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U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

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Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#391

Post by toast0 »

godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #304
Aurornis wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, My neighborhood and social circle have a number of high school age children, some aiming for high ranking universities. None of them have these grueling 15 hour day schedules you’re describing. I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM. What unive…

> My neighborhood and social circle have a number of high school age children, some aiming for high ranking universities. > None of them have these grueling 15 hour day schedules you’re describing. Hate to break it to you mate but none of them are getting in. Anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a high proportion of kids making it to the Ivy league and other top schools knows exactly what this guy is talking about…

Like, ivies and whatever are great. But overscheduling and overstessing to get into one isn't.

Many states have a guaranteed acceptance path to a state school and/or a path where you do two years at community college and can transfer into a state school to do two more and get a bachelors.

A great school on your degree can open doors at the beginning of your career, but missing out on that isn't some terrible tragedy.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#393

Post by Der_Einzige »

alephnerd wrote: post #35
joezydeco wrote: post #15

When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, you can expect that they are going to throttle back once they're away from home with way more free time than is normal. From my kid's experience: she was up at 6:30am, in AP classes by 7:30am (three more to go during the day). Classes were done by 3:00, then sports practice…

^^^ This. 100% This. This kind of applicant is now treated as table stakes for programs like UMich, and acceptance rates for impacted majors like CS in top programs have dropped to single digits. It is ridiculously competitive to get into top programs now. I got into an Ivy in the late 2000s to early 2010s. With my stats from back then (13 APs all 4s and 5s, a 4.5+ GPA, varsity wrestling, JV XCountry, NHS, CSF, USAPH…

Policy/LD debate, especially if you were good, might as well be a minus these days. That just tells everyone you're going to spread "post-modern neo-marxism" / fashionable nonsense wherever you go, and/or be more slimy than the worst memes about lawyers could ever imagine.

Debate is actually dying, and for a reason. Good riddance, don't let the door kick your ass on the way out.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#394

Post by syrrim »

cj wrote: post #382
margalabargala wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an odd disconnect that a lot of older people have where they forget the goals of institutions, and assume the goals are the experience they remember rather than something else. For example: what would you say is the point of college, generally? Is it learning? Is it producing functional adults? Or is the goal, itself, to accumulate large numbers of grades that are as close to 100 as possible? That las…

MIT does pass/fail for first semester, but the reason they give is "to allow students to adjust to collegiate workload" -- I'm 100% aligned and support with that. What I'm not in favor of is a college doing the same thing, but using "mental health" as the motivator. If mental health is really the issue, maybe the kids they're trying to help aren't actually ready for college.

Those are two ways of phrasing the same issue.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#395

Post by nobodyandproud »

cogman10 wrote: post #377
nobodyandproud wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit. As a student: Grades are one of the clearest signals on whether you're a good fit for a major or topic you're interested in, you need more work, or you need to trim down the number of classes. Not providing that clear, cumulative signal is a major disservice to the students. Also, UofM is expensive so dragging it benefits only the financials for the school.

I think this touches on a real potential harm. I guess my counter is that it'd be hard to make that adjustment after the first semester anyways. Particularly because these will all be intro classes anyways which can all be overly easy. Some of my engineering 3 credit courses really should have been like 6 credits whereas some of my generals 3 credit hours were more like 1 credit. It's hard to know that without gettin…

In the sciences and engineering, many of the major-related 101s are important filter classes.

It sounds harsh but it’s an important reality check for the student.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#396

Post by atniomn »

joezydeco wrote: post #15

When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, you can expect that they are going to throttle back once they're away from home with way more free time than is normal. From my kid's experience: she was up at 6:30am, in AP classes by 7:30am (three more to go during the day). Classes were done by 3:00, then sports practice…

I'm 32. In my senior year of high school, I woke up at 5:30 AM, my first class (zero hour) was at 6:30 AM, regular school started at 7:35 AM. school let out at 2:30 PM. I had extracurriculars until 6:00 PM most days. Go home, eat dinner while studying, go to bed at 11:00 PM. I took 8 AP classes and had straight A's. 5 on every test. strong ACT.

I attended a prestigious land grant university, like Michigan, and I was totally prepared and performed very strongly right out of the gate. I was competitive with elite students who had attended the most prestigious high schools both in the United States and internationally.

