3/2 Programs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the only place it might possibly make sense is when the "2" school is very close to the "3" school so you aren't disrupting your life so much and can still stay engaged with your LAC's community in senior year. The one that comes to mind is Agnes Scott College's dual degrees with Emory (10 minutes away from Agnes Scott) and Georgia Tech (a little farther)
https://www.agnesscott.edu/academicadvising/dual-degree-program.html

As an example, the student enrolls in Bowdoin or Amherst. They spend junior year “abroad” at Dartmouth and then return to their home school for senior year to graduate with a BA or BS from there. Finally they spend a fifth year back at Dartmouth and finish with a BS in engineering.
Thoughts ?

Totally ridiculous and disruptive.

It's no different than study abroad for a semester or a year. What's disruptive becomes expanding one's horizon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece (who does not have parents to advise her, so I've been her college support), entered a 3-2 program this year as a Freshman. Turned down a full-ride at a few strong engineering programs for the dangling carrot of Columbia Engineering guaranteed admit. She is at a SLAC that I won't name; they lied to us about guaranteed admissions to Columbia. I was there in the office of one of the STEM professors, who told us that as long as she maintained a certain GPA, she'd be admitted to Columbia.

Now she is at the SLAC and finds out there are at least 50 other kids competing for the 4-5 slots that will be guaranteed to Columbia in year 4. She is stifled by the SLAC - way too small, classes not challenging, limited clubs and internship opportunities. She has applied to transfer out for next year. I had advised her strongly to take one of the engineering schools, but she said she wanted the small school experience, and to be able to study physics/math, then engineering. The only good thing is that she has a full ride to the ridiculously overpriced SLAC so we didn't have to pay for it. Hopefully she gets re-accepted as a transfer to one of the engineering programs that she turned down.

Lesson learned - even with our due diligence, the 3-2 was totally not worth it. As other PPs have said, if student is interested in engineering, they should go directly into an engineering program. I hadn't ever heard of a 3-2 program before my niece told me about them, but now I believe they are a way for the SLACs to attract strong STEM and engineering students that they otherwise wouldn't be able to attract. I would never recommend one.

If the classes aren't challenging, why not do an independent study with a professor?

A place where the classes aren't challenging is often heavily reliant on adjuncts, who won't have time to do an independent study. And the full-time faculty are often similarly stressed.

Plus that only solves the problem for one class.

Smal LACs are not heavily reliant on adjuncts, regardless of the difficulty of classes.

https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20Snapshot%20Tenure.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece (who does not have parents to advise her, so I've been her college support), entered a 3-2 program this year as a Freshman. Turned down a full-ride at a few strong engineering programs for the dangling carrot of Columbia Engineering guaranteed admit. She is at a SLAC that I won't name; they lied to us about guaranteed admissions to Columbia. I was there in the office of one of the STEM professors, who told us that as long as she maintained a certain GPA, she'd be admitted to Columbia.

Now she is at the SLAC and finds out there are at least 50 other kids competing for the 4-5 slots that will be guaranteed to Columbia in year 4. She is stifled by the SLAC - way too small, classes not challenging, limited clubs and internship opportunities. She has applied to transfer out for next year. I had advised her strongly to take one of the engineering schools, but she said she wanted the small school experience, and to be able to study physics/math, then engineering. The only good thing is that she has a full ride to the ridiculously overpriced SLAC so we didn't have to pay for it. Hopefully she gets re-accepted as a transfer to one of the engineering programs that she turned down.

Lesson learned - even with our due diligence, the 3-2 was totally not worth it. As other PPs have said, if student is interested in engineering, they should go directly into an engineering program. I hadn't ever heard of a 3-2 program before my niece told me about them, but now I believe they are a way for the SLACs to attract strong STEM and engineering students that they otherwise wouldn't be able to attract. I would never recommend one.

If the classes aren't challenging, why not do an independent study with a professor?

A place where the classes aren't challenging is often heavily reliant on adjuncts, who won't have time to do an independent study. And the full-time faculty are often similarly stressed.

Plus that only solves the problem for one class.

Smal LACs are not heavily reliant on adjuncts, regardless of the difficulty of classes.

https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20Snapshot%20Tenure.pdf

Good SLACs typically supplement their full-time faculty with post-doc visiting professors, but this is a very good thing--they bring diverse new perspectives to small colleges/departments, often are researching very current areas. SLACs often have a very structured way of supporting them--they give regular talks on their work, they have faculty mentors, they are given support to bring students into their research etc. These are often 1-3 year positions.