<p>Our daughter is thinking of placing out of the required writing course. We think she has a pretty good shot at getting it waived (800 SAT verbal, 740 SAT writing, 5 AP English), but we (parents) wonder if it would be a good "get to know your classmates" class. Any thoughts from current students or parents? Anyone know the percentage of freshmen who don't take the class? </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Most likely your daughter will NOT be able to get her writing class waived. (My d had similar stats & was told “no”. AP English 5; ACT English 35; Writing subscore 10) I think one of the administrators told me that in the past 6 years only 1 or 2 students have been exempted from the freshman writing class, but only because each took an upper level writing intensive course instead.</p>
<p>The writing requirement classes offers so many different options and topics–your daughter should just take one. (I kept trying to talk my d into the Austen on Film class, but she insisted on Existentialism in America.) There’s even a technical writing option for the science and engineering-inclined.</p>
<p>Also it’s great chance to meet a wider variety of students than you might meet in your major classes. While a few students put off the class until their sophomore years, nearly everyone takes a writing class as a freshman.</p>
<p>Wow, well that makes it an easy decision then. Actually the Austen on Film is one she is interested in, along with a few others. Thank you.</p>
<p>The Austen on Film is very popular–I think there are at least 2 sections of that topic offered each semester. (and I <em>still</em> want to enroll in it myself…)</p>
<p>One other thing–your D won’t get to choose which semester she’ll take her writing class. She’ll be assigned and she won’t find out until she arrives on campus for orientation. That was a shock. D had her “perfect” fall schedule all planned out–then found she was assigned for writing in the spring term–so she had to scramble for another elective fall term.</p>
<p>there’s no way to actually waive it… you’d have to take some other writing-intensive class as a substitute. I know a few people who have done that (for a history class, etc.), but IMO it’s really not worth it. I don’t really think it’s a good class to take to meet classmates… you can meet more people in other, more interesting classes (plus that whole outside of class thing).</p>
<p>also, you could have pre-registered for a CAS (wrt) class this summer, but i’m sure the pre-registration slots are closed out by now (but you could still pre-register for some intro math/science classes). I pre-registered for my CAS class 2 years ago. the class ended up being pretty lame. honestly, i’d just take whatever class you can a) tolerate writing about and b) make sure it doesn’t mess up your schedule.</p>
<p>My daughter who is a senior felt after the fact that she was sorry she did not attempt to try to place out. It seemed for her somewhat of a waste of time although it was a fairly easy A, but our high school essentially offers freshman writing as a local high school requirement in an excellent class so she was well prepared for college writing and felt this was extremely repetitive. She was interested in the subject area and she also did take it second semester and knew people in the class already. In reality, it’s not much of a big deal to be concerned about-trust me when I say there will other battles worth fighting about.</p>
<p>Ditto WayOutWestMom. S was a freshman last year at Eastman. Similar SAT scores, AP, plus IB. Even sent his 20 page extended essay (more like a college dissertation) to the Eastman department head. To no avail. Took a section of the writing class at UR. Easy A. Waste of time.</p>
<p>Gee, WayOutWestMom, my d was able to choose which semester to do the seminar. She didn’t have one assigned. In fact, she knows several kids who didn’t actually take the course until they were upperclassmen (one as a senior). Mine is a rising junior; is yours? If not, then perhaps they’ve changed the system.</p>
<p>D’s going to be sophomore this year.</p>
<p>She had done her writing assessment early (within days of the prompt being posted–I nagged) and preregistered for her writing class, but when she got to campus to during orientation and met her advisor to confirm her registration/get her schedule, the class wasn’t on her schedule. There was no clear reason given as why it wasn’t. It just wasn’t</p>
<p>I eventually spoke with the the director of the writing program who said that there just wasn’t room for everyone who signed up for a first semester writing class so they bumped a number of students out. At the parent session, the director said that they had divided up the class into 2 groups–first semester and “later” (who could take the class second semester or at any time in the future.) It wasn’t clear how the division had been made–maybe first come-first served. I’m not sure…</p>
<p>And one of the librarians gleefully regaled me with several tales of seniors who have never taken the required writing coursework and were heading into the home stretch wondering if they were going be allowed to graduate. (We were professionally commiserating while she was giving me a private tour of library. She had some great “war stories.” For the record, I’m also an librarian…)</p>
