@pizzagirl “This is a true “let it go” situation.”
I have to say that after thinkng about it, I agree with this. PG, sometimes you get to the key point. Even if I am right, it probably isn’t worth it.
I think that I am taking it too personally because they made these representations to me directly and I documented what they said with extensive notes in real time, as usual. I don’t think they have any intent. I just think they lack an appropriate process and administrative oversight to be sure that they only represent information that they can live with. I am just going to file it for now, and hopefully things will become more positive. If it becomes a recurring theme, I will reconsider it at that point.
Wow. A policy was changed and you are flinging accusations of dishonesty? That policy probably had to go through several layers of review and meetings of committees that maybe meet once a month. Then someone had to get that info to the person who maintains the website. This could all easily take several months.
Have you actually looked at the scoring curve on the chem AP exam? The difference between a 4 and a 5, you’d like to think it was only one question, but it could also be more than 33% of the exam. I would never advise a student who only scored a 4 to take AP credit and skip to the next level. Even students who score a 5 can flounder in the higher level courses.
@Much2learn, I think your daughter could learn a lot out of this as a new freshman. We taught D to never completely trust unwritten words from any authority in her college. Still she fell for it once. Actually we fell for it together once. Decades ago, my wife got a D on a midterm due to personal events. She explained it to the professor who then became sympathetic and promised her that he will discard the midterm and grade her based on the final only. She got A on the final exam, yet C on the final grade. The professor told her that he changed mind because he later felt it wouldn’t be fair to other students. She appealed it to the college and lost. Lesson learned, or we thought that.
D’s Chemistry professor had repeatedly told his under performing class to just work hard and don’t worry too much about grade, since he was going to give them a huge curve, over and over. Relying on this words, she opted not to join college supported peer group study, forfeiting 3% extra credit. We expected her final grade about 88~89% based on past mid-terms, quizzes, etc. and figured out that she didn’t need that 3% credit if everybody was going to get huge curve. She was more efficient studying alone, and choose to spend the time for other classes, such as rewriting her B- English essay. She was taking 18 units that semester and could use every extra minutes.
Two days before the final, the professor announced that everybody who were going to get less than C will be curved to C, and that was what he meant by everybody getting a huge curve. Majority of the class were happy, but not my daughter. We played that game and lost. I gave her a bad advise. There is no appeal as no college admin will interfere for a professor’s holy grading right.
So the lesson was learnt. And I truly thought that the lesson was well worth a B. She was very upset. But it meant the lesson would stick just as well. Weeks later she found that she did get an A which would be impossible even if she got a perfect score on the final, unless the professor gave her a curve after all. Untrustworthy, but for her advantage that time.
For the record, I don’t think your D’s college is wrong this time. Still the lesson could be learned just as well, and your D didn’t loose any grade point.
There are countless stories like this. But let me just share one more. A parent I know got full scholarship at her law school. A year later the school said the scholarship was only for one year and she needs to full pay for 2nd and 3rd year. Fortunately, she had insisted a signed written letter with clearer description of scholarship before accepting the offer. She simply produced the letter to the admin, and the story had a happy ending.
I’m more concerned by the fact she’s hearing that the worst prof is assigned to the honors section.
Has she tried the old final exam of the chemistry course that she wants to skip?
@VickiSoCal “I’m more concerned by the fact she’s hearing that the worst prof is assigned to the honors section.”
I was concerned about that too, since this morning they told her that the regular section was full, and they had just stuffed her into the Honors Section. Thankfully, she hung out there and, eventually, one student dropped the regular Chemistry course and she was able to immediately add it to her schedule and drop the Honors version. So at least one thing went right today.
@mathyone “Wow. A policy was changed and you are flinging accusations of dishonesty? That policy probably had to go through several layers of review and meetings of committees”
When you tell people one thing and then do another, that is dishonest. Maybe in the ivory towers of academia saying one thing and doing another can be turned from straw into gold, with if you have enough layers of review and fancy committees, with power points and mumbo jumbo, but not out here in flyover country. It must be a cultural thing. lol
I think you should just accept the fact that your daughter didn’t learn chemistry well enough rather than flinging accusations of dishonesty at people. They aren’t trying to gouge parents for tuition, they are trying to keep underprepared students out of the next class.
