As others have pointed out, make sure this isn't a college experience rather than a St. John's experience. My first quarter at OSU I took an Honors class on Plato that would likely have featured the same things you're so excited about. Granted, I ended up disliking the professor (hi Chad!), and that was the class that taught me that professors like their own pet subjects. Also, bear in mind that what seems fascinating and new at 16 may not really be. I visited a law school class at NYU and thought it was fascinating. After sitting in many, many law school classes I realized that it was just "different", not on some other plane of reasoning. Various things. For one, access to help/advisors is sooooo much easier at the Honors level. There's much more personalized service. The smaller class sizes for intro classes especially and the Honors seminars. At OSU I took as many Honors classes as I could (to discover later that the law school grade reporting service actually looks at those grades more kindly than it does at other grades) in subjects I like. I never had more than 22 students in a class, and the Honors Seminars were excellent. Those were limited to about 17 and were restricted to juniors/seniors majoring in the subjects. Some of the toughest work I did. I also did an Honors thesis, which now makes me the world's leading expert on a minor point of Roman historiography. There are also activities restricted to Honors students. The only non-Honors/high major classes I took were science general education requirements, and I had absolutely no interest in taking Honors Chem, which I had no interest in to begin with. If I were you, I'd visit UT at Austin and talk to people there. Finally, I'd like to stress one thing. What, in my mind, makes the biggest difference in education is the level of students around you. Not the level of instructors (and this is not meant to diminish good professors, but one can only work with the tools one is given), endowment, books in library, etc. The Honors program, after the inevitable weeding out of the first half year (what do you mean there are equations in Chemistry????) was essentially composed of kids who, like me, looked at Ivies and other such schools, and decided it was just too damned expensive. Those people will tend to be in quite a few of your classes once you know what you're majoring in. But I digress. My point about the student body is that, in my opinion, if you pay an outrageous sum for your undergraduate education, make sure the level of the student body is very high. Becuase that's the only way you'll get the most out of your education. You can get around bad professors, poor resources, etc, because ultimately so much of your education is what you put into it. But if the kids around you aren't up to it, you won't really be either. I took a few classes from an expert in his field at Cleveland State university when I was in high school and realized just how constrained he was by the student body. A professor that wasn't all that great at OSU dragged much, much better work out of me because the students helped make sure of it. Does St. John's have a student body like that? I dunno. I never looked at St. John's. Is this a bit elitist? Yes, it is. (Not that I'm remotely ashamed of that.) But that's just my opinion. And yes, I still say that as someone who is annoyed at having turned down Columbia and U of Chicago, but in the long run, I completely understand my parents' decisions. (That, and I simply didn't have the $$$ for Chicago, which makes the choice less of a choice, and thus a bit more annoying in that I didn't really get one.)
Its an entirely personal calculus. I don't believe them to be "objectively" worse. I just didn't find them personally as impressive as some others did, that's all.
I have to disagree with this. Having spent a year at a large state school and a semester at a small liberal arts college, I have to say that the quality of the professors had a much bigger impact on me than the quality of the students. Though the students around me were much smarter this semester, that honestly did not affect me at all. On the other hand, having professors that were going to e-mail to check on my work, schedule meetings to talk with me, and basically care about what I am doing made me work harder and care about what I am doing. I could not care less about the students around me when I am doing my work and preparing for class. I have found that the percentage of students getting the "most" out of their education as opposed to partying away 4 years of their lives is the same regardless of where you go. The affect of having smarter students around you means that when they are ill-prepared to discuss reading, homework, etc. in class, they are just much better at BSing their way through, as opposed to the kids I was in class with last year that would just sleep if they didn't have anything to say. I believe that Hugh Hefner said it best, "Different strokes for different folks."
See, in my mind, that is completely irrelevant. To me. I had enough motivation to seek out professors if I wanted them. Frankly, I did that at OSU honors. Professors, I found, like talking to interested students. I'd have been shocked if they'd sent me emails to check up on my work. They assigned it to me, and if I had questions, I can ask. If I want to do the work, I'll do it. That's self motivation, and why your education can be almost as good wherever you go. Its just much harder to rise to that level when the kids around you aren't as bright. Really, if its all about professors showing personal interest, why do we even bother gauging academics on admission. That's missing the point entirely. Smarter students make better points. Do you honestly think you'd get the same grade for a paper written at your old school and at your new school? I doubt that. And its not because the professors are better.
