<p>This is for some of you CC parent's who have kids in, or recently graduated from college. I was wondering how your children coped, or are coping academically with the transition from HS to college. How tough a transition has it been for your student GPA wise? I'm wondering if there's a trend up or down. Don't hesitate to mention a major. Thanks!!</p>
<p>College is definitely harder, especially when you factor in the little day to day chores that didn't used to be on the plate- paying bills, doing laundry, taking care of own prescriptions/medical care, making transportation arrangements, on and on. Of course it probably depends on the number of classes and courses themselves. </p>
<p>There has been a shift in how my son thinks about his grades. Upon entering hs, he was expected to do well by his parents- he wasn't really thinking about the lifelong impact of his 9th grade report card. Now he knows that what he does, how he does, really only impacts him, not me or his dad. We're going to continue living in our nice little house, with our nice little lives. He, on the other hand, can make or break his future with what he chooses to spend his time doing over the next four years.</p>
<p>The other day we were talking and he said something like, "do you not think that I know that everything I'm doing right now is going to effect the REST OF MY LIFE?" I think that was a pretty big statement. It seems simple, but I wonder how many people actually take it to heart when they go off to college the first time. I didn't. </p>
<p>And now I'm getting used to "giving it up" when it comes to thinking about my son's college performance. All I can do is be a cheerleader now. It's kind of liberating.</p>
<p>PS Major is Chemical Engineering/including PreMed</p>
<p>In high school, it was mostly A's with few B's. In college so far (soph) it has been more like a 50/50 split between B's and A's. This is his last semester of Physics, finished off Calc. and Chem now too. So he expects gpa to rise from here on out.</p>
<p>The transition hasn't been hard at all, but the GPA has suffered a lot.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a famously un-grade-inflated school, with a lot of core requirements she wouldn't necessarily want to take if they weren't required. The effortless As of high school are now effortful As-B+s; the skate-by-on-smarts B+s and Bs became close-call-with-failure, rescued-by-hard-work Cs, and then effortful Bs-B-s. The toughest thing for her to cope with is the first. I don't think she had ever gotten less than an A on an essay since about 4th grade, and it has been very frustrating for her to get B+s on papers she works hard on and likes, expecially since she can't tell the difference between those papers and the papers other teachers give As to. "B+ is the absolute worst grade, because it's supposed to be good, and you're supposed to be happy with it, but it says something important is missing and I don't know what that is."</p>
<p>In an engineering major it's much more difficult to maintain a GPA close to the HS one. I think at UCLA/UCSD the average GPA for engineering is around 2.7. The average for most other majors is quite a bit higher. I think this is typical for engineering at many colleges. It doesn't seem equitable but that's the way it is.</p>
<p>So far, so good. D did make <em>a grade she was less than happy with</em> (in an intensive writing course she had AP'ed out of and was taking to improve her ability. Duh. ) which threw her more than it should have. So, really a neglible difference in gpa so far. Biology chemistry double major/pre-med. She is very enthused about her school work and is stretching herself mightily in areas where she was "less than perfectly" :eek: prepared, while setting the curve in her science classes. I think this was to be expected. If it was easy then she would have selected the wrong school.</p>
<p>Our son attends RPI with a reputation for little grade inflation. recently reporting an average gpa of 3.04. Our son had a 3.3 uwgpa in his hs academic coursework and has a 3.79 gpa after 5 semesters with a 4.0 gpa in his compsci major.</p>
<p>He was not a slacker in hs but not a grind either. But he is now a far more serious and hardworking student. We were delighted with his freshman year gpa of 3.50, but frankly never expected this.</p>
<p>It certainly appears that he has blossomed in college.</p>
<p>Down first semester. Probably true for most freshmen. I'm not worried.
