<p>I agree with GladGradDad. I’m confident my kids are putting in the appropriate amounts of effort, meeting with professors, and studying hard. (And btw I hope their entire college life isn’t about studying. It’s important to be in clubs / activities, hang out with friends, explore their cities, etc… All work and no play makes one very dull.) They put enough pressure on themselves. S got accepted in an honors major where he needs to maintain a 3.5. He cares enough about remaining in this major; I don’t need to put one iota of pressure. D is more intense in general and has sometimes too-high expectations of herself. She needs to learn that if she were to get a C, as long as she had put in her best effort, that’s all that counts. Frankly, we don’t even discuss grades with them unless they bring it up. Their own pressure-meters are more than enough, they don’t need me on top of them over it.</p>
<p>In effect, I had to act as if I was being paid for grades as my near-full ride scholarship required maintaining a minimum GPA slightly above 3.0. </p>
<p>Thankfully, that was an extremely low bar in retrospect though my father was initially concerned about my flunking out of my LAC considering how abysmal my HS GPA had been. </p>
<p>Most cousins who pulled C or lower grades ended up having to pay their parents back in cash or in other forms(i.e. Donations in parents name, community service, etc).</p>
<p>One of them said it was good preparation for working with his employer who paid for his Engineering MS as the employer’s policies was:</p>
<p>A level grades were fully covered by employer</p>
<p>B+ was covered at 80%</p>
<p>Bs covered at 50%</p>
<p>any grade below B was not covered as such grades were considered failing for that graduate program. Employee would have to bear that expenses him/herself.</p>
<p>We really do not have to agree or disagree. Every family does what every family wants and it is nobody else’s business. Some kids get showered simply because of the family means, and others are not given anything for exceptional results, again because of the family means or a different set of values. Why anybody cares? We all raise different individuals, they are not the same, thank goodness, that makes the whole society better off, some will be looking to rewards for their efforts, others will be looking for fun in a process. Who said that one group is better than another, they usually end up serving different functions in the organizations.</p>
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<p>However, unless the school specifies specific general education courses, many students will specifically choose the least work or “easy A” courses to fulfill their general education requirements, rather than challenge themselves with more rigorous ones.</p>
<p>“many students will specifically choose the least work or “easy A” courses to fulfill their general education requirements”
-And again, many will be looking to actually learn something in class instead of wasting their precious time sitting in the boring class and doing dull homework. Actually very very many. Some kids simply do not like the easy As becasue they feel that they learned nothing. Thye feel that they could have used time in much smarter way, and that includes both HS and college. They know very well that knowledge will open doors and wasting of time has an opportunity cost, it is not free. The kids are not dumb, believe it or not, the vast majority of them are much much smarter than others perceive tham to be.</p>
<p>Well, the amount of money I have offered is finite (X per year). If loss of scholarship meant the bill went above X, I could not pay, not really much of a choice. So, in that respect, I might not be able to pay for C’s and D’s. </p>
<p>Were finances unaffected, I would pay as long as my student was in good academic standing. Not every well-performing high school student will treat us to a repeat performance in college. It’s tougher. Some kids leaned a little too heavily on mom and dad and don’t perform so well all on their lonesome. As long as they’re progressing, yes I will pay if I can.</p>
<p>Oh, and majors with less than 10% electives? Try nursing. There’s a little flexibility in the gen Ed requirements for theology and history and art, but your math is going to be stats, your science is going to be chem, your behavioral science is going to be psych, etc.</p>
<p>Told ours that four years was what the budget would allow. S2 had a horrific forst sem. resulting in academic probation. We made the decision to keep paying and let him take another shot. We told him the goal was to improve his gpa every semester rather than an arbitrary number . He did and graduated last year. Glad we kept paying even when things looked dire.</p>
<p>When my daughter was about to head off for her sophomore year, I posted a thread that sort of touched on both the grades, the major, and the how much you would pay question. Boy, did I get piled on! What I think I learned from that is it really depends on your child. Getting advice from folks on a forum is VERY helpful, and I’m sure some parents have no insight into how their own pathology might be ruining their child’s life, but most of us are ‘’ good enough’’ parents and might need to trust our instincts. I found I couldn’t really tell in advance what expectations to share. With my second, it is very different, but I have decided to allow for some learning as we go.</p>