Today, I'm an extremely well compensated engineer. My household income is top 1%. My career is gratifying. I have a rich social life and a loving wife and child. If your children are operating at this caliber, and they're able to sustain this level of effort, they're going to go places, no matter what they chose to do. You are rewarded for this effort.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#397

Post by margalabargala »

cj wrote: post #382
margalabargala wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an odd disconnect that a lot of older people have where they forget the goals of institutions, and assume the goals are the experience they remember rather than something else. For example: what would you say is the point of college, generally? Is it learning? Is it producing functional adults? Or is the goal, itself, to accumulate large numbers of grades that are as close to 100 as possible? That las…

MIT does pass/fail for first semester, but the reason they give is "to allow students to adjust to collegiate workload" -- I'm 100% aligned and support with that. What I'm not in favor of is a college doing the same thing, but using "mental health" as the motivator. If mental health is really the issue, maybe the kids they're trying to help aren't actually ready for college.

In what way is "allowing students to adjust to the collegiate workload" not "mental health"?

I see no difference in this vs the MIT program in terms of reasoning aside from a slight difference in wording.

Is the term "mental health" really such a blinding political football? Like "I hate Obamacare, but I love the ACA" and "Welfare is bad, but we need more assistance to the poor"?

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#398

Post by godwinson__4-8 »

toast0 wrote: post #391
godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My neighborhood and social circle have a number of high school age children, some aiming for high ranking universities. > None of them have these grueling 15 hour day schedules you’re describing. Hate to break it to you mate but none of them are getting in. Anyone who lives in a neighborhood with a high proportion of kids making it to the Ivy league and other top schools knows exactly what this guy is talking about…

Like, ivies and whatever are great. But overscheduling and overstessing to get into one isn't. Many states have a guaranteed acceptance path to a state school and/or a path where you do two years at community college and can transfer into a state school to do two more and get a bachelors. A great school on your degree can open doors at the beginning of your career, but missing out on that isn't some terrible tragedy.

I agree with you. I didn't go to those schools. That doesn't mean the environments the original comment that started this chain mentioned don't exist. That was my only point. Whether they are desirable or not is another question.

But I don't think we should pretend it's one with an obvious answer for parents. Yes, you don't want to stress out your kids. But I'm not sure it's so easy to blame parents from those hypercompetitive neighborhoods. We are living in a world of self interest were increasingly everyone has a college degree, thereby devaluing the credential at a basic supply/demand level. The very best schools are in a class all their own, and (rightly or wrongly) have been largely immune to this downward pressure.

Talk about bubbles is also not really useful. Wealth is a bubble. Software engineering is a bubble. A neighborhood where everyone goes to a state school is a bubble. Poverty is a bubble. But at the macro level if people don't think the world is getting more cooperative and is just getting more competitive, doing whatever they can to keep or send their kids to the best bubble possible is at the very least defensible. I think there are also a lot of parents who don't seem to have a robust concept of the future. I assume anyone being born today is entering a far more competitive and frankly, brutal world by the time they are college age. The world is getting smaller. And not enough people seem willing to do the work required to make sure all kids do well. In such a world, pushing your kids in high school so they can get the best shot makes sense. This can be true even if it doesn't make other people morally wrong. In the same way wealth doesn't make you a better person. But let's not pretend that in a world where (in the United States at least) many people among us if they lose their job won't be able to afford healthcare, that wealth is entirely without virtue.

Suggesting that is indicative of the same sort of "they'll be fine" thinking that frankly, strikes me as the most "bubble" idea possible. From where I sit, it's simply the case that the world is not getting easier.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#399

Post by thedougd »

jghn wrote: post #362
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Freshmen courses generally mitigate this somewhat to help ease in students" Interesting, that's not my observation at all. Instead freshman classes were the most grueling experiences, intentionally weed-out classes to try to detect and, well, weed-out early those who wouldn't have the combination of grit, intelligence and organization skills to make it to the end of the degree. I speak somewhat hyperbolically, it wa…

This was a few decades ago but we had 2 tiers of weed outs. The first was the intro classes that most everyone took their freshman year. Then there was another wave that was major specific and tended to show up 2nd semester of sophomore year into 1st semester of junior year, essentially the point where coursework was shifting almost entirely to be major specific. So for instance, one of the notorious freshman weed ou…

Same experience in 2000s. I’ll never forget there was a kid on his third try to pass the mandatory Intro to Engineering class. I sure hope he moved on to a new major.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#400

Post by uncivilized »

estearum wrote: post #62
uncivilized wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad state that of affairs when comments like this appear and have affirmative replies. Shows how socially unaware and one-dimensional a Hacker News is.

Competition continues to rise for limited higher education slots. The solution is not to get rid of the measurements we use to decide who should occupy those slots, it's to add more slots (and ideally , also create viable career/life opportunities that do not require a super-expensive education to begin with). Can you explain how that's "socially unaware" or "one-dimensional"?

Well your comment had nothing to do with what you’ve written now.

There’s a reason why it’s flagged now.

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