Are professors at all universities seeing big drop in college preparedness?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could also be TO and weaker admissions standards for “prestige” universities. It’s not just the pandemic.

TO has nothing to do with weather a student is prepared for college.

I would say I have not seen a major change. If anything, students seem better prepared overall. There are still a few that I was would have been required to talk a basic writing class. The one area I do see a difference is the extent to which students want to turn in work late. There doesn't seem to be the same priority for deadlines.

+1 My colleagues at T20 schools, SLACS, and public R1 universities report the same behavior I have observed since the pandemic. The majority of students are academically prepared; however, there has been an increase in the number of students who can't meet deadlines, ask to redo assignments, struggle with mental health, and chronically skip class.

I'm at a public R1, and our DRW rates have slightly increased since the pandemic; there is some evidence that some TO students are struggling in gateway math courses and had to repeat a course or switch majors. However, this is not a significant number of students compared to pre-TO data. Retention rates amongst TO students haven't decreased, and they are on track to graduate and not negatively impact our 4- or 6-year graduate rates.

OP - that is encouraging thank you .

OP - to clarify / Sorry the part about increased mental health issues is not encouraging but perfectly understandable given the collective traumas our youth experienced during the pandemic. I was aware and we already are quite proactive on the mental health front.

Yes you are right that this impacts executive functioning quite a lot. We will continue to work on those skill sets.

However, I had assumed there would be more impacts on academic skill sets as well and am encouraged that is reportedly not the case .

I think the mental heath issues pre-dated the pandemic. I think a lot of the mental health issues also stem from kids living under immense pressure and having their parents manage their entire lives.

OP - maybe but research is very mixed in that regard. Some research shows that college students with helicopter parents do better and are more confident because they know their parents support them and their success.

I am sure there is a balance to that and we parents have to gradually hand over the reigns to our children as they prepare for adult life.

I also think there are way more expectations placed on students now then when I was young.

We emphasize to our DC that there are many paths to success and that admission to prestigious brand name colleges is not the goal - rather to pursue studies they find interesting in a setting where they feel safe and happy and that eventually lead towards types of employments they will enjoy.

Hm. Can you provide links or guidance as to where to find these "mixed" research on outcomes/impacts of helicopter parenting? All the studies that I am familiar with point to negative impacts.

OP:
I think that parents often face impossible expectations - i.e.: be involved but not too involved, let your kids fail some times but if they fail it is parents faults, and on and on. I believe that most parents are doing their best. I can’t find the actual article I was referencing from several years ago but here is some research promoting the benefits of strong parental involvement. I am not referring to types of involvement that are obviously destructive. Also once our children are 18, they are legal adults (except for drinking) so appropriate
parental involvement is very different.



Research has shown a consensus that family and parent involvement in schools leads to better outcomes regardless of a family's ethnic background or socioeconomic status. Parent involvement has led to higher academic outcomes both for children from low and higher socioeconomic status families.Jul 25, 2023

https://www.edweek.org › 2023/07
Does Parent Involvement Really Help Students? Here's What the Research Says

https://www.edweek.org/leadership/does-




Students whose parents stay involved in school have better attendance and behavior, get better grades, demonstrate better social skills and adapt better to school. Parental involvement also more securely sets these students up to develop a lifelong love of learning, which researchers say is key to long-term success.Dec 14, 2022

https://www.aecf.org › Blog
Parental Involvement in Your Child's Education


Parents can be a positive element in higher education when they Understand the student experience and are aware of the resources available on campus Understand and support the institution's goals for student development and learning Know when to step in to help their student and when to empower their student to take ...

https://www.stetson.edu › law › media
The Case for Parental Involvement during the College Years

https://www.stetson.edu/law/conferences/highered/archive/media/higher-ed-archives-2009/i-savage-case-for-parental-involvement.pdf






This approach is common in educated, middle class families, and linked with superior child outcomes throughout the world. For example, kids raised by authoritative parents are more likely to become independent, self-reliant, socially accepted, academically successful, and well-behaved.Apr 7, 2023

https://parentingscience.com › auth...
The authoritative parenting style: An evidence-based guide

Involved isn’t the same as helicopter parenting.

OP
Non it’s not and I implied that earlier.

Everything is a matter of degree for sure. Parents are given many mixed messages and it is hard to find the right balance of involvement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SLAC prof here. Haven't read all the responses, too tired from being overworked. I have seen a drop, not necessarily a big drop, but a significant one, over the past 20+ years of teaching at different institutions. Some of it began before the pandemic, especially mental health, but the pandemic exacerbated it in terms of students not being accountable for turning in work on time, etc. I've also seen a change in critical thinking that I think has at least two root causes - being taught to take a test in high school (even or especially even APs), but also the post-truth era. Lastly, I might only speak for my current institution here, but we've made intentional DEI efforts and our recruiting has changed. This is partially because of the social justice aspect of making a SLAC education more accessible to different kinds of students, but it also has to do with the demographic cliff. This has led to recruiting students from high schools and family environments that have not enabled adequate preparation for college. This has nothing to do with their potential to succeed, but a reality of socioeconomic background as it relates to preparedness.

