Please help a nervous mom

<p>@ Blackroses: As far as I know, energy engineering and such aren’t really major classes per se. I can’t really see them being very mathematical because they don’t have any math prereqs. They’re just a chance to get your feet wet.</p>

<p>Half the frosh should be doing chem lab. The other half will do physics lab. Then everybody takes the one they haven’t taken for second semester.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t worry too much about taking philosophy off-campus your very first semester. The last thing you’ll want is to spend your only pass/fail semester dealing with readings and term papers for a letter grade course. </p>

<p>@Maruhan: I think the technical writing course will be similar to some of the pilot sections of Hum 1 held this year. People in those sections mostly seemed to like it. Sadly, you won’t escape Hum 1. As far as I know, they’ve just turned it into a half-semester course for the Spring.</p>

<p>what??!
noo~</p>

<p>Was Hum 1, a half-semester course last year too or a full year course?</p>

<p>I have a lot of hum classes i want to take but writing is not one of them</p>

<p>Wierd… I was under the impression that the technical writing course was a replacement of hum1?</p>

<p>Wasn’t that the point of the pilot courses? They had some freshman this year have their “hum 1” as a technical writing course?</p>

<p>"The last thing you’ll want is to spend your only pass/fail semester dealing with readings and term papers for a letter grade course. "</p>

<p>Don’t they offer some pass/fail philosophy courses? And if not, would it look bad or be that big of a deal to have a letter grade course?</p>

<p>@ladyday - my son just finished his first year, and I too have been worried about how difficult it is. My son has no idea how he’s done and is certainly struggling, but he too insists that he made the right choice and seemed surprisingly nonstressed. I’m not sure how much sleep he got during the school year, but he seems to really have found “his place.” I think his difficult is poor study habits and not being good at asking for help, but he doesn’t think so. He just thinks it is amazingly hard. I’m just hoping that by junior year he’ll have figured it all out and be the better for it, and that it won’t hurt him in getting any summer jobs/internships. </p>

<p>For current/recent students - what is a typical GPA after first year? I’ve heard that 3.0 is dean’s list afater first year. Is that true? At what point should he be concerned? My only concern is keeping his scholarship whcih requires a 2.75 after sopmore year. Is that more difficult than I thought it would be?</p>

<p>

From what I recall, HM courses below a certain number (50? I forget) are pass/fail. If you take an accelerated course or a course above that number, you will receive a letter grade for it, even if you’re a first-semester frosh. I don’t know of any non-Core courses that are numbered low enough – maybe those new electives, but I didn’t look.</p>

<p>Blackroses, it’s not that taking a letter graded course in your first semester would look bad – it’s that first semester is your chance to adjust to the workload without GPA consequences. In the first semester, especially if you’re coming in with less preparation or lower stats than the median, it may be better to stick with the Core classes and not load yourself down with a graded elective that sucks a lot of your time. You get seven more semesters.</p>

<p>

It really is…</p>

<p>okay, yeah… I think the general concensus is that I shouldn’t overload with a philosophy class…I thought it would be better now than later since I wouldn’t have to worry about letter grades (at least for all of my other classes, maybe for this one too). The philosophy class I was interested was at Pomona. Reason being I have heard two great recs (one from an hmc engineering prof, another from a pomona graduate) about this one prof, and I really wanted to take this specific course with him. He probably will offer it again next year, but he is not teaching that class second semester according to the anticipated list of philosophy classes.</p>

<p>Oh well. We shall see.</p>

<p>Why not email him and ask? I’m sure that he’d like to hear from you and be happy to let you know his plans.</p>

<p>@ Hum 1: The writing course will be taught only by math, engineering, physics, etc. profs. I really doubt the HSA profs would concede their only core class. Also, I doubt that they would reduce the number of required humanities courses from 12 to 11.5, which would be the case if they don’t do a half-semester Hum 1 in the Spring.</p>

<p>@Wamom: In core classes, they generally set the mean on tests to a B-, so my guess for avg. Frosh GPA is about 2.7</p>

<p>@ geek_mom: I did email him yesterday. : )</p>

<p>I <em>think</em> what they told us at ASP was that indeed HUM requirement is lowered to 11.5, with the HUM 1 equivalent being (a full semester) in the spring of freshman year. That was a while ago and I wasn’t paying very much attention though.</p>

