Reply to Did your child find college to be more academically challenging than high school?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Did your child find college to be more academically challenging than high school?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Heck yeah!

DS went from a private HS that was (in retrospect) insufficiently challenging to a highly selective science and engineering college, and he feels like he was thrown in the deep end. You mean schoolwork isn't supposed to be easy? I actually have to work hard? Oh noes![/quote]

Ha - this sounds exactly like me, 20 years ago.  Also did private high school to selective STEM college (is there an HYP equivalent for STEM?  MIT, Caltech, and maybe Harvey Mudd?  Then I went to an MCH).  The first year was rough, but I got it figured out somewhere in the 2nd year.

My kids aren't there yet, but what I've observed from friends going off to college: the coursework is faster paced and more challenging, but the external competition and pressure is lower.  Some kids are self-driven and that's fine, but there's no external force saying that you MUST get As instead of Bs or the world will end.  In high school, it's all about GPA for college admittance.  [b]Once you're in, you just need to graduate - nobody ever asks you what your GPA was, or cares if you got a few Bs at Stanford[/b].  I guess this is different if you're planning on law school or something, though.[/quote]

The college frenzy is over the top crazy but I don't know if I would say college life is quite that laid back.  A kid's grades and classroom performance will affect how welcome they are in the better study groups, eligibility for clubs and programs, internship opportunities in addition to top graduate school admissions.  And in a grade inflated school where A's are the norm, academic pressure is replaced by the need to distinguish oneself with ECs which is equally if not more challenging in its way.  IMO competitiveness ratchets up and is much more complex to navigate.   Remember as soon as they hit that college campus,  their competition for where they may want to go next either attend elite schools or are top of class.  That's assuming of course they care about  being able to select among the widest possible options.[/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