Universities need to and are shifting to the wraparound services that they provide - ranging from more mental health supports, to increased accommodations and social and financial supports. This is necessary for students to succeed. But it is also taxing for an institution and the realities of grade inflation and students slipping through the cracks can and does occur.

OP

Thank you SLAC professor.

That is an interesting point about the post truth era.. what does this mean in terms of higher education? Don’t students still have to back up theoretical claims with empirical or scientific evidence?

Also interesting that you have observed a drop over such a long time.

Agree that mental health care is necessary for learning.

Thanks for your reply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is the new high school. Kids coming in are like middle school students from a decade or two ago. Poor reading and writing skills. Want to do corrections and have trouble with deadlines. Sure COVID made it worse but was getting progressively worse before COVID. I chalk it up to the advent of everyone getting a participation trophy.

Not all of them. My son went to a Catholic high school. The only change made by his school during Covid was that finals were optional for two years (and if you took them and they lowered your grade, you were stuck with it). He is an excellent writer. If something was more than a day late, he got a zero. There were no retakes and the lowest grade you could get was a zero, not a 50%. You are describing students coming from public schools where these policies were in place.

But the main problem with Catholic high schools is that the curriculum is not nearly as rigorous as in public schools. No need for retakes when the tests are so easy, amirite?

Clueless. From parent of a mom with a son in public hs and another in catholic hs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is the new high school. Kids coming in are like middle school students from a decade or two ago. Poor reading and writing skills. Want to do corrections and have trouble with deadlines. Sure COVID made it worse but was getting progressively worse before COVID. I chalk it up to the advent of everyone getting a participation trophy.

Not all of them. My son went to a Catholic high school. The only change made by his school during Covid was that finals were optional for two years (and if you took them and they lowered your grade, you were stuck with it). He is an excellent writer. If something was more than a day late, he got a zero. There were no retakes and the lowest grade you could get was a zero, not a 50%. You are describing students coming from public schools where these policies were in place.

Similar only at my sons' Catholic HS there were no optional finals for two years. Things were the same, tests still required, etc.

Our public school isn't anything like the caricature the PP is painting either. They are better prepared for college academically than ever before. I think less selective colleges are seeing a blip in skills since the pandemic though--as those undergraduates come through.

I could not agree more. I was top of my class, and I'm constantly thinking how mediocre I would be in this day and age.

Me three! I was in the top of my selective public high school and went to a selective private college. I went on to get a STEM PhD. My public school kid’s Calc BC and Physics C classes are more rigorous than I did. She is also surrounded by smarter (or higher achieving) kids than I was.

Same. The “smart” kids are doing way more rigorous work nowadays. But standards are lower for everyone else - no papers, tons of basic grammar and spelling errors, cheating, etc.

[Anonymous]

R2 prof here. Here is where I really notice changes in student academic readiness over the last 20 years.

1. Reading. Students have more and more trouble now reading to retain information (even just for discussion in class) and especially reading for key concepts. It is hard for them to distill a summary of an argument or even the key points of a historical narrative from a textbook. They confuse reading for recreation (feet up, nothing in hard but book or device) with reading for study (active engagement, taking notes or writing summaries).

2. Ungraded preparation - or lack thereof. Students become stressed when 'homework' takes more than 2-3 hours, and they tend not to prepare for class unless that preparation involves a graded deliverable ( = advance reading or ungraded exercises often do not get done).

3. Resource possession vs. engagement with material. Students tend to assume that if they have a PowerPoint and a study guide, the work is already largely over, and what they need to do is consult those things ahead of an exam, rather than reading before, taking notes during, and asking questions after class.

4. Resilience and ownership. Students unfortunately tend to assign blame to what they characterize as their natural or inborn traits as students (or worse, people) if they do not do well, rather than assessing their choices and adapting. They tend to see their academic success almost as something predetermined by their personalities, and therefore largely out of their hands. (They also - so very, very many of them - have a habit of automatically saying, "I take full responsibility" when they make a mistake, as if that phrase alone is supposed to end any conversation about the problem at hand.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could also be TO and weaker admissions standards for “prestige” universities. It’s not just the pandemic.

TO has nothing to do with weather a student is prepared for college.

I would say I have not seen a major change. If anything, students seem better prepared overall. There are still a few that I was would have been required to talk a basic writing class. The one area I do see a difference is the extent to which students want to turn in work late. There doesn't seem to be the same priority for deadlines.