<p>The class is a joke, easy A - the “big paper” was 8-10 pages, i think they really should make it easier to get out of because students from good high schools know everything being taught in the class</p>
<p>I’ve already pre-registered for Austen on Film. Maybe I’ll meet your daughter, jhraymond! For some reason, I didn’t think it would be a very popular class…</p>
<p>OMG, just take the class. It is meant to be an easier course for people who are just immersing themselves in college life for the first time…or for people who have absolutely no idea how to write. Try as hell to take it the first semester (I have never heard of it being assigned…unless you sign up at the last moment and there are not more spots left for a particular class, you can take it what ever semester you want to). Taking it first semester will allow you to take some other, more interesting stuff in the spring.</p>
<p>Your kids will have 3.5 more years to take all the rigorous writing courses that they want…more than enough time. Besides, compared to other schools, the curriculum at UR is such that your kids will be able to have more than enough elective choices (unless you are a BME). Trust me, you do not need to catapult them into “more rigorous” classes from day 1; let them take a breather from all those high school AP courses for a little bit.</p>
<p>I am not sure any parents are “catapulting” their kids into more rigorous classes. S didn’t want a “breather”. He was ready, willing, and able to take more rigorous classes. We had nothing to do with him trying to exempt out of the writing class.</p>
<p>If you have a double major within humanities or social sciences and do study abroad, you will have very limited time to take any electives because you have many requirements for each of the two majors, plus a cluster in each of natural sciences and the other area. This is what makes the U of R “open” curriculum not as actually open as one might suspect. All the cluster classes have to be taken at the U of R, not as part of study abroad, AP credit can not used for a cluster class. Sometimes clusters are listed, but in reality those classes are not given enough so that one can actually complete that cluster within four years primarily because of schedule conflicts with sequence classes in your major. My d would have much preferred to take more electives in areas that are of interest as well as additional electives in her majors but cannot fit in, as she has had to take many cluster classes. If you have only one major it is very possible to graduate in 3 and a half years-not something I am advocating although d knows three people in process of doing so.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s too big of a deal to have to take one writing class in your freshman year (when most people aren’t deep into any department yet anyway) and 3 or 6 classes over the course of 4 years to fulfill clusters… even with a double major that isn’t a lot to ask usually (if it’s humanities + social sciences, then you only need 3 courses for the cluster, which really isn’t much). what I’ve seen that some people do that’s a lot is a BS in compsci + a BS in math. and there are tons of open clusters, and if you really have a problem with having to take 3-4 classes you don’t like, you can go talk to people in lattimore and make up your own cluster without too much difficulty. if you really can’t stand any classes in a whole division, you can’t be helped too much, but whatever. i’m doing a BS in math, and minors in CS and russian and i’m not having much trouble at all fitting it all in (i also did a study abroad, too), and I didn’t even really start on my major until my sophomore year either.</p>
<p>Also, one course in your major can also count towards your cluster. For example, psych majors must take a statistics course and two biopsychology courses. The stats course can count as a math course towards a math/natural sciences cluster; one of the biopsych classes can count as a science towards a math/natural sciences cluster. So there are then only 2 more “out of area” courses that the student needs to take. </p>
<p>My d is a humanities/social science double major. She hates math & science, but took her required stats course and two semesters of calc to make the cluster she needed. And she’s going abroad. She doesn’t find it terribly onerous.</p>
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<p>Three people graduating early? Better pull out their checkbooks…</p>
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<p>[Frequently</a> Asked Questions : Center for Academic Support](<a href=“http://www.rochester.edu/college/CCAS/faqs.html]Frequently”>http://www.rochester.edu/college/CCAS/faqs.html)</p>
<p>I am about to start my sophomore year at the U of R, and I still haven’t taken my writing course. It is definitely not essential to getting to know classmates. There are normally only 15-20 kids in these classes. She won’t be missing out on anything. It is extremely easy to get to know your classmates through orientation, other classes, and everyday contact, particularly because of the school’s great size.</p>