^Nicephoras post #26: very good advice, there. Re: "elitist" and "quality of student surrounding you" It's not all about the academic pedigree. i find that universities that promote diversity (not just racial but economic) provide a much better learning atmosphere, as students end up challenging each other. Different social classes, ppl w/ different life experiences add a dimension that is difficult to bring in if the students are all from the same background. I know that here in California, where college entrance is soooo politicized, the UC systems stinks in a shameful way regarding social diversity, all b/c of a handful of businessmen (utterly unfamiliar w/ pedagogy and public policy) who felt that in 'Merika, we should have a 'pure' meritocracy and not aim for diverse student populations, and the citizens bought it!! The Cal State System, the private schools and especially community colleges, they are the ones that have diversity. At the UC (especially the flagships UCLA and Berkeley), everybody's upper middle class. Discussions can be quite flat in some regards. At the same time, some of my most amazing class discussions have been in community college classes that I've taught. (Btw: community college night courses: much, much higher level of student than the day courses...) Anyhoo... the whole 'B+' thing has been churning in my mind all morning long. Life makes more sense now. Another quick tip: if you have a suspicion that a student will get testy about a grade, do NOT up their grade. Last spring, my girlfriend had a student that was a complete pain about grades. At one point, my girlfriend unfortunately miswrote a grade in her gradebook (she wrote 81 when it was a 91%), so when the next essay came in, she saw the 81% and felt that... well that's a little low for this student, so on that 2nd essay she gave it an 87 instead of an 85 that it deserved. When this student got her B+, she of course f-reaked out and immediately (18 minutes, I think) wanted to challenge the grade. If she had gotten an 85 on that damn 2nd essay, she not only would have not gotten the A-, but b/c she challenged the course, the independent review would've evaluated ALL her material and she prolly would've gotten a B. Payback? This semester she was shockedSHOCKED that she was getting B's in her classes.
Hoo boy. I've spent days, literally, arguing about affirmative action in the UC system. Usually on the "opposed" side, because I believe it should be socio-economic in nature rather than race based. But, that's a different topic. For many disciplines, however, I greatly agree with you.
1. I guess we just differ on this first point because we are a different set of people: you are obviously highly motivated and set challenges for yourself, while I don't. At my old college and in high school, if I had no interest in the subject and the teacher didn't push me, then I spent as little time as possible doing work for the class and really just didn't care what I was supposed to be "learning". You clearly put in the same effort regardless of your professor, and I applaud you for that, but I need someone there to get me motivated for a class, especially one I have no interest in, if I am going to learn anything. The up-close-and-personal relationships with my new professors is why I transferred to my current school, not because the students around me are more intelligent. 2. Maybe I was just making a whole new point. 3. Like I posted before, "smarter" students are better at BSing. Sure, they contribute to the in-class discussions with "good" points, but they made up those points five seconds before they said them without having done the assigned reading, homework, whatever. I guess I just don't see how other students fabricating points out of thin air contributes to my education more than a professor that really knows their stuff and goes out of their way to teach you. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
This actually goes back to class size and the relative effectiveness of the professor at directing the discussion. A good pedagogical approach knocks the BSing tendency out of consideration after the first class discussion - students get honestly assessed once, and they'll meet a higher standard. Perhaps I am just good at it, but I don't consider myself anything particularly special and figure if I can manage it, so can most anyone else. Or, given my initials (BS), perhaps I just detect BS in discussions better! I find the comment I appreciate most from students on evals is "tough but fair" in combination with interest in particular assignments.
distrunner450, sorry if we're getting too off topic for you - we're obviously entertaining ourselves! Taking off from this point from uclacarlos, our Honors College is additionally interested in achieving a level of geographic diversity. So applying to a program like ours at WSU may give you an edge depending on the state-by-state breakdown of the incoming class.
o.k., the thread is going all over the place, but this *is* tangentially relevant b/c these are all things that are important to consider when picking a college. When I walked onto U of San Francisco's campus this fall, I about started to cry b/c I realized just how the UC system has failed to represent all but the upper middle class of California. At USF I felt like I was on a campus that truly represented Cali. The thing about Affirmative Action in Cali (and elsewhere) is that in a way it was a "lazy way" to bring about social change that is in the best interest of the state. Now, schools focus social class. So all the same programs merely reworded their mission statement and kept going about doing their jobs. But in the zealousness of the political environment, most got their funding slashed. So now it's more difficult for them to reach as many students as b4. But the problem is that it's continuing to be extraordinarily difficult to attract minority students, b/c private schools have the edge. USF... all it has to do is put forth extra money in their packages to minority students and voila: a diverse campus. UC isn't losing bad students: it's losing really good students, future leaders whose mere presence enrich the classroom AND help maintain the attrition-rates amongst minorities to respectable levels. B4 prop 209, I rarely had to mentor minority students to stay at the school, not to go home and go to their local Cal State or Comm College. Now... every friggin' semester, as they feel alone on campus. I'll leave it there... cuz I could keep going. But suffice to say... diversity is important for everybody.
