Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion more on "Tiger Mom"...

I feel the same way, although it's fair to note that I never took a course taught by a TA (thank goodness). However, my DH WAS a TA at a large university. He happened to be a good one (very good evaluations), because he's naturally a good teacher--but like you said, a day or so of training. I mean, you HAVE to be kidding me. That's insane. And again, we're paying how much for this?

Although it's also fair to note that some professors aren't good at teaching, either. I recently learned that a family member who is very famous in his field was not made full professor at the Ivy where he taught for many years, despite being exceedingly brilliant as a researcher. Why? He was a VERY VERY VERY bad teacher of undergraduates. Like, ludicrously bad, by all accounts. He was okay with advanced graduate students, but just couldn't be bothered with undergrads. I think it's basically a bad idea to force people who really want to be researchers to teach.

Exactly. And we won't pay for it. Not just for the name-- I want to see to it that what we're paying for is the authentic thing, not just the appearance of it.

I, too, was a conscientious and GOOD T.A. but there is automatically an incentive to NOT be like that as a grad student. The good T.A.s never get 'forced' into R.A.'s by student complaints to the department, see... and therefore, research advisors don't have a good reason to put them on research monies. The bad ones whose advisors have no money get the plum "grader" jobs which take far less time and have much greater flexibility.

Of course, this also means that if you're any good in the classroom, you soon figure out that you're on the nine year plan for your degree... Clearly, you change your philosophy at some point in deference to pragmatism, if nothing else.

Yikes. Yeah, see--my kids are not going to be prepared for this sort of thing culturally or financially. It's an issue. I want them to be go somewhere where there are a lot of social options that aren't about this.

But it's those very social options that allow them to begin the long climb upward from irrelevance to relevance.

They might not make it to the peak of the mountain, but perhaps they can see their children or grandchildren reach it.

The key to achieving a life of profound meaning and sublime joy is to never give up and always look to the destination shining in the distance.

:eyeroll

Yes - but if most of the US students abroad are UMC or UC (at least where the poster above stated), would not it be a valuable experience to acquaint oneself more with non-US students (majority of whom would probably be neither UMC nor UC, because higher education in EU/UK is free or very cheap for many students, with college admissions based on 'academic merit' only)?

Financially, it looks like UK college tuition (for foreigners: $23k) is half of US private college tuition (and lower than UC berkeley out-of-state tuition of $35k). Of course, a decent state university *in the state that you lived continuously for the last several years* may be better financially - if one is lucky to have such a choice.

State university is unlikely to be a good option for us for reasons I can't get into (too identifying).

If we stay at our current income level (which...has its disadvantages--and actually, DH is probably about to come up for promotion), we're probably better off gambling for big aid than going abroad. We're not in the sour spot previously discussed. We would get quite a lot of aid, most likely, although we'll have to fork over a fair bit, too. I remind myself that we once paid for full-time daycare, which isn't cheap, either, and that our kids are just about exactly 4 years apart (nicely done, self). We have some pretty nice legacy options, though I don't know how much that counts past parents (anyone?)

Ah, here we are: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/education/09legacies.html?_r=0

Btw, I find legacy admissions...gross, but I can't say I'm not going to use what I have, I guess. Maybe I'll rise that far. We'll see.

Princeton's legacy admit sure is high.

"As a case in point, Princeton University's overall admissions rate dipped below 10 percent last year, but 40 percent of legacy applicants were admitted to the Class of 2012, according to an April 2008 ABC News report. Though the practice may be generally accepted among prestigious universities, it has drawn some criticism, particularly from students who do not benefit from it."

http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2009/02/06/legacies-admitted-37-rate

What a great cost-cutting strategy for the university! Why pay low wages to adjuncts or grad students when undergrads will pay you for the privilege of teaching?!?