<p>For my DS1, it most certainly got easier in college. No busywork. If he’s learned the material after hearing it in lecture (which is true of him), no need to lather, rinse and repeat it in seventeen flavored ways…DS1 had some good grades in HS, but also some real winner moments of ‘late’ completion of assignments ie. all in the day before the quarter ends… he did not have a great admissions cycle but so far (insert image of Mother crossing fingers) his grades at college are wonderful, his stress level is next to nil … and he talks of transferring…ah boys.</p>
<p>The end-of-quarter grades continue to roll in, and as of two minutes ago (thanks, online reporting system!) (also curse you, online reporting system!) we’re looking at two A’s, two B’s, and three C’s. Conferences tonight…I can’t wait to hear what his teachers say. Shees.</p>
<p>Everything I use daily I learned in high school and a bit from grad school, but most of the stuff I use at work I learned from my first job. High school taught me most of the history I know (with the exception of Chinese history), how to write, and math through calculus. I found college easier than high school, but my grades were only slightly better.</p>
<p>For my oldest son I think college is a lot more demanding, but it’s all stuff he’s interested in doing so it’s much less tedious. He doesn’t have a lot of lecture and take an exam at the end of the course. Lots of problem sets, very time consuming even for him. Gradewise - they are still great. He’s had all A’s except one B in a history course.</p>
<p>Although I’m sure this is different for everyone, I happen to agree completely. In high school I learned how to write, thanks to my saint of an AP English teacher, and how to type. Together these account for roughly 90% of my career success. The other 10% is the ability to tinker with mechanical and electrical things, which I learned in a research lab in grad school but could have just as easily picked up somewhere else.</p>
<p>Does your son’s school have regular parent teacher conferences like this? Or is this something special for people who want to arrange it? Because I’m pretty sure they don’t have these things for all the kids at my son’s school. You can talk and email the teachers whenever you want, but nothing formal that I know of. Maybe it’s just because they figure my kid’s a lost cause they don’t tell me about it <g></g></p>
<p>In HS we only have conferences the first term of 9th grade and then,as others have pointed out, you don’t really want to be asked to a conference, it is a harbringer of doom.<br>
Isn’t it amazing that for the past 11 years the parent teacher conferences for our kids have always been variations on a theme such as …your S is “creative, smart, but…needs to organize, needs to focus…have you spoken to your doctor about ADD?”
I had several suggest medications (no medical degree required apparently) and, my reigning favorite, was the elementary school teacher who thought that he may have been suffering from silentl seizures because when she called his name he didn’t respond. Still, when you hear this from multiple teachers at multiple schools (and in our case, multiple countries) you realize that this is who he is and, while the white boards, organization systems and cell phones with calendars have helped, some basic things are here to stay.</p>
<p>We still have parent-teacher conferences at S2’s school (October only, then as needed). S2 is organized and diligent so his conferences have been very calm affairs. S1 was different, he is more of a “doer”, tests never quite showed what he knew. Give him an opportunity to physically show what he knew and everyone was stunned by his command of the material. Wife and I would go to conferences waiting for “TDB”, “The Dreaded But”.</p>
<p>“We love your son, but…”
“He’s wonderful in class - outgoing, helpful, but…”
“When I ask him a question he seems to understand, but…”</p>
<p>We always laughed that this was just another example of where having a small “but” is far better than having to haul around a big one.</p>
<p>“We love your son, but…” was the theme of my conferences yesterday. Fortunately, he has some wonderful teachers this year whom he is really motivated to please, so he’s trying hard to turns the “buts” into “ands” so to speak.</p>
<p>I also got official confirmation that I belong in this thread. His report card lists his cumulative GPA as 3.55. So, I really am one of you! :)</p>
<p>LOL. We just got progress reports today. It’s probably the best one I’ve gotten for this kid, but since it’s only comments without grades you never know what grades you are going to end up with. “Doing good work” sometimes means a B and sometimes means an A. I suspect he’s going to have excellent grades, but there’s always the disconnect between what the schools says his GPA is vs. what it is if you drop two periods of orchestra.</p>
<p>Our high school’s interim grades report is designed so that you can’t tell whether the student on track for an A or a B - they are both ‘S’ for now. Doing it this way makes it hard for parents to know if they should storm the school…</p>
<p>Oh, no, at our kid’s school we are given every teacher’s assessment of the student and interim grades. They also like to tell it to our face (parent/teacher conference), so there would be no misunderstanding.</p>
<p>Glad you guys are back. I have been lurking for 93 pages, so I thought I better introduce myself and say hello. DS is halfway through with apps, his reaches fit this thread (sorta, more like top 40), and his grades fit this thread. He has excellent ACT scores, so we are shooting for lots of different schools. Just reading each day for tips and perspective. No real question, just thanks for coming back to life!</p>
<p>We were able to peek inside one black box last week :). No, we didn’t steal the envelope, mug the mailman, or bribe the secretary. It wasn’t anything surreptitious.</p>
<p>We were able to peek because of the application to Oxford. Oxford uses the UCAS online forms exclusively and it is the applicant’s responsibility to cut and paste the letter from the referee (teacher) to the online form. UK rules allow students access to teacher recommendations. One of DS1’s favorite teachers agreed to write up a recommendation under the terms. We couldn’t be happier with the letter – it was better than what we had expected.</p>
<p>At least we no longer need to worry about one of the black boxes.</p>
<p>^^^^It’s interesting I guess, except I’m not sure what makes this more reputable than any other source, since I’m not sure exactly who “people close to the athletics department” is.</p>
<p>Plus, I’m not sure what you can ascertain about the unhooked at Harvard except they must have an AI higher than 225. It would help if you know the percentage of recruited athletes in the admitted class. If you have 30% recruited athletes, say, then I think that means the other 70% of applicants would average around 231 or so. That’s pretty astronomical, and that doesn’t count other hooks. Even 225 is pretty high.</p>
<p>And that 231 is just the average. Meaning that there are a lot of kids with that AI that don’t get in, unless they have something else to push them over the top.</p>
<p>So, basically what this is saying is that to get into Harvard you have to be pretty much perfect in test scores, and high ranked in your class. Then you have to show them something. How do kids get in there?</p>