"thin air" or not... if it's a valid point that furthers discussion, you benefit. The discussion goes deeper, you'll write better essays and you'll get better at "taking it to another level" on your own, when you're not being challenged. The richer the material and the discussion, the easier it is for you to rearticulate the discussion and add your own take in your exams and papers. At some point, you'll have to get better at the self-motivation, for instance in grad school or in the work force. Having intelligent, articulate students around you helps you get there faster... and better.
This is one of those places where the text is your friend. I do a lot of directed in-class writing using the texts assigned for that day and then work the discussion off of that. When students start to vaguely BS, it's easy to pull them back with "Where in the text are you getting that from?" The in-class writing (and I'm talking mostly like 5 minutes) helps discussion immeasurably because it gives the students who are reluctant to talk something to work off of and forces the BS'ers to do some close reading rather than their preferred unattached flights of speculation. On the professors checking up on students work, this is probably the one thing I dislike most about teaching at a liberal arts college. Students expect to have their hands held, to be emailed and reminded about the assignment multiple times, etc. It's a thin line between having relationships with your professors and being irresponsible and imposing on my time. Too many students cross it. In research seminars, such guiding is necessary, especially for finding research materials, but with normal assignments? Very annoying. What was this thread about again? Oh yeah, it's about how the destruction of the B+ will be my legacy to academia.
At some point you're going to have to get a bit more self-motivation though. Grad school is unlikely to be quite as hand-holding, and if you're going to request it be that way, your professor might get annoyed. uclacarlos already answered it to a large extent. But even if we stick with your theory of half the answers being BS, keep in mind that the answers of those who did study and do the work are likely to be better because they're smarter. You can only grow so much as a big fish in a small pond.
Its a tough issue. Especially since often the students at elite universities who use affirmative action are, on the average, more wealthy than the rest of the student population. Its just a reinforcement of class. I'm not sure I like that, since I've talked to kids both at HS level and at undergrad level who were better off than me financially but calmly talked about which schools would accept them and how much less work they had to do. It was frustrating, and is one of the reasons I dislike strictly race based affirmative action. I had someone tell me they just did the bare minimum to get into a top 10 law school, because they knew that with their minority status, that's all they'd need to do. That's very frustrating and ultimately self-defeating.
Chicago has a nasty tendency to turn people into bitter, jaded, and burned-out alcoholics. I'd never been so happy, and at the same time I'd never been so miserable. You're probably better off because you didn't go there.
But I'm already a bitter, jaded and burnt-out. If Chicago would also have made me an alcoholic, I totally should have gone.
Jeez, and all along I thought that was what graduate school was for. If I would have known I could have accomplished all that as an undergrad, I would have applied to Chicago.
Yeah, I guess I can see your guy's point here. I digress. Grad school will definitely not be happening (I will probably have low undergrad grades, way too expensive), and I will probably hate whatever job I end up at so motivation will be impossible. Not to sound pessimistic. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
I'd honestly suggest getting your ass in gear. Grad schools like improvement with time in your grades. But for so many professions today the quality of one's grad school degree is more important than the quality of your undergraduate institution. It certainly is in law. Few people know where I went to undergrad and only my friends care. Where my law degree is from is paramount. I think the same holds true for almost every academic discipline I'm familiar with.
And they also notice if your grades are better in your major than in the general requirement courses. And if you've bothered to do independent research. You can do a lot in the last year or two to improve your grad school and/or job prospects.
Thanks for the motivational speech, MOM. I'm a transfer, so I actually don't have any grades yet as this was my first semester at my new school (I'll get grades right after Christmas). Just going by the quality of my work this semester, a 3.0 would be a miracle. I'm really just hoping that I pulled a 2.5, because if I didn't then I don't get to do study abroad. I had a 3.8 at my old school, but the quality (or the lack of quality) of my old school had more to do with that number than my hard work and intelligence.
Actually, it is fun to apply to college. Most of the application forms are similiar. You only need to revise a few things on the essays.