I don’t quite live in flyover country, but in the midwest nonetheless.
Dishonesty would be saying that the policy was X when the person knew it to be Y. Saying X because that’s what you know to be true and then having the institution change the policy on you… that is not dishonest. That is just sometimes what happens with bureaucracy.
I worked for the state while I was in college and I had asked explicitly what the dress policy was when I was first hired. I was told one thing. About 6 months later, our governor created another boss position above my boss and the dress policy radically changed. Was my boss dishonest? Nope. There was a policy change out of her hands.
I think this is much ado about nothing to be honest. Your D will likely encounter bigger issues than this throughout her years as an undergrad.
“My student allocated study time based on the stated requirements, and I specifically told her it was important to get a 5 on AB Calc even though they accept a 4 because it will impact many many classes. She worked more on that thinking she could get at least the 4 that she needed on Chem. We would have prioritized differently if it had been posted correctly.”
So what would you have had her do differently if you thought she needed a 5 in Chem? Would you suddenly have thought that a 5 in Calc didn’t matter as much and that she could live with a 4? It doesn’t sound like it. Do you think she could have earned 5’s on both exams? Then why not strive for that?
I get that you’re annoyed, but we’re talking about one class. So she’ll take a semester of chemistry she didn’t expect to have to take. Either it will be challenging and she’ll learn, in which case, it’s good that she has to take it, or it will turn out that she really did learn all the material in high school and it will be a nice easy class and a good refresher, which won’t necessarily be the worst thing, either.
I agree that if you (or better, your daughter, who should now be advocating for herself) want to talk to someone, I wouldn’t go in flinging accusations. Flies, vinegar, honey, etc. Putting someone on the defensive is rarely a way to get good information or get what you want. If it’s really the first impression she wants the chair of the department to have of her, she could make an appointment, and say, politely, that she had been told xyz at admiitted student day in April, relied on that when deciding how to prepare for her AP’s and is puzzled and disappointed to see that the policy has since been changed and is hoping the chair can help her understand the discrepancy between what she was told in April and what the current policy is. If the first impression she wants to make is “I could have earned a 5, but didn’t bother and now I want to complain about taking an intro class I’ll probably benefit from.”
You’re making a big deal about how in July the website still said a 4 or 5 was sufficient and how close to the beginning of the school year the change was. That is absolutely irrelevant. If they had posted the change on June 1 would it have mattered? How about the day before the Chem AP? How about a week before? Once she was committed to her study plan, once it was too late to shoot for the 5 on the Chem AP, it was too late for a policy change to affect her plans. So your complaint is really that the change wasn’t posted some time in April or May. Yeah, it would have been nice to know. Yes, it would have been lovely if they posted the change now, effective for incoming freshman in September 2017. But it’s not crazy or unreasonable that the change in policy didn’t happen until after the school year finished. And they may well have had good reason to make it applicable immediately.
@romanigypsyeyes “Dishonesty would be saying that the policy was X when the person knew it to be Y. Saying X because that’s what you know to be true and then having the institution change the policy on you. That is not dishonest.”
I actually agree with that, as stated. However, no one from the school asserted that the “institution” anthropomorphized and changed the policy itself. If the Department Head, did assert that, then I would agree that he was not dishonest.
@romanigypsyeyes “Your D will likely encounter bigger issues than this throughout her years as an undergrad.”
Undoubtedly so. Since this is day one. I am hoping that she doesn’t have four years of this day. lol Still I can honestly say that I never saw this type of blatant misrepresentation in either college or graduate school. Never. Plenty of issues arise, but not like this.
@mathyone “I think you should just accept the fact that your daughter didn’t learn chemistry well enough rather than flinging accusations of dishonesty at people.”
I am a simple guy. If you tell me something to my face and then knowingly do something else I think that is dishonest. Apparently, you disagree, but can’t come up with a clear rationale, because you chose the ad hominem attack, the surest sign that someone feels the need to defend a position they are emotionally attached to, but can’t defend on an intellectual level.
OK, well if she had learned the chemistry well enough, you’d probably be on here griping about why they don’t give credit for a 4 on the calc.
It appears the same rhetoric is being recycled at this point, so closing thread.