<p>How about this: low grades related to missing classes, but maybe due to a more pc issues than drinking and partying? Let’s call it depression. How do you figure that out thousands of miles away? Do you try, or say they are Adult?</p>
<p>Sounds like there are more than one type of student that are being referenced as we all try to answer the question of whether or not we should pay for just any grade in college … the four basic groups discussed here are:</p>
<p>1) Students that beat themselves up if they get anything but A’s or anything below a 3.5 GPA. Some of these students have merit aid or scholarships that require they meet a certain GPA, or they must meet a certain GPA to stay in their major. I don’t think this is the group we are worried about when we wonder if we will pay for any grade.</p>
<p>2) Students that work hard, get mostly A’s and B’s, and occasionally a C or worse, but they are trying. This group may also be in a club or two, may be social, but in general is making good progress through college. Again, this is not a group we are worried about, as any C’s they get will get averaged out over many A’s and B’s the rest of the time.</p>
<p>3) Students that think they are working hard enough, but haven’t found the right balance in fun versus dedicated studying. They may be over-joined in clubs or campus social activities and haven’t found the right balance between studying and playing, but in general they are headed in a good direction and are growing their skills. These students might think they are pacing themselves for a “B” or better, but because they don’t recognize how strong the competition is, end up with a “C” or worse. They may seek out help or tutoring, so their intentions to improve are there, but they haven’t seen the results in their grades yet. This type of student may need a little more incentive to stay on a good academic track, or to develop better time management skills. They may also need to re-assess their field of study or major.</p>
<p>4) Students that are partying too much, and as a result miss classes, don’t seek out add’l tutoring or help, and their grades reflect repeated poor choices. This type of student is not ready for college, and may need to take a semester or two off, or may even need the lecture of “We are not paying for anything below a C+ from no on. Shape up or take time off.”</p>
<p>So when we talk about paying for grades, we typically mean those students in group 3 or 4, as they need add’l self regulating until they are fully driving themselves totally independently and successfully. For these students, the thought of them paying for C’s or owing their parents for C’s may provide that additional incentive to step it up a notch, or re-assess if they have picked a major over their head. Even a hard major like engineering can take only so many C’s in your GPA before it is harder to get a job. </p>
<p>One group I didn’t consider was students who experienced something difficult like a death in the family or a severe medical issue that is physical and/or mental. Since the specifics can vary so much from situation to situation, it would make sense to look at these cases on a individual basis. A “C” in a class or two while undergoing and recovering from surgery, being treated for depression, or for dealing with a family situation may be great news, whereas two “C’s” in a kid that simply partied too much just looks bad.</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>The entire grade expectation issue seems to be very dependent upon the college, the student, and the major. There may be colleges where a good student in a non-demanding major can get an easy A in many of their classes. Other colleges and majors where that same student can walk away with a C in certain classes feeling relieved that they did so.</p>
<p>All majors and colleges aren’t the same. You can’t generically define what someone’s grades should be. It certainly also depends upon the other activities the student is participating it…some of which could be more important to their career aspirations than their GPA. I don’t think I’d jump on my kids unless they were blowing off their classes, and I wouldn’t expect a specific grade in each. Though I’d probably frown if they got less than a B in a non-killer class.</p>
<p>Nicely articulated, Snowflake.</p>
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<p>Grades in grad school are typically much different than those in undergrad, in terms of how they are given [and even earned], and viewed, what’s considered passing or not passing or good or bad, and their relative importance.</p>
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<p>I’d say in order of most to lease importance is student, college, and then major. Individual students have different perspectives on what’s hard, manageable, or easy. Different colleges and majors have different rigor/workload thresholds which may be viewed differently depending on student. </p>
