High School rant... (Austin, Howe, Rice: public school, move, installation)

[lvmensch]

Just facts of life. You cannot cut an engineering program without the ability to do high 7XX SAT. Just is not going to happen. We had a very good self support group in Engineering School and we carried a couple of marginal students. So even guys out of the smart High Schools in NYC needed help.

I am not sure how smart you have to actually be but your mind has to grasp stuff well...hence it will be very rare for an engineering candidate to fail to do well on the SAT.

This kid does not need assistance and support. He needs another field.

[veuvegirl]

It could be the school is too big. I went from a very small school to a large school. It went from teachers taking attendance and care you were in class to being accountable for yourself. No one knew whether or not I went to class except me. Classes had up to 600 students in them. There was no interaction with the teacher.

I blew classes off, enjoyed myself, had fun and never studied. It took me a couple of years to settle in and create my own study habits. This happens to a lot of kids in larger schools.

[lvmensch]

Originally Posted by veuvegirl

It could be the school is too big. I went from a very small school to a large school. It went from teachers taking attendance and care you were in class to being accountable for yourself. No one knew whether or not I went to class except me. Classes had up to 600 students in them. There was no interaction with the teacher.

I blew classes off, enjoyed myself, had fun and never studied. It took me a couple of years to settle in and create my own study habits. This happens to a lot of kids in larger schools.

That would be fatal in virtually any engineering program. The first two years are intense and basically drive out all who are not some combination of very smart or very good students.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by lvmensch

Just facts of life. You cannot cut an engineering program without the ability to do high 7XX SAT. Just is not going to happen. We had a very good self support group in Engineering School and we carried a couple of marginal students. So even guys out of the smart High Schools in NYC needed help.

I am not sure how smart you have to actually be but your mind has to grasp stuff well...hence it will be very rare for an engineering candidate to fail to do well on the SAT.

This kid does not need assistance and support. He needs another field.

Yea. It's really tough to state it firmly, however, I believe you are right. I don't see a feasible path to engineering success after D-ing college math. It just does not compute for me.


My son, a pretty serious math/science nerd, and the kid in question will have breakfast and a couple of hour sit down over a notebook in the AM during which my kid will try to help-determine if the other kid has any reasonable chance at something in STEM or if he should change course right now.

[thenewtexan]

Originally Posted by TurtleCreek80

I went to one of the flagship state schools and this scenario was pretty common in the rigorous programs like pre-Med and Engineering. There are a ton of high schools in this state where being in the top 10% means jack squat as far as being truly prepared for college. High school classes that overemphasize points for "participation" or group work and allow kids to retake quizzes and tests to replace low grades do a great disservice to their students. Freshman engineering is commonly known as a "freshman flunk out" landmine. My guess is that close to half of the freshman who go to A&M as engineering majors change majors (more common) or flunk out.

Even in my not as competitive major, I saw this a ton. I barely cracked the top 25% at HP (taking mostly Honors/AP), but the study skills and especially the ability to consume hundreds of pages weekly in reading and be able to research and write papers put me in another league in college. Perfect example is that the chemistry book I used in regular chemistry at HP was the exact same textbook we used in my "freshman flunk out" chemistry class in college. You could tell the kids from HP/ Westlake/ Alamo Heights/ elite privates/ Plano/ Coppell/ etc apart from the kids from schools like Allen/ Rowlett/ McKinney/ Spring / Katy, etc.

Katy ISD kids weren't prepared? Oh, they would love you on the Houston forum.

[TurtleCreek80]

Originally Posted by thenewtexan

Katy ISD kids weren't prepared? Oh, they would love you on the Houston forum.

In fairness, I went off to college almost 20 years ago. I certainly realize schools can change over time and since I don't live in Houston, I don't know anything about the schools in that area. Just stating my observations from my college years.

[AgJack]

My husband (then boyfriend) was top 5% of his class and a good student. All AP classes, studied, ect. During his first year at A&M he failed both Calc 2 and Physics 218.

He ended up getting his crap together after that awakening and after having to retake those courses and not having the GPA to get into his first choice Engineering major. A&M also has (or had, who knows these days?) first-year Q-drop for situations like these.

He learned to study more efficiently, joined a couple clubs at A&M to help balance social stuff and set a schedule, and got some tutoring. He ended up making A's in both courses the second time around, was able to make it back into his choice major, and 3 1/2 years later graduated with a 3.7 GPA and got a great job. It's possible. That first year can be difficult. It's a lot of freedom. I'm guessing your friend's son just wasn't studying/taking things as seriously as he thought he should be.

I am, however, confused by your comment that he did not take any AP courses and was in the top 5% of his class. Everywhere I'm familiar with you HAVE to take all AP courses to even get close to the top 10%.

[platon20]

Originally Posted by EDS_

100% agree. But I'm wondering why didn't a guidance counselor or someone else clue him into this earlier on?

It may not be a completely fair comparison because my son attended a private high school, however, my son was asked by his high school academic counselor what he thought kiddo might study in college AS A RISING 9th GRADER before the first day of school. Course plans and expectation levels were set right then, well actually re-enforced right then.

Guidance counselors and "advisors" at the high school and college level know nothing.

WTF does a high school guidance counselor know about engineering other than "it's a lot of math"

It's the same BS with college premed advisors. They are all PhDs (extremely rarely you might find an MD on there) who never applied to med school, never got accepted to med school, and have no clue what they are talking about.

[Peter5457]

Originally Posted by thenewtexan

Katy ISD kids weren't prepared? Oh, they would love you on the Houston forum.

I went to katy taylor back in the mid 80's when it was the only top school there at the time and it was a total jock party school. Very few asians or other diversity. While it was a great school i dont think many top engineering candidates at the time. No one to really push any of the top students to excel in that way.

I think we had more football coaches than any other school in the country, seriously. Any time you slipped up there was a coach to keep all the boys in line. Even outside of school, its like they had eyes everywhere.

And we only looked at the other school, Katy HS as a school for farmers at that time, LOL.
But yeah, Katy has exploded since then.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by platon20

Guidance counselors and "advisors" at the high school and college level know nothing.

WTF does a high school guidance counselor know about engineering other than "it's a lot of math"

It's the same BS with college premed advisors. They are all PhDs (extremely rarely you might find an MD on there) who never applied to med school, never got accepted to med school, and have no clue what they are talking about.

1. My kids received incredibly valuable academic counseling during high school. During high school both my son and daughter wanted to become engineers, son as a means to get into medical school and daughter to become an engineer. Advisors set up math and science heavy course loads, set proper grade expectations and over time help our kids apply to various schools that made sense.

2. Unless an MD is retired from medicine or at a school also doing research I can't see why more than a very few would ever be undergrad councelors. However, so far as college level academic advising.......my daughter feels like her advising at A&M engineering has been very helpful. Simplifying a really complex story my son though speaking with a college advisor before my he was even an enrolled student - my son decided to change his course of study to biology and physics. He received really excellent advising throughout college. After his sophomore year, by then most of the washouts have washout, he was assigned a really excellent advisor who help my kid decide which medical schools to apply to and what not. However, the most important advising suggestion came from his first advisor at college who along with a lot of other aid-bits helped my son set up his classes such that he had completed o-chem II and bio-chem II and some specific labs in advance of taking the MCAT. My son hammered the MCAT and he is convinced that some of the reason why is because he had completed more classes germane to the test than many other students due to excellent advising. Although it made for absolutely brutal freshman and sophomore years.