Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion college plan

Maybe this explains all of those horror stories about accelerations that went badly, though?

My BIL declined to do the Jefferson program because too many of the students were clearly in it for the money. I think he just didn't like Penn State.

It's Penn State's baby.

http://science.psu.edu/premed/premedmed/accelerated-premed-medical

Having no interest in medical school, I paid no attention to it, but I read it in the catalog enough times.

I would expect that parents on this forum would have kids who could do this.

You can also apparently apply to the Penn State Medical School after two years at Penn State. I did not know this.

http://science.psu.edu/premed/eaap

Our boys are 19 months apart and because of the younger one's birthday just before the cut off, they should be 2 years apart in school, but from what we can see, there's a good chance they will both be going to college either at the same time or just a year apart. They are still too little to know what will happen in 12 or 13 years (being 5.5 & 3.10) but I just don't see how especially the younger one could go without skipping. So, if that's the case and we have them both in the same school, we might as well rent them an apartment / house or purchase a small property for them to stay in and save a TON of $ we'd otherwise need for room & board x 2.

There is no evidence that the teaching at the most prestigious schools is better, so two remaining reasons to send one's children to them are to get a more valuable credential and to mingle with smart, well-connected students. I wonder to what extent living off-campus impedes this last goal. OTOH, dorm living could be distracting and a bad influence for some students at some schools.

I found dorm living extremely distracting. There was nowhere to run to get some quiet. Plus I found the off campus living students to be the more "real life" motivated. They were the ones having part time jobs, supporting themselves, and overall serious about what they were doing.

Agreed. This was certainly true at the public universities where I've taught or attended.

I actually wonder if the whole dorm atmosphere is one of the big reasons why so many Freshman struggle with adjusting to college?

There's another consideration: standards and expectations.

I went to college in western Massachusetts. There are 4 colleges in that area, plus one big university (UMASS). The college I attended had very high standards, almost across the board (this was in the 1980s). The standards were also very high at the other two small colleges where I took courses and had friends. I would not say that the same was true of UMASS at the undergraduate level, at least in the departments I studied in and the ones I knew a bit about, except for Physics. I don't know about other science departments.

The professors at UMASS used a lot of multiple choice tests. A good friend there got As on papers that would have got Cs or less at my college. I remember studying for an Archaeology final on the bus on the way to the test. I got an A --- not because I'm so smart, but because the class was so easy. It was all memorize and regurgitate. My college had very few classes using that format. Even the "easy" courses required lots of writing and short/essay-answer tests.

All the small colleges in that area are undergraduate-focused, which may improve the overall quality of teaching.

That said, I don't know what things are like now. Grade inflation trends may have changed things.

Out here in CA, I've taught at a local community college. Again, the standards are nowhere near what they were at my alma mater. Lot of multiple choice tests, and even rules about grading. For example, I taught a short courses at times. In these courses, I wasn't allowed to give out a C- or a D+ (A- or B- was okay). The system wouldn't let me enter these grades and the choices were C or D. I suspect that this policy was there to ensure that you didn't hand out too many grades below 2.0.

ETA: a friend also attended a small liberal arts college, but this one was not in the top tier. The standards at her college were also low.

WOW, Val. Just-- WOW.

I can think of a couple of reasons having my eldest DS a Soph. in college this year, from his perspective:

"Why would I want to live off campus? I don't even have to go outside to eat (dorm is connected to cafeteria via 2nd floor passage) I live no more than 2 blocks from any of my classes, the gym, the book store, or downtown, and my dorm has 9 floors of women....I'd want to give that up why? So I have to cook for myself, shop for food for myself, find parking places or walk to the school? No thanks, I'm juuuuust fine at the dorm."

I should note, after his Freshman year, we coughed up an additional about 1k a year so he could have his own room without sharing, completely worth every penny as few of those in his class and particularly his roommate were taking class schedules anywhere close to his in difficulty and weren't respecting his need to focus and sleep.