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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’

#441

Post by cindyllm »

SkiFire13 wrote: post #440
firesteelrain wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This must be a State thing. > 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 until 5:00. In other States, high school starts later like 8:45/9am. You can take classes online and start school later if you want or do dual enrollment and skip later periods. > Gotta have that activity on your college application, not counting other voluntee…

> Kids are remarkably resilient People are remarkably resilient in general. But if chinese workers manage to survive a 996 does that make it good?

[dead]

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

#443

Post by moralestapia »

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…

Cool story, but I also went to High School and Uni and it was not even close to that, and I also have cousins that go to Uni now and kids that will go to high school soon and it is not even close to that.

Perhaps I should disregard my own lived experience and substitute it for what this comment on the (dead and AI-generated) internet is telling me to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#444

Post by alephnerd »

Aurornis wrote: post #208
alephnerd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naw. Adult life is so much easier with regards to competitive pressure compared to getting into a good college. The real world is Pass/Fail, much to the chagrin of plenty of HNers.

> Adult life is so much easier with regards to competitive pressure compared to getting into a good college You’re competing apples and oranges. Getting into a top college is similar to grinding to get into Big Tech jobs and then climb the ladder there. Good colleges are easy. The top few colleges are very hard. > The real world is Pass/Fail, much to the chagrin of plenty of HNers. If by “fail” you mean lose your job…

> Good colleges are easy. The top few colleges are very hard

Define "good" and "top".

Ivies, Ivy Tier privates (Stanford, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Chicago, NYU, Caltech, Georgetown, CMU), and Ivy Tier public schools (Cal, UCLA, UCSD, Mich, UIUC, UW, UT, GT, Purdue, UNC Chapel Hill, UVA) all recruit from the same student body. Thanks to the Common App, UC App, Coalition App, and ApplyTexas it's marginal effort to apply to all the colleges above in addition to the "good" tier.

The Good tier of publics (the rest of the UCs, the rest of the Big 10, UTD, SJSU, CalPoly, NCSU, William&Mary, VT, Rutgers) and privates (Claremont Colleges, Seven Sisters, Vandy, etc) end up with plenty of kids who couldn't mkae it to the top which also makes them more competitive.

Outcomes at Good and Top are the same for most cases, but both are similarly competitive. The kind of profile that gets you into CS@UCR today would have gotten you into EECS@Berkeley a decade ago.

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

#445

Post by alphawhisky »

reaperducer wrote: post #401
randusername wrote: post #372

This is a bewildering article and discussion. Grades and academic performance are outcomes. They're indirect stressors at best; why would one generation suddenly be unable to cope? The real story is what has changed to increase the stakes of grades. I suspect freshmen are taking out historic debt to contend with food, housing, and tuition costs meanwhile the entry-level job market is extraordinarily competitive. Ther…

The real story is what has changed to increase the stakes of grades. I suspect freshmen are taking out historic debt to contend with food, housing, and tuition costs meanwhile the entry-level job market is extraordinarily competitive. Money is the easy excuse. The root of the problem is that many of them simply are not ready for college for a variety of reasons from parent coddling to defunded primary schools to the…

To me, "defunded primary schools" and "lack of long form reading" sound like the same problem. And yes, money would solve it. Whatever. Another $5B to Israel!

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

#446

Post by gopher_space »

Joker_vD wrote: post #161
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…

> sports practice until 5:00. Gotta have that activity on your college application, not counting other volunteering and clubs in the open spaces. Still baffles me why is that even a thing that's considered at the colleges. I thought it was just a relic of Soviet past but no, apparently it exists in the US and other first world countries as well for some strange reason.

A sound mind in a sound body. Everything you do is improved if you're physically active.

I think sports are just easy to categorize when you're trying to figure out what some kid's been up to. Admissions gets to check a box instead of reading essays.

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

#447

Post by jansport123 »

atniomn wrote: post #396
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…

I never studied hard in high school, had one AP, went to a mid tier university and got mostly C's and i also have a household income in the top 1%, a gratifying job and a loving family. I did what i wanted most of my life - i would rather program stuff than apply myself in school and that yielded rewards. I think the broader point is if someone's child wanted to apply themselves to be excellent, then i think that is quite alright but we start getting into trouble when parents are forcing their children or scaring them with "if you don't do this, your life is over" type advice.

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

#448

Post by nonameiguess »

atniomn wrote: post #396
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…

At the same time, the problem is too many parents on the Internet and their kids feel like they have to do this. I'm in the top 1% of household income, have a rich life with a great wife, failed for 7 years to have a kid but we tried. I had a 3.8 in high school, took 4 AP classes, lettered in four sports and was Vice President of the art club but did no other extracurriculars, never volunteered, and began school at a perfectly normal 830 or so. I also dropped out my first semester of college, didn't go back for three years, and started back at a community college when I did start back, and lived out of my car for a while working overnight shifts detailing restrooms at a theme park. Then I ultimately joined the Army, jacked up my spine, could scarcely walk for years and was inches from suicide, not making the shift to a software career until I was your age. It still worked out in the long run.

You don't need to have a great life right out of the gate. Life is pretty long.

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

#449

Post by nonameiguess »

vel0city wrote: post #347
bakies wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30

I've known many families around that age (+/- 5 years) with a stay at home spouse taking care of multiple kids. It really shapes their lifestyle in a lot of ways (smaller/older house, rarely eat out, rarely big family vacations, clothes/toys often from secondhand consignment stores, fewer/cheaper vehicles, etc.), but that's what's important to them so that's how they've set their priorities. Most didn't come from ext…

This discussion gets me every single time. All three of my younger sisters are stay at home moms and their husbands make less than I do, and they have kids, whereas I don't. Until you're at least a deca-millionaire, no amount of money will ever feel like enough and you'll be stressed, or at least I will be, and I'm sure my sisters are, but the material differences in our day to day lives are nil. Their houses are smaller and they live in the middle of nowhere, whereas I live downtown in a major metro, but I also barely leave the house, so what difference does it make?

Everybody who thinks they absolutely cannot do it needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask how it is that 7 billion or so other people manage it with even less. It's nice not ever worrying about bills or paying much attention to what anything costs, but it's not that nice. I'm not actually any happier now than when I was living with four guys in a two bed apartment in the slums of Long Beach.

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

#450

Post by sph87 »

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 want to add that the UC schools system has (had?) something like this. I know a good number of very intelligent people who did 2 years at a Community College and ended up going to UC Berkeley, UCLA. Not Harvard but West coast ivys at the very least.
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