<p>So, I just looked back at the powerpoint presentation that was shown at ASP (it is on the admitted students website under academics). On the 12th slide, it states the new core has both a 1/2 semester writing intense course spread across the curriculim (academic writing) as well as a course in humanities or social sciences that is also writing intensive (guessing that’s still hum 1).</p>

<p>Oh well. :/</p>

<p>WAMOM - I have no idea what the average frosh GPA is. People generally don’t talk about that until it’s well over (I spent 3 hours talking to a senior graduate (time flies!) - last week about his academics. I had no idea how many classes he had failed and how close he had been to failing out until that night…people are frequently too ashamed to talk about their grades, and as a result don’t realize that they aren’t the only ones doing “poorly”). The bar for Dean’s List is in fact set at 3.000. That surprised me (I might be on the Dean’s List for this semester??? What???)</p>

<p>Anyway, I had a 2.677 at the end of frosh year, and then barely moved it up to 2.700 at the end of my sophomore fall semester. So I was definitely worried about losing that beautiful 2.75 scholarship. Especially since my parents were threatening to make me transfer if I lost it (I managed to convince them otherwise over Christmas break…I wish I could have had that conversation with them earlier…it would have saved a lot of stress during 3rd semester…). I just had a somewhat awesome semester though, and I’m now sitting on a 2.84! Hurray! Now that grades are out you probably have a better idea of where your son stands gradewise. If he’s still worried after next semester, I suggest that he talk to some upperclassmen about finding some “easy hums” to fix his GPA. It’s lame, but A’s in hum classes can be a real life saver.</p>

<p>Thanks esquiar and Miru. My son actually did a lot better than he thought. He was convinced he might end up below a 2.5, but if they round up, he might even make that dean’s list (I assume they don’t). An A in a hum class at Pomona definitely helped. I never thought I’d be proud of a GPA that was below a 3.0, but I guess that’s the Mudd way. I am very proud of him. Congrats to you Miru for an awesome senseter. I do hear its gets better junior and senior years. </p>

<p>For the record, we would not have made him transfer, but I did tell him that he would need to get a loan to cover the difference.</p>

<p>Well I can’t say much now that there’s a new core but I ended frosh year with a 2.75 and it only increased throughout the semesters. I ended up with a 3.15 and I’m certainly not the most hardworking individual. Dean’s List is above a 3.0 with at least 15 graded credits. </p>

<p>Also note that you can take one class pass/fail per semester, given that the prof allows it and it isn’t a major requirement (it can be a hum requirement, though not sure about concentration). If you pass/fail a hum the first semester though you can’t pass/fail a hum the second semester, has to be a different subject. The great thing about Mudd compared to the other 5Cs is that the drop/pass/fail deadline is about a month before the end of the semester so you can generally get even the score on your second midterm before having to decide.</p>

<p>Speaking about scholarships and GPA… does anyone have information on merit scholarships given to sophomores, juniors and seniors for merit, that weren’t already given to students as incoming freshmen?</p>

<p>Given by the school? I never heard of any.</p>

<p>I remember reading about a few small (~$500) awards for various things, like that water purification project. But no institutional scholarships for academic merit. You’d be better off trying to find external scholarships or grants awarded to current college students. Not something to count on, but definitely something to seek out and work for.</p>

<p>My son (just finished junior year) received an academic scholarship of about $5,500 last year, and I fully expect he will get that again this year. It was a nice surprise.</p>

<p>Once core was finished and he got into his engineering program, his grades for last semester and this one have gone steadily up - he is now at about a 3.4 overall, and a 3.8 in his engineering classes. I think once you start doing what you really want to do (for him it was no Biology-no Chemistry) you start doing better in classes.</p>

<p>I think it is normal to stress about our very smart kids and how they are being taken down a peg, but if the match is right (and I think most kids realize whether it is or not when they attend the Admitted Students w/e) they start to love it with a passion. You kind of learn to be not offended when they make plans during the precious time you have with them to travel to meet up with their friends from Mudd.</p>

<p>@ElphDriver - just curious if you recall what your son’s GPA was after first year? It sounds like he is doing really well now, and I"m curious if he started out struggling as many seem to. </p>

<p>My son defintiely loves Mudd and has “found his people.” I am hoping that in the process of struggling for grades that he learns good lessons and will come out stronger for it.</p>

<p>If he has a 3.8 in engineering and 3.4 overall he was probably around 3.0 after frosh year.</p>