+1 My colleagues at T20 schools, SLACS, and public R1 universities report the same behavior I have observed since the pandemic. The majority of students are academically prepared; however, there has been an increase in the number of students who can't meet deadlines, ask to redo assignments, struggle with mental health, and chronically skip class.

I'm at a public R1, and our DRW rates have slightly increased since the pandemic; there is some evidence that some TO students are struggling in gateway math courses and had to repeat a course or switch majors. However, this is not a significant number of students compared to pre-TO data. Retention rates amongst TO students haven't decreased, and they are on track to graduate and not negatively impact our 4- or 6-year graduate rates.

OP - that is encouraging thank you .

OP - to clarify / Sorry the part about increased mental health issues is not encouraging but perfectly understandable given the collective traumas our youth experienced during the pandemic. I was aware and we already are quite proactive on the mental health front.

Yes you are right that this impacts executive functioning quite a lot. We will continue to work on those skill sets.

However, I had assumed there would be more impacts on academic skill sets as well and am encouraged that is reportedly not the case .

I think the mental heath issues pre-dated the pandemic. I think a lot of the mental health issues also stem from kids living under immense pressure and having their parents manage their entire lives.

That's all in here: https://www.amazon.com/How-Raise-Adult-Overparenting-Prepare/dp/1250093635

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is the new high school. Kids coming in are like middle school students from a decade or two ago. Poor reading and writing skills. Want to do corrections and have trouble with deadlines. Sure COVID made it worse but was getting progressively worse before COVID. I chalk it up to the advent of everyone getting a participation trophy.

Not all of them. My son went to a Catholic high school. The only change made by his school during Covid was that finals were optional for two years (and if you took them and they lowered your grade, you were stuck with it). He is an excellent writer. If something was more than a day late, he got a zero. There were no retakes and the lowest grade you could get was a zero, not a 50%. You are describing students coming from public schools where these policies were in place.

Similar only at my sons' Catholic HS there were no optional finals for two years. Things were the same, tests still required, etc.

Our public school isn't anything like the caricature the PP is painting either. They are better prepared for college academically than ever before. I think less selective colleges are seeing a blip in skills since the pandemic though--as those undergraduates come through.

I could not agree more. I was top of my class, and I'm constantly thinking how mediocre I would be in this day and age.

Me three! I was in the top of my selective public high school and went to a selective private college. I went on to get a STEM PhD. My public school kid’s Calc BC and Physics C classes are more rigorous than I did. She is also surrounded by smarter (or higher achieving) kids than I was.

Same. The “smart” kids are doing way more rigorous work nowadays. But standards are lower for everyone else - no papers, tons of basic grammar and spelling errors, cheating, etc.

+100

Agreed. The “smart” kids are doing way more rigorous work nowadays. I am also in STEM field and my public school kid’s Calc BC and Physics C classes are more rigorous than I did. My kids is are also surrounded by smarter and higher achieving kids than I was. My kids will do well in life. It’s all going to be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The New Infantilism began around 15 or 20 years ago. Students barely read anymore. And it's gotten worse with social media "discourse" becoming so important. They're more interested in Tiktok than Tolstoy.

+1

Very astute observation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The New Infantilism began around 15 or 20 years ago. Students barely read anymore. And it's gotten worse with social media "discourse" becoming so important. They're more interested in Tiktok than Tolstoy.[/quote]
That is quite clever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This question is for the college professors among us: Are professors at all universities seeing a big drop in college preparedness among undergraduates ? I have heard that that is the case at some very strong universities. I presume this is related to the Pandemic.

If so, what areas are undergrad college professors seeing the biggest skill set weaknesses in? Is it technical academic skills or social skills or both?

What if anything, do you think high school students should be doing to be better prepared for college ?

Thanks in advance

My best friend teaches at University and she sees a number of things. kidseither have high academic skills but are intractable because they are taught in such a paranoid and rigid manner the littlest thing sets them off, kids who literally cannot write a paper and not prepared at all and they suspect it is not being prepared and the TO and finally kids whose might as well have their parents come to school. Your parents are not supposed to be calling/emailing the professor -failure to launch syndrome. They also find they have less freedom to teach because they are worried some kid is going to post a snippet of a lecture and they will have to explain to the world. Yes tenure protects your job but not your emotions. Kids of today are bratty and they sometimes wonder if they should retire.

[Anonymous]

Students are mean. They speak in a disrespectful way to professors. They view reading as unnecessary. They don’t take notes anymore because they think it is all in PowerPoint. They don’t have perseverance to complete long homeworks. They complain a lot. They write at all hours of the night and expect professors to Zoom in at night to help with individual homework in the evening because they don’t attend office hours. They write unfactual things on evaluations out of spite from bad grades. They have a sense of entitlement with everything. They want study guides to be handed to them. They want both in person and video lectures. They want professors personal notes. It goes on and on with laziness and demands. There’s also everyone tossing around anxiety as the problem, but no one knows for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:R2 prof here. Here is where I really notice changes in student academic readiness over the last 20 years.