<p>For instance, I’ve lost count of how many STEM aspirants/majors I’ve known who whined endlessly about doing one or two 5-15 page papers and weekly reading loads of only 180 pages/week…a load one would expect from an introductory to easy intermediate social science/humanities course at Oberlin and other comparable colleges. </p>
<p>Basically, a flipside to whining commonly from humanities/social science majors over practicing problem sets, doing rigorous logic/mathematical proofs, and doing weekly science labs for non-“rocks for jocks” type STEM courses. </p>
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<p>Depends on the graduate program. That cousin’s Engineering MS program was professionally oriented so it was actually quite similar to his undergrad…except the work was much more advanced, faster paced, and the instructors had far less time/patience to suffer slacking/weak students who couldn’t hit the ground running from the first day. </p>
<p>Also, considering most of the students worked full-time jobs during the day and it took place sometime in the mid-'90s before work-life balance became a topic of widespread public discussion, there wasn’t much sympathy from instructors or most fellow students for those who couldn’t balance work, home life, and that particular engineering MS program.</p>
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<p>this is true… I watched a lot of kids do it, especially the pre-med types.</p>
<p>On the other hand I took a 300 level philosophy class senior year b/c I thought it would be interesting. And it was… of course I also got a C, meh. Should’ve taken it pass/fail I guess.</p>
<p>No concern for grades. Once we determined we could pay the cost of a particular college, our oversight was done. Their (adult) future is what they make of it ~</p>
<p>I’ve always been grateful for the fact that my parents said not a word about my college grades. They were good enough to get me into a Ph.D. program, obviously, but they were just nothing near the perfect A grades I had received throughout my K-12 career. The out of classroom lessons I was learning about how to be something other than an uninteresting, irritating, pretentious, approval-craving little AchievementBot 3000 were infinitely more valuable than every single course I took in college, save two or three. </p>
<p>And, FWIW, the single most important, influential, interesting, and life-altering course I took in college was an elective with a campus-wide reputation for being one of the easiest classes around. </p>
<p>The longer I teach at the college level, the more useless I think grades are, at least in my discipline.</p>
<p>For parents of students w/merit scholarships - if your student loses a scholarship based on a gpa requirement - I have this question. The college has the info, we don’t, on (historic) grade distribution for required classes, for various majors, for everything. We have no information. Call me cynical (and maybe misinformed) but I have considered whether some enrollment managers are betting against the student keeping the scholarship. One reason I wouldn’t (generally) be quick to fault the student.</p>
<p>It’s fair game to ask the Us being considered what % of students are able to keep their merit awards for all 4 years in the various majors, especially the major your kiddo is in. We asked generally and also asked at our HS what the history had been. Most of the kids from our kiddo’s HS were able to keep their merit awards all 4 years in engineering at the U our S was attending with a merit award. Some other Us had a much worse track record and many/most of their students lost their merit awards after 1st semester or year.</p>
<p>The U our S attended also offered “probation” if the student happened to fall below the GPA requirement–believe it was for a semester or year. Fortunately, S was never near the cutoff for GPA, so we never had to explore the details about this.</p>
<p>Wow. That is cynical! </p>
<p>I haven’t seen any mimimun GPA for keeping a merit scholarship that seemed unreasonable.</p>
<p>We told our D that if she lost her scholarship she would have to withdraw from the college, move home, get a job and commute to local college.</p>
<p>Also, must take a minimum of 15 credit hours/semester AND graduate in four years!!</p>
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If the scholarship is significant, losing the scholarship likely means leaving the school. I doubt that is what the enrollment managers are striving for.</p>
<p>You can find information about grade trends here: [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/]National”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/)</p>
<p>I would say that unless the grade needed to keep the scholarship is really high (like a 3.5 or higher) you really don’t have to be better than an average or slightly above average student to have a very high probability of meeting the minimum requirement.</p>
<p>And if you are smart enough to have received the scholarship in the first place, you are most likely well-above-average to start with. If the student loses the scholarship, it’s almost certainly not because they were giving 100% effort but just couldn’t score the grade.</p>