I think he's made a good transition. College is just harder--no surprise.</p>
<p>At JHU 1st semester grades are "covered" on the transcript but DS would have had about a 3.9. (HS GPA was ~3.6). Its not that Johns Hopkins is easier its just he has not had to take any Science or math courses since he placed out of the requirements with APs. (His high school GPA for English/History etc was 3.9). Since writing comes naturally to him his writing sems courses are not very difficult. I think the science/pre-med majors have a much more difficult time maintaining a high GPA.</p>
<p>Son is a senior. College GPA is slightly higher than uwgpa in HS. First semester Freshman year was a near disaster at midterms but recouped for finals. After that period of adjustment thing were fine. He came out of a very demanding magnet program in HS so definitely had the study skills. How demanding was it? Well he got a D in calculus his senior year of HS and an A in the same course in college. Repetition undoubtedly helped. </p>
<p>Our better colleges I think can probably be a bit of an adjustment if you haven't been surrounded before by a bunch very bright and driven kids. The peer group is much larger and where you once might have been the star of the class suddenly you find a few people way ahead of you. Through in all the other adjustments and temptations and don't be surprised if you see a few unexpectedly low grades. They usually regroup though.</p>
<p>First quarter grades were up (marginally) and expect the same with second quarter grades. The coursework isn't easier, but my daughter's focus has sharpened. I've found myself in the odd position of telling her more than once that she could cut herself some slack; her response to me was "I don't just want to be good, I want to be damn good." Music major with a probable double (individualized) major in global cultural relations.</p>
<p>My oldest son is attending the first school in his career to add a "plus" or "minus" to the letter grade. He is now rewarded fairly for having nearly perfect scores in his favorite subjects. That, and the fact that he can concentrate on the areas he loves (math/physics/comp sci), have pushed his GPA about as high as any parent could expect, about .3 higher than HS. He is a happy pig at the intellectual trough!</p>
<p>
[quote]
The other day we were talking and he said something like, "do you not think that I know that everything I'm doing right now is going to effect the REST OF MY LIFE?" I think that was a pretty big statement. It seems simple, but I wonder how many people actually take it to heart when they go off to college the first time. I didn't.
[/quote]
I don't either, and I'm in college. College grades effect what grad school you get into, and high school grades effect what college you get into. It all matters, but neither has the power to make or break your life. College grades will have an effect on the rest of your life--just like high school grades. </p>
<p>If I remember correctly, I believe I may attend the same school JHS's daughter attends with the tough grading and tougher courses. My GPA has gone down, but to be honest my grades themselves are about the same. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but if you take out throw-away high school courses with easy grades, my college grades are similar to the grades I got in tough high school classes. My lowest grade last term was in a subject I took a similarly hard class in during high school--the college grade was the same as the high school grade. I'm not one of the kids who got a 4.0 in high school, but I had As and Bs then, and I have As and Bs now. The As take a lot of work, and I'll be seeing more Bs in college than I did in high school. I see smart kids getting Cs and struggling here, but people seem to accept that as part of the school. Every grade matters a lot more for GPA calculation, too. My school is on quarters, so we only have three or four classes a quarter. Add in the fact that there are fewer graded opportunities in most college classes than in high school classes, and every assignment seems to bear individual weight in the GPA.</p>
<p>Had no grades in high school. Didn't go to high school. Seems to be doing just fine. I don't ask her about her grades, though I know she has been on the dean's list a lot. </p>
<p>College is definitely easier. She just falls out of bed and she's at breakfast with food cooked for her, and into the classroom is 5 minutes. (though now she is part of a coop, and the members all cook for each other.)</p>
<p>College grades don't necessarily effect the rest ofyour life. Most employers never see them!!!! It's only if you go to grad school that it matters - and the, what usually matters more, is the papers you've written, the research you've done, the professors who are batting for you - not each of your grades. Tell your son to relax a little... :)</p>
