, at some point we had to admit that she “produced”, so we trusted her making the right decisions.
In her case, it was a mixture of upping the weighted GPA, but also because in the AP classes she was with equally-motivated peers, which further meant that the in-class atmosphere with the instructor was one of mutual respect.
In college, she had no interest in graduating early, but the AP classes did help with addressing some general education requirements, skip over some entry level classes, apply towards a minor – all factors that enabled her to be more time-flexible with scheduling advanced courses/sought-out professors that she was interested in.