Reply to WSJ article on your child's chances of getting into an IVY are slim

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "WSJ article on your child's chances of getting into an IVY are slim"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I see these kinds of kids getting bounced, and then OTOH I see a lot of top 20 colleges (including my own alma mater) offering pre-calculus classes for incoming students to complete the calculus sequence in 3 or 4 semesters.  I’ve come down to just convincing my own kids to not even shoot for a top 20 university.  Just get the best grades you can, prep for the SAT/ACT a reasonable amount, and do ECs they actually enjoy without worrying about cultivating a compelling personal narrative.  The chips will fall where they will.  Life is too short, and where you go to college is not that important to the outcome of ones life.[/quote]

Harvard has offered precalc for math years. [/quote]

I know.  Lot of people when I was in college came from HS that capped out at Pre-Calc (or they didn’t test out of it).  Mine included.  So I was on the 3 semester track, while most who went to college prep HS were on the 2 semester track. Just out of curiosity, I was looking at their courses last night, and they have now expanded it to a 4 semester track, with what used to be the 2 semester sequence being spread out over 3 now.  So these colleges are apparently admitting some significant number of applicants who aren’t calculus ready, but then it is ever harder for advanced students to get in.  It’s the unpredictability and randomness that I think fuels the disillusionment.  I’m not saying its wrong or right, it’s just hard to see the rationale behind it all, if there even is one.  Admissions seem to be a bigger black box than ever.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics