Wayne, take a look at the links in
http://doctorpion.blogspot.com/2007/04/grade-13-at-ishkabibble-community.html
about how students entering JHU have not been prepared for a true college level class by their AP classes. There are similar points made in the discussions linked from
http://doctorpion.blogspot.com/2007/03/my-thoughts-on-college-readiness.html

I’ll take an “unprepared” student who understands the concept of prerequisites, and learns what is in each class, over a kid who “took” an AP class that took two years to do two semesters of college math with essentially no chance of failing.

people who can’t do hard science go into psychology.
If they can’t handle psychology, they go into poli sci
If they can’t handle poli sci, they go into communications.

yeah, stereotypical and snarky, but 18-20 year olds tend to be a snarky lot.

I suspect that what’s true is that we’re seeing a widening gap of knowledge base – people who have all the APs vs. people who are really not prepared (knowledge-wise) to go to college.

But there’s also the issue of motivation and drive. If you were pushed like crazy by your parents to succeed in high school, that doesn’t necessarily mean you will succeed in college, when you’re living away from them, and have added distractions (alcohol, parties, potential hook-ups, your roommate’s video game) that the parents may not have permitted. You can be really “smart” and yet be really “dumb.” I’ve seen A students slide into a pit of Ds because they discovered something that was “more fun” than college, or because they got hooked on online poker, or because they joined the party scene. It happens, and it’s sad when the student’s not able to pull out of it.

I tend to think – just from having compared my experience in the early 90s as a beginning TA to today – that incoming students are, on average, less mature now. They’re more likely to come and beg for a better grade (when they don’t deserve it) – or, worse, have their parents call the prof and ask for a better grade.

Virtually every Ivy league and Ivy-lke has the same three majors as their top majors (economics, political science, and psychology). All of those students who are taking AP physics, calculus, biology, chemistry, etc; seem to end up avoiding those classes in college.

Also, college guides publish graduation rates, lenght of time to graduate, etc. The average state university has a graduation rate of less than 50%, the students take longer than four years, and most students change their major at least once.

My personal experience is that no one ever decides that economics is too easy and changes into biochemistry.

“With the emergence of AP courses, the difficulty of
high school (at least the last two years) has
increased for those headed to college.”

RWP:
Yet colleges are now having to enroll more and more students in remedial. high-school level courses, such as basic algebra. Can you explain this apparent contradiction?

Wayne Responds:
This is true. It doesn’t appear to be true in the top tier colleges, or at least not so much that there are news articles that track the issue.

We need to remember that there has been a huge increase in college attendance since WWII. The college graduation rate was about 12% (as evidenced by the number of college grads that were inducted into the Armed Forces). Now, we are seeing a graduation rate of 25% nationally, with an attendance rate of about 75% (if memory serves).

I started high school in 1959, so my frame-of-reference with high school/college education is about fifty years. A goodly number of colleges have been built since the end of WWII. Obviously, students are needed to fill the classrooms. If those students are not ready for college, they end up in remedial classes, leave or flunk out. If not as many colleges and CCs had been built, then not as many students would be entering, the entrance bars could be higher.

My comments about “difficulty of high school” are based on my memory about the course work that I took when I went through high school (1959-1963) vs the coursework that kids in my town are taking as they start their path in life (ca 2007). As I pointed out, AP courses in Calculus and Physics didn’t exist in the early ‘60s (in my part of the country at least). Since they do exist in high school now, it was offered as “data” to explain my point-of-view. It seemed like “data” to me, but if it does not qualify as “data” to you .. What precise data and in what format would you expect me to offer so that it would pass your exacting expectations?

Wayne Wrote:
“Certainly AP classes have increased the knowledge-base to
which students are exposed these days over what we
were exposed to 35-40 years ago.”

RWP Objects:
And again, another statement with nothing to back it up.

Wayne Responds:
This is an opinion, to be sure. But being old enough to have started public school over 55 years ago, I do have some memory into what we were taught in those years, and can easily see what kids are being taught today. It really is not that difficult to make a mental difference and express an opinion. (Perhaps I should apologize to RWP for taking the time to share my memories of life in the early 1950s in the South with folks like himself!)

There isn’t enough time or space in Blogs such as these to do much more than exchange opinions .. sad RWP does not see that.

RWP Wrote:
What do you do, exactly, that makes you such an authority
on education, particularly higher education?
I must have missed that part.

Wayne Responded:
This is an anonymous Blog, so what I do isn’t really all that important. However, since you have demanded so imperiously that I identify my occupation, I will tell you I am a systems analyst. My knowledge of higher education is limited to my own undergraduate and graduate experiences, and the vast seas of data available from various agencies, such as the DoEs at every level of government. The Internet makes a lot of data available today that used to exist only in unwieldy tomes, which I found myself reading, from time-to-time.

RWP Wrote:
I’ll consider you an authority when you’ve taught
university courses for over two decades.

Wayne Responded:

I have never claimed to be an authority on Education, I have simply provided data which is readily available in the public domain about education. It is a sharing of information, not an assertion of authority.

By the way, Herr Doctor ..

I fully supported your opinion piece, and didn’t think that I wrote anything that was disrespectful, or called your observations into question. I generally agree with you, but I can see now that you probably aren’t interested in having folks like myself on your side.

Looks like decades of standing behind a podium has detuned your friend-vs-foe detector to a point where it doesn’t work any more. You might want to look into getting it fixed.

The contradiction is all of your own invention. I didn’t make the second and third statements. Someone called “Wayne” did.

Joanne–exactly. But that’s why it’s so odd that everyone tries to discuss “college students”.

“There are lots of good college opportunities for these students, even if they can’t all go to the Ivy League.”

Yes. The rather absurd focus on grades is putting a lot of exceptionally bright, well-educated students at places like UC Santas Barbara and Cruz, as well as Davis.

When I was graduated from high school in 1970, most A and many B students went to college; C students went only if they had wealthy families to finance them. These days, most C students go to college, even if they lack motivation, good work habits and solid reading, writing and math skills. D students go too, though they end up in remedial community college classes.