<p>ucbalumnus,</p>
<p>(In regards to my institution)
There’s not much elective choice in the majors I am looking at (math and CS). There are “take this, this, or this” for every subfield, but usually those classes are exactly the same, but one may be more geared to life science people, another to economics people, etc. </p>
<p>For CS, you have to choose 4-6 technical electives, which can be fulfilled by a few pre-approved math classes. But there aren’t many CS classes that are undergrad only to choose from, so you don’t really get to choose a subset of CS to really dive into. And not everyone is comfortable taking grad level classes as a soph/jr in college (I most likely won’t be. Not even in senior year, because the extra work will detract time from a thesis).</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’m understanding your part about gen eds, but those aren’t included in STEM majors for requirements, those are just required for every undergrad.</p>
<p>To stay on topic, my parent never set a grade limit. Do my best. I am one of the students going to a tougher school after being at the top of HS and it sure is overwhelming sometimes. We thankfully do not have to take out loans (which may change in the future). I do not work during the school year, per agreement with parent. I am at school to study (not overload myself, an EC or two is a great study break), and work can happen in the summers.</p>
<p>Even if 20% of your classes are walk-in-the-park gen eds, that’s not going to rescue you if you are getting C’s in everything else.</p>
<p>we pay. If we didn’t pay, D2 wouldn’t go. ;)</p>
<p>She gets good grades, though. But, not because she works very hard.</p>
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<p>Some students will choose more rigorous courses for breadth requirements, and take them for letter grades. Others will chose the “gut” courses, and take them pass / not-pass if they are not also “easy A” courses.</p>
<p>Okay, I understood that part. What I got from this part: </p>
<p>“Even engineering majors, generally thought to be “heavy” in terms of requirements, tend to have 20-25% in humanities and social studies requirements where the student can choose which courses to fulfill them”</p>
<p>Was that the H/SS classes were a required part of the major. I may have seen that at other schools when I was looking around, but that’s not how it is here. </p>
<p>But that’s just a minor distinction, and the only way that would make a difference would be in major GPA vs overall GPA. That could hurt or help (as a STEM person, that would help me in terms of major GPA if I could include H/SS courses. I am somewhat lucky in that the major I am most likely choosing allows for an application area, which can be in any field, including H/SS fields). </p>
<p>I do see students generally trying to take gut classes in requirements outside of their area of interest/outside of what they’re best at. Ex STEM people taking non-taxing H/SS courses because non-gut courses would take up a lot of time and take time away from the more “important” STEM classes, and vice versa with humanities students and STEM requirements.</p>
<p>Very interesting posts so far.
Thanks.
Good things to think about.</p>
<p>Just to add some levity, when I saw the title of this thread, I feared it was about buying off professors. :)</p>
<p>My child needs to graduate in 4 years. I am paying for that and accomplishing it is up to her. I’m not babysitting her grades.</p>
<p>I have no pretense for grades, but if she fails in the expensive private school, I will not hesitate to pull her back into CCC.</p>
<p>We went for tuition free and the straight As. It was a good preparation for the future. I definitely would not pay for just any college education, and with Cs, the kid would not be supported period, the kids would rather be flipping burgers.</p>
<p>Did not see a comment about babysitting grades. Never occurred to us. Had to peel her off her books few times in HS. In UG she was on her own, and was involved in so much, that she definitely needed to peel herself off without us. Never had a single B kindergarten - college graduation.</p>
<p>I agree with GladGrad. If I were skipping class and not doing well, I’d fully expect people to not pay for this. But if I’m going and trying my best and still get an C or a D, then so be it.</p>
<p>I had one really bad spring semester in college during freshman year… I believe there were two C’s and a D (which I re-took with another prof, got an A, and erased my D). I didn’t miss any classes, I did all my work, the results just weren’t there. I also got a few C’s my sophomore year too. Junior and Senior year I got almost all A’s and graduated with more then a 3.0</p>
<p>I think it took me awhile to adjust for how to study in college. I very rarely had to study in high school. I just paid attention in class and got great grades on my tests. My mom used to joke and ask me if I had any text books. In college the exams coverd a lot more then what was gone over in class and I had to re-invent the way I studied. It took awhile, but I got there. </p>
<p>I have had to take many classes for work over the years since graduating and aced all of them as well.</p>
<p>My university costs were mostly covered by merit aid and a bit of my funds (I paid for one semester just because I wanted to and had the funds from my job), so my parents only paid somewhere around $25-$30k for all four years, including tuition, fees, room, and board and a couple of summer classes. I got two C’s in college (a C+ and a C-) and never heard anything about it from my parents–in fact, I can’t remember them asking, although I think I’ve told them. But, my overall GPA was still over 3.7 (lots of credits, mostly A’s with some B’s), and I was never in danger of losing my merit aid. Had I been getting lots of C’s, D’s, and F’s, or in danger of losing my merit aid, I’m sure things would have been different.</p>
<p>By ‘babysitting’ I suppose I meant I’m not going to be ‘helicoptering’ my student about the grades I’d like to see. </p>
<p>As we told them in grade school – when other parents were paying cash for each A on the report card - you get the good grade not for US, but for YOU.</p>
<p>DS is starting college in the fall with a merit scholarship that pays his tuition. He has to keep a 3.3 for full free tuition or a 3.0 for 90% free tuition. I am hoping he can keep the scholarship however engineering is hard so if he ended up close to a 3.0 we would still pay but if he was closer to a 2.0 well then we are lucky that his college is close enough that he could live at home and commute. Meaning we would pay for the tuition but no longer the room & board.:)</p>
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<p>lots of gen-eds are not a walk in the park either, at least where I went to school…</p>
<p>S1 and S2 both had to maintain at least a 3.0 to stay in their major so the issue of paying never came up. They both knew not only would we not fund Ds they understood they probably couldn’t stay at their school if they couldn’t maintain what was needed for their major. I’ve heard kids in my house joke that Ds get you Degrees but not where my older two went to college.</p>
<p>"other parents were paying cash for each A "
-Well, my kids did not have a single penny of allowance money, forget paying for grades. I do not believe in giving $$ to someone who has everything for free. What do they need $$ for? We have been paying for everything, including Med. School. They were understanding enough to go to cheap / free state public UGs and that was good enough for us, we appreciated that. Paying for an A or for nothing as an allowance is not serving any purpose, they are already getting paid by being fully supported.</p>
<p>We always gave ours a “end of the school year” gift (not money, an actual doodad or something) , specifically prior to any grades arriving so as to commend them for getting through the year, not necessarily for any particular grade. I find the whole personal worth as defined by test taking a little naive, myself. And I was a straight-A student forever…(Imagine my shock to discover that adult life involves very little grading and even less positive feedback)</p>
<p>We ask our children what we’ve always asked – to put in their best effort, to listen to constructive criticism, to course-correct when things are going badly, and to persevere until they are better. And if things don’t get better, to retrench and replan and not take it as a sign that they are less worthy people because of a poor grade. Sometimes a D or a C is a cause for celebration. Sometimes an A is just a yawn. Those of you so quick to dismiss C’s as unworthy grades might want to check your condescension meter ;)</p>