1. Reading. Students have more and more trouble now reading to retain information (even just for discussion in class) and especially reading for key concepts. It is hard for them to distill a summary of an argument or even the key points of a historical narrative from a textbook. They confuse reading for recreation (feet up, nothing in hard but book or device) with reading for study (active engagement, taking notes or writing summaries).

2. Ungraded preparation - or lack thereof. Students become stressed when 'homework' takes more than 2-3 hours, and they tend not to prepare for class unless that preparation involves a graded deliverable ( = advance reading or ungraded exercises often do not get done).

3. Resource possession vs. engagement with material. Students tend to assume that if they have a PowerPoint and a study guide, the work is already largely over, and what they need to do is consult those things ahead of an exam, rather than reading before, taking notes during, and asking questions after class.

4. Resilience and ownership. Students unfortunately tend to assign blame to what they characterize as their natural or inborn traits as students (or worse, people) if they do not do well, rather than assessing their choices and adapting. They tend to see their academic success almost as something predetermined by their personalities, and therefore largely out of their hands. (They also - so very, very many of them - have a habit of automatically saying, "I take full responsibility" when they make a mistake, as if that phrase alone is supposed to end any conversation about the problem at hand.)

OP - I guess what you are seeing is what I feared may be the case.

That is a thorough list and I will be thinking more about all of them. Thank you.

Have you already reported this to public state school officials in your state? It might help for HS teachers to be more aware of where many students are struggling in college so that they can help their students work on those factors. I know teaching is in disarray with many shortages. However, there are still many devoted teachers.

I am wondering whether the differences reported in what college professors are seeing in terms of ability to cope well with college is partially reflecting broader gulfs between strong students who attended advantaged or selective high schools and students who attended more disadvantaged high schools without as many resources/ extra tutoring/ parental support.

It appears that the professors from what sound like selective colleges are seeing less drastic lack of college preparedness compared to you at the D2 school and the community college professor.

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students are mean. They speak in a disrespectful way to professors. They view reading as unnecessary. They don’t take notes anymore because they think it is all in PowerPoint. They don’t have perseverance to complete long homeworks. They complain a lot. They write at all hours of the night and expect professors to Zoom in at night to help with individual homework in the evening because they don’t attend office hours. They write unfactual things on evaluations out of spite from bad grades. They have a sense of entitlement with everything. They want study guides to be handed to them. They want both in person and video lectures. They want professors personal notes. It goes on and on with laziness and demands. There’s also everyone tossing around anxiety as the problem, but no one knows for sure.

OP

I am very sorry for your experience. This sounds out of control and absurd expectations/ sense of entitlement. May I ask what type of learning institution you teach at?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College is the new high school. Kids coming in are like middle school students from a decade or two ago. Poor reading and writing skills. Want to do corrections and have trouble with deadlines. Sure COVID made it worse but was getting progressively worse before COVID. I chalk it up to the advent of everyone getting a participation trophy.

Not all of them. My son went to a Catholic high school. The only change made by his school during Covid was that finals were optional for two years (and if you took them and they lowered your grade, you were stuck with it). He is an excellent writer. If something was more than a day late, he got a zero. There were no retakes and the lowest grade you could get was a zero, not a 50%. You are describing students coming from public schools where these policies were in place.

But the main problem with Catholic high schools is that the curriculum is not nearly as rigorous as in public schools. No need for retakes when the tests are so easy, amirite?

Clueless. From parent of a mom with a son in public hs and another in catholic hs.

So you think your son in a Catholic hs will be much better prepared for college than your son in a public hs? Because that it what the earlier PPs are claiming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students are mean. They speak in a disrespectful way to professors. They view reading as unnecessary. They don’t take notes anymore because they think it is all in PowerPoint. They don’t have perseverance to complete long homeworks. They complain a lot. They write at all hours of the night and expect professors to Zoom in at night to help with individual homework in the evening because they don’t attend office hours. They write unfactual things on evaluations out of spite from bad grades. They have a sense of entitlement with everything. They want study guides to be handed to them. They want both in person and video lectures. They want professors personal notes. It goes on and on with laziness and demands. There’s also everyone tossing around anxiety as the problem, but no one knows for sure.

OP

I am very sorry for your experience. This sounds out of control and absurd expectations/ sense of entitlement. May I ask what type of learning institution you teach at?

I mean students are required to quarantine 5 days for COVID. How hard is it to turn on a zoom and press record for lectures.

Sure expecting teachers to respond at midnight is insane but answering emails in 24 hours is just plain work. Your job is to teach.

I doubt they want study notes but it should be clear what to study.

I doubt it’s in factual evaluation it’s just ones they don’t like