Tell your College kids that skipping class can be a disaster

<p>From what I hear nowadays it seems not unusual for students to miss classes for whatever reason. One particular class my son has he missed one class (not for any good reason). That day the teacher decided to give a surprise quiz. It brought his mid term grade down from the B he had before the quiz to an F. That surprise quiz will count for 15% of the final grade and there are no make ups. As he had a B before the quiz he will have to have As in everything for the rest of the semester to have a chance of pulling off a C in the class. Pretty hefty consequence for missing one class. Tell your kids to go to class!!</p>

<p>umm.. do you have the grade update? That seems like a pretty heavily weighted quiz to go from a B to an F and have it so greatly affect the rest of the semester.</p>

<p>Currently an F. He was baffled when he saw the F as the mid terms arrived over spring break and he thought he had a B and did not know he had even missed a surprise quiz. There are very few graded items in this class. So far one test in which he got a B. Then this quiz which he got a 0 as did a couple of others who were absent that day. The prof told him the best he can get in the class now is a C, if he gets all As for everything else. Unfortunately all As are not that likely for my son.</p>

<p>I am in school currently and have a teacher that gives quizzes on days students are missing. But they are fairly frequent and do not count for 15% of the grade. Plus she is really kind hearted and allows make ups but says they will be tougher.</p>

<p>What does the syllabus say? Usually, there is an attendance policy stated. Does it say there can be pop quizzes? Making 1 surprise quiz count for 15% of the grade seems harsh and patently unfair.</p>

<p>I believe he attendance policy is that you cannot miss more than 4 classes. He has missed one. I don't know what the syllabus says. I agree that it is pretty harsh. He talked to the teacher and the 'best you can get now is a C' was the response he got.</p>

<p>He should check the grading breakdown on the syllabus, IMO</p>

<p>I will suggest that to him. </p>

<p>It does seem extraordinary to me as well.</p>

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<p>Sometimes, all it takes is one lesson like this for the whole class to get the point. Still, I don't like this policy. What if it is your mother's funeral or you got hit by a car on the way to class? I wouldn't sign up for this class and I'll be a lot of other students wouldn't either in the future.</p>

<p>If these quizzes are on the syllabus, what did you expect?</p>

<p>If they're not on it, start the complaining, and keep going till you get it fixed</p>

<p>I actually have absolutely no idea what is on the syllabus, and I did not expect anything. Nor am I planning on complaining about anything. Nor is he as far as I know. He is just planning to try and salvage what he can. I am not saying it was ok to miss class, in fact I am quite irritated bout it. But I am not saying anything to him about it as he is a returning student and is mostly paying for school himself with loans. </p>

<p>The point of the thread is to point out that that students should be aware that missing even one class can lead to pretty severe consequence. To be honest, being back in school myself I am amazed how often some of the students miss class. My daughter often comments on it at her school as well. She has had several teachers that will give sudden quizzes that are not usually worth much but she has had classes where those few points have made the difference between a B and an A so she goes to class. I was chatting to one of the teachers at my school today (I am, obviously, an older student as I have kids in college, the teacher is probably around my age or a little younger) and she was saying that in her days at college you never missed class unless there was a really good reason, but that the current generation seem to think nothing of missing class.</p>

<p>Swimcatsmom </p>

<p>Being the cheapskate that I am, I calculate the $ cost of that missing class day as follows</p>

<p>If tuition is $35,000 per year @ 30 credit hours per year (10 courses), each 3 credit hour course costs $3,500. Assuming that course meets 40 times per semester, each class session costs $87.50.</p>

<p>Since I'm paying the tuition, I might send an invoice to my kid for the charge. But that's just me...........</p>

<p>P.S. - way back in pre-historic times when I was an undergrad, adult students like you (who generally blew the curve for the rest of us) were in reality good motivators for those of us who were competitive. The real world experiences, especially in the business policy and strategy classes, took the discussions to a much higher plane. Best wishes in your studies!!</p>

<p>My D1 had a class last semester where a quiz was given regularly, but always at the end of the class. As Cornell has a large campus, sometimes it is difficult to make it from one class to another class on time. My daughter has from time to time showed up 5-10 min late. Luck would have it that one day she showed up on time, the professor decided to give the quize first thing. A handful of students that were late were not given extra time to finish. She has never been late for that class again, especially on the quize day.</p>

<p>Maybe I just took weird classes, but I don't remember ever having quizzes, much less pop quizzes in a college class. I did have some seminars where I imagine class participation counted. And perhaps I've just forgotten quizzes in the language classes. I took math and physics self-paced so I scheduled my own quizzes.</p>

<p>Wow. Seems like a very strict policy to me. I taught college for 20 years and had a policy of allowing students to drop worst quiz grade, i.e., only 5 out 6 quizzes count. This allowed them to screw up, miss the quiz, etc., and I didn't have to give make up quizzes. I admit I was much more strict about the midterm and final. Multiple choice if you make the test, essay if you missed. I figured you had more time to study (and quiz other students about what was on the test.) Needless to say, in all my years of teaching I only gave one essay test, and that student didn't do very well on it. I guess word got around to never miss one of my tests!</p>

