Thank you so much! This group chat is so helpful

Anonymous wrote:Do you think it’s major dependent tho? What is your son’s major ?

My son's doing Engineering+Mathematics. He's taken Philosophy, English classes too. Because of AP credits his Math classes started at an advanced level. The Engineering classes so far have had an extra Lab class associated with it. Phil and English have significant reading components.

Students who’ve done well in high school under a rigorous curriculum are already well-prepared for the academic demands of college. They’ve developed the discipline and time management skills they’ll need — college may turn the dial up a notch, but it won’t be unmanageable. And importantly, it’s not all grind: students do find balance and have fun.

What’s the point of thousands of pages of reading and studying all the time in highschool and college. Life is about so much more and social skills are more important than anything else.

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Anonymous wrote:Four classes, none of which are STEM, are typically not overwhelming. My guess is that your dd’s high school was not particularly rigorous and it will take her a a semester or two to catch up, just be patient and support her, she’ll figure it out.

says someone who was not a liberal arts major. My DS takes four classes currently, politics and history, and it's a TON of reading. Literally too much reading. i think he told me he had to read hundreds of pages per day. He got good at being able to skim and only read the parts that he'll need for any upcoming essay or test. Otherwise, there was simply NO way he could read all of that material. So yes, its common. Also common is studying on the weekends.That is par for the course in college. My DS also took all those Ap classes you mention, got 4s and 5s and never broke a sweat, barely studied and got a 4.6 GPA from a competitive HS. So yeah college is another level, as it should be.

Did she not read hundreds of pages in high school?
I hate to interject this yet again (although I'm a different poster) but my Big3 kids honestly did. There was so much assigned reading. Commonly 10-12 books per year in English class alone. Between that and history both my kids would spend 1-2 hours per night in high school just reading text.

Unrelated to wear anyone went to high school, but an English class at a SLAC will be more like 10-12 books per semester. so,if you are taking 2-3 of them, it can be a lot of reading. Ideally students figure out how to mix their classes so that they aren’t taking 4-5 resding/writing intensive courses each semester.

My DCs are humanities majors but have take a reasonable number of STEM classes. Those with labs are certainly time consuming in terms of class time and require study, but not as time consuming as English/sociology/history classes. But they aren’t taking the super tough chem courses to be fair!

A STEM class is MUCH more time consuming than English/sociology/history, get outta here with that nonsense.

This. Advanced STEM classes would have 10 page super hard problem sets due every week. They would take me literally 48 h of actual work time to complete - for one class. And I also had a job unlike all of your lazy ass rich kids

Thank you so much! I’m literally not sleeping at night I’m so worried

Anonymous wrote:Just concerned bc my child too went to extremely hard school amd junior year was brutal and I, like lots of parents helped organize some of the work and scaffolded. Also all the comforts of home. Now I’m worried when he goes off will be too overwhelming

all of these schools are grade inflated including swarthmore

they are rigorous but well over 60% of the grades distributed in class are As; Cs are almost unheard of

these schools provide excellent academic advising and support hence their high graduation rates

I no longer care if he doesn’t get all A’s in college once he’s in college. Even all B’s is fine by me but I’m worried… he was top student in HS but again he had scaffolding

Just concerned bc my child too went to extremely hard school amd junior year was brutal and I, like lots of parents helped organize some of the work and scaffolded. Also all the comforts of home. Now I’m worried when he goes off will be too overwhelming

Do you think it’s major dependent tho? What is your son’s major ?

I have one at Swarthmore. Has taken on a lot, 5 credits a Semester, music, campus job, clubs. Deals with the workload like a champ and looks forward to getting back to college this fall. His tips
1. Try to finish assignments when you get them versus creating a backlog.
2. Don't waste time. Eg., If you've got an hour between classes get some work done. It might be too short for a Philosophy essay, but you could get some math problem sets done.
3. A lot of the reading can be in heavy hard to read language. Focus on gleaning the meaning rather than caught up in the sentences. You have to learn to read quickly.

My kids go to a somewhat competitive public high school on the west coast and repeatedly I hear their friends in college are getting 4.0s at schools like Stanford and Berkeley. So our school seems to be preparing kids well.

I went to one of the LACs mentioned (from a public school in Midwest) and it was tough, tons of reading. I didn’t see a big difference in performance among my friends, some from regular public hs like me, and others from fancier privates like Philips Exeter, Andover, Harvard Westlake. But I’m sure there were private school kids who breezed through college as well as public school kids who did well. My smartest friend from college was from a non magnet public school in the Midwest. Econ major and professors hoping she would go into academia. She went to Wall Street lol

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Anonymous wrote:Kids only take 4 classes at SLACs?

Most colleges are like that. They usually are 4 classes and each class is 4 credits while at universities 1 class is 3 credits and you take 5 classes.

Is that all classes or just core?

I had to take 5 classes most semesters to fulfill all requirements for engineering. 4 core plus a non-engineering elective. 16-18 credits/semester.

Because you did engineering, which tends to be curriculum heavy. LACs with engineering, like Harvey mudd, have similar curriculum expectations.

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Anonymous wrote:Kids only take 4 classes at SLACs?

Most colleges are like that. They usually are 4 classes and each class is 4 credits while at universities 1 class is 3 credits and you take 5 classes.

Is that all classes or just core?

I had to take 5 classes most semesters to fulfill all requirements for engineering. 4 core plus a non-engineering elective. 16-18 credits/semester.

4 classes, 4 credits per class, for 16 credits total a typical semester, 20 if you overload, at a typical LAC or ivy.

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Anonymous wrote:Kids only take 4 classes at SLACs?

Most colleges are like that. They usually are 4 classes and each class is 4 credits while at universities 1 class is 3 credits and you take 5 classes.

Is that all classes or just core?

I had to take 5 classes most semesters to fulfill all requirements for engineering. 4 core plus a non-engineering elective. 16-18 credits/semester.

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Anonymous wrote:I had a colossal reading load in college but learned to read parts closely / skim others / not read parts at all, and I notice that my kid (freshman at a SLAC) doesn’t have those gears yet. It’s a crucial skill in the humanities.

This. Also, my DC who's an English/Poli Sci major has learned to make sure at least one class every semester is less reading-heavy.

This! Intro language courses are a nice balance. My DC has also used classes like Stats and comp sci for balance. Your brain needs a break from all the reading. Balanced course load is key.