Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who Gets to Graduate?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 149 posts

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#21

Post by com2kid »

A lot of junior colleges offer more personal instructional programs and are geared more towards helping out first time students. The more interpersonal relationship between professors and students are community colleges seems like an overall better way to transition students from high school to university. Not to mention they are far more efficient to run!

Surely one potential solution would be to remove the social stigma of attending a community college? I am proud that I went to a CC with professors that cared about their students, class sizes in the 20s, and office hours that extended throughout the day.

I had brilliant professors across multiple subjects, the common thread running throughout my entire community college experience was that each and every professor who worked there was there because they loved to teach and spread their joy of their field to students.

The other obvious issue is poor study skills taught in HS. I tell students in HS that if they get one thing out of HS, which is otherwise a large waste of time, it should be to learn how to study.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#22

Post by ericclemmons »

What's interesting is that I had a very similar experience as a white male (first to go to college out of my siblings/family), and got a 0.4 the first semester.

Things seemed easy in high school, so I thought I knew what I was doing, until I realized that University is serious business academically.

With friends failing out right and left, I forced myself to attend paid tutoring sessions (worth it) and meet others who had study groups.

In the end, it worked out after years of making up for that one mistaken semester, but I had to buckle down on my own because of the fear of telling my parents how bad I performed...

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#23

Post by roymurdock »

Vanessa averaged A's in high school but tested a 22 on the ACT: she was the top of her class, but her class was very far behind the students in the rest of the country. Her high school was clearly ineffective and set her up for failure on her first test. Good for her for sticking with it and working through/around/with a terribly unequal system that disadvantaged her from the start.

Perhaps instead of an SAT or an ACT, there should be a test where different colleges contribute questions that are representative of intro level classes at the school. Questions would progress from relatively easy (large state school questions) to more complex, esoteric questions that would show up for the more selective, private school caliber students.

This would overcome an important informational friction: high school students don't see college-level test questions until they're enrolled and sitting in class, with the test in front of them. If you are going to make a $200k investment, you should have as much information as possible about your chances of success before signing on the dotted line.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#24

Post by psbp »

ericclemmons wrote: post #22

What's interesting is that I had a very similar experience as a white male (first to go to college out of my siblings/family), and got a 0.4 the first semester. Things seemed easy in high school, so I thought I knew what I was doing, until I realized that University is serious business academically. With friends failing out right and left, I forced myself to attend paid tutoring sessions (worth it) and meet others wh…

Universities should weigh the first semester less and cap the number of hours taken. I know plenty of people who fucked up their first semester due to culture shock/feelings of isolation.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#25

Post by codingdave »

roymurdock wrote: post #23

Vanessa averaged A's in high school but tested a 22 on the ACT: she was the top of her class, but her class was very far behind the students in the rest of the country. Her high school was clearly ineffective and set her up for failure on her first test. Good for her for sticking with it and working through/around/with a terribly unequal system that disadvantaged her from the start. Perhaps instead of an SAT or an AC…

Wow, did you really just say that state schools are easy, while private school are complex, and then use the phrase "private school caliber students" to punctuate that judgment?

I went to a private college. I am not better than my friends who went to state schools.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#26

Post by RegEx »

com2kid wrote: post #21

A lot of junior colleges offer more personal instructional programs and are geared more towards helping out first time students. The more interpersonal relationship between professors and students are community colleges seems like an overall better way to transition students from high school to university. Not to mention they are far more efficient to run! Surely one potential solution would be to remove the social s…

One thing I didn't realize until it was too late was that attending community college first forfeits an extremely large amount of potential scholarship money. Transfer scholarships pale in comparison to freshman 4-year scholarships.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#27

Post by cperciva »

The second trend is that whether a student graduates or not seems to depend today almost entirely on just one factor — how much money his or her parents make. To put it in blunt terms: Rich kids graduate; poor and working-class kids don’t. Or to put it more statistically: About a quarter of college freshmen born into the bottom half of the income distribution will manage to collect a bachelor’s degree by age 24, while almost 90 percent of freshmen born into families in the top income quartile will go on to finish their degree.

I find this very interesting in light of studies I've seen in Canada and Europe: Those studies all found that parental income was irrelevant after regressing for the overwhelming effect of parental education. Poor kids of well-educated parents were far more likely to graduate than rich kids of uneducated parents.

Of course, this would reinforce the story being told even more: Parents with college degrees encourage and expect their progeny to attend and graduate from college, while parents without that higher education do not provide an analogous proof of possibility.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#28

Post by ceras »

pnt12 wrote: post #5

I didn't read the whole article, but from the introduction, it seemed she failed the test because she wasn't used to studying hard in high school. Richer students do have more resources but I can't figure why money was a relevant factor in this case.

I'm sorry, but it's not very useful to the community to comment when you haven't read the article. It was written precisely to address your skepticism. I recommend reading it if you're curious about the issue.

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

roymurdock wrote: post #23

Vanessa averaged A's in high school but tested a 22 on the ACT: she was the top of her class, but her class was very far behind the students in the rest of the country. Her high school was clearly ineffective and set her up for failure on her first test. Good for her for sticking with it and working through/around/with a terribly unequal system that disadvantaged her from the start. Perhaps instead of an SAT or an AC…

[deleted]

Re: Who Gets to Graduate?

#30

Post by ewoodrich »

codingdave wrote: post #25
roymurdock wrote: post #23

Vanessa averaged A's in high school but tested a 22 on the ACT: she was the top of her class, but her class was very far behind the students in the rest of the country. Her high school was clearly ineffective and set her up for failure on her first test. Good for her for sticking with it and working through/around/with a terribly unequal system that disadvantaged her from the start. Perhaps instead of an SAT or an AC…

Wow, did you really just say that state schools are easy, while private school are complex, and then use the phrase "private school caliber students" to punctuate that judgment? I went to a private college. I am not better than my friends who went to state schools.

My charitable interpretation is that the OP is suggesting that large state schools might choose questions from broad, comprehensive body of material, to determine general aptitude. A liberal arts college might select more narrow or field-specific questions that would improve the resolution of the test for specific subjects.
Post reply on HN