<p>Also - students do frequently skip class. I didn't penalize them for missing class. I figured I had the information, they needed the information, and it was their grade hanging in the balance. I did offer "extra credit" for attending class regularly. If a student was sitting on the edge (for example, a high B+) and I looked across my gradebook and saw they attended every class, I gave them the A. You'd be surprised how many students managed to make it to class - even my early morning one.</p>

<p>
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If tuition is $35,000 per year @ 30 credit hours per year (10 courses), each 3 credit hour course costs $3,500. Assuming that course meets 40 times per semester, each class session costs $87.50.

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<p>Except that you're assuming that the tuition is entirely for class.</p>

<p>College learning, and the tuition that goes toward it, is not just about class (in some classes, with some professors, very little of it is about class per se). It's about advising. It's about having the opportunity to work with professors, to learn how to do quality research. It's about access to materials, to first-class academic libraries. It's about working on problem sets and projects, and being surrounded by peers who contribute to your learning in informal study sessions. It's about office hours, academic support services, and career counseling. I'm sure there are things that I'm leaving out.</p>

<p>Not that I am advocating blowing off class. In most cases, it's a good idea to go. I just wince every time I see the misconception that the academic side of college is all about class attendance, because my college academic experience consisted of <em>so</em> much more than going to lectures.</p>

<p>(I should clarify that seminars and discussion-based classes are different from lectures. In the former, going to class is crucial to learning, to getting something out of the class. In the latter, it may be crucial, completely irrelevant, or somewhere in between, depending on who's teaching and how they set things up.)</p>

<p>I'm with mathmom: I can't remember a single "quiz" in college, ever. I had exams or papers. Some classes had midterms (but not that many). Some classes had frequent short papers, others had one longer one. But nothing remotely resembling a "quiz".</p>

<p>I don't even remember attendance being taken. Of course, if it was a small seminar or section meeting, your absence would be obvous, and noted. But in lecture courses, never. And I wasn't ever aware that class participation ever figured into anyone's grade, either.</p>

<p>The closest I came to a course where attendance sort of mattered was my introductory accounting course. There was a case-study problem set for every class, and you had to hand yours in by the end of class. Class consisted of going over the problem set. So if you wanted you could choose between doing the problem set and not going to class, or going to class and doing the problem set there. (As the course got more complex, so did the problem sets, so by the end you really had to have worked in advance to be able to finish it during class.) The problem sets were graded pass-fail. If you handed in passing problem sets on time for 90% of the classes, you were assured of a C in the course even if you failed, or missed, the exam. Otherwise, the exam was the whole grade for the course.</p>

<p>Another voice for never having heard of a situation like this. The colleges my Ds attended/attend all have the attendance policy, assignments, papers, tests, and grading breakdown detailed in the syllabus at the beginning of term. Class participation, when counted, is usually a very small % of the total grade. I don't recall any of them ever mentioning pop quizzes. There are definitely profs out there who have their own little quirks and can be intransigent when it comes to a student questioning a class policy. However, if the possibility of a pop quiz worth 15% wasn't mentioned early on, I would explore what the process is for questioning a situation like this at your son's school. Perhaps discuss it with his academic advisor or the Dept. head.</p>

<p>I also never had quizzes in college -- pop or otherwise. But my daughter has had pop quizzes in one or two large lecture classes.</p>

<p>Back in the dinosaur era, H took a German language class for "an easy A". (he already knew how to speak/read German before taking the class). He got 98-100% on all the tests (and there were no quizzes); he had a friend in class who would tell him when the tests were scheduled...but he never showed up for class otherwise. At the end of the semester, he ended up with a "B". When he questioned the prof, the prof pointed out the "class participation" part of the grade, which of course H had blown off. </p>

<p>I had a bizarre philosophy class in college, and there were LOTS of "pop" quizzes, but they were discussed in the syllabus. LOL, usually they were about some ancient or impossible-to-understand passage from some dead philosopher. I WOULD do the reading, I WOULD show up for class, and I consistently got D's and F's on those stupid quizzes (obviously I never considered a philosophy major). Luckily, there were so many of those quizzes, and they were a fraction of the grade, so I ended up with an A in the class!</p>

<p>In D's tough math and science classes, there are no pop quizzes, but homework is collected on random days. If you haven't done the work, or don't show up for class, it's NOT your lucky day.</p>

<p>I never had a single quiz in college.</p>

<p>Speaking of Accounting....my class was completely different..consisting of 1 midterm and 1 final.</p>

<p>Attendance was optional.</p>

<p>Many students picked up their syllabus the first day...went to class a day or 2 before the midterm, and again a day or two before the final..and that was it.</p>