<p>Anxiousmom, grades do matter for those entry level job offers after graduation. Our highest achieving grads recieve both more and better job offers, a fact that is not mere coincidence. After that, I agree that grades matter very little, though those people who have graduated with honors almost always include that on their resume and I would think give them an advantage in a close horserace.</p>
<p>As far as grad school admission, grades matter greatly as well as individual research that you have done. Papers, unless published, count for little. And any recommendation that I am called on to write depends almost entirely on academic performance and this usually is closely correlated to overall gpa or at minimum, gpa in the major. We rely on honest, objective evaluations by colleagues from other universities and they can expect no less from me.</p>
<p>And of course overall gpa is of critical importance in professional school admissions at selective institutions.</p>
<p>But to repeat, if you are talking about grades impacting one's life after that first job or after that grad school admission, I agree totally. It is performance that counts and not the gpa or college name on the diploma.</p>
<p>agree with originaloog. Recently saw a article in the NYTimes about how college GPAs are MORE important than they used to be when seeking first jobs. Seems there are more candidates out there now that so many are going to college and employers need a way to sort through the masses. It went on to say that some employers throw resumes showing less than a 3.0 in the trash bin. Yikes. It was not that big a deal when I graduated over 20 years ago.<br>
In our case, our son did VERY well in his first semester as a freshman (4.0). He is in the honors program at our flagship state school and a number of his courses were honors classes. He worked pretty hard - but the adjustment was not too difficult - I think because he had such a tough HS schedule. He took 5 AP classes in his senior year with a heavy emphasis on advanced science and math. Plus he learned how to write efficiently and effectively in his AP english classes - which saves him a great deal of time now that he's in college (his roommate, on the other hand, struggles for days while writing papers).<br>
We tend to stay quiet about his success since we find many will chalk up to being in a state school or an easy major (business). Too bad. Not sure if this will last though since his courses are a bit tougher this semester...</p>
<p>Son has struggled with the change to college level. Had 5 APs as a senior and worked--but nothing compared to University level work. Has gone from mostly all A's in high school to a 3.6 entering 2nd semester soph. year. This semester, he's praying to get over a 2.0. The gpa average for his school runs 2.8 (all majors) so is not inflated at all. I'm hoping if he survives this semester of biochem, physicsII, spanish literature,...things will get better.</p>
<p>Dont want to go off topic, but I am enjoying hearing about the correlation of college grades to those in HS.</p>
<p>While each individual grade may not necessarily affect your life, young people have to realize that thier life is made up of the consequences of virtually every decision they make. Every experience that they participate in. Even if it is in some small way.</p>
<p>My parents never seemed to make this clear to me, although they may very well have tried, but in my years when I knew everything and was much smarter than they were (Ha Ha) perhaps I just wasn't listening.</p>
<p>I, Like a lot of folks on CC I'm sure, met my wife in college. (The gal that would later become my wife that is..)</p>
<p>Maybe if I had gotten 2 extra A's, i would have attended someplace different, and had never met her. Although, perhaps I would have been at the same place and stepped off the curb 4 seconds earlier on that tuesday afternoon and been mashed by a bus.</p>
<p>Extreme example I know. I always stress to my kids that there potential now is wide....As wide as I can spread my arms. I give them examples of how decisions that they make narrow and direct that field.</p>
<p>Screw up big time....sometimes you get a re-do. Sometimes you dont. Knocking on wood here, I think I've raised a couple of responsible young people. </p>
<p>Carry on, dont want to hijack.</p>
<p>Along with that thought pjp, my son is kicking himself now because he thinks maybe he "screwed up" by not choosing an "easier" school where he could have maintained a higher gpa, thus leaving more doors open to him. My only counter to him that I have been able to come with is "yes, but the way you reanalyze everything, if you had chosen school xyz for the easier grades, you very well may still be kicking yourself because you would have missed out on other opportunities that your present school offers". I think, my son at least, needs to learn that there is often no "right" decision--only making the best out of or perhaps I should say taking the best out of what decisions you have made.</p>