Don't stress over homework in high school

Excerpt from admissions requirements from montclair.edu - "We review each application individually; however, when considering an applicant for Freshman Admission, certain minimum standards are followed. Strong candidates for admission generally meet the following criteria: A GPA of 3.0 or greater in the required curriculum A combined SAT score of 1425 (Math, Critical Reading, and Writing) or ACT composite score of 20" What in that would suggest there is no minimum GPA? Excerpt from William Paterson University website- "There is no minimum grade point average, SAT score, or rank in classï¿½required for Admission. All academic components are considered as a whole when an Admissions decision is made. ï¿½ The average matriculated student (2004-2005) holds a 3.00 GPA, a rank in class of 67% (top 1/3) and a 1050 CSAT score (Math and Critical Reading scores only; William Paterson University does not consider the writing..." I sincerely hope my peer continued reading and saw the whole part about an average matriculated student? That's kind of a hint, because both of these universities are one that can accept or reject admissions as they please, and if you don't have what an average matriculated student has or more, it would be a safe guess that your chances of acceptance are highly diminished. For private and even public four year universities it really is about performing well in high school. I also would ask for perhaps any evidence my peer has available for his claims that "most people" have entered into this university with GPA below 3.0. Furthermore, my peers assertion that "if you don't know the material by the time you get home, then you're probably never going to get much more out of it." is, well, its false. "The clearest point is the striking influence of age. There seems, from these studies, to be a clear and significant benefit to doing homework for high school students. Students 11 to 13 years of age also showed a clear benefit, but it was much smaller. Students below this age showed no benefit."(1) There are other positives to homework as well, it instills study habits that help a student to succeed in college because, when you are pursuing a collegiate level education, the responsibility to complete all given assignments rests on the students shoulders alone, and if they aren't prepared both in terms of knowledge, and study-habits, they are setting themselves up for sub-par performance. Also, not doing homework has been shown to lead to increased drop out rates in high school. "Interestingly, our sample indicated that 26 percent did no homework, and, including them, 80 percent of those surveyed did one hour or less of homework each day. Part of this may have been the result of a lack of student motivation and some of it may have been attributable to low expectations their teachers or schools had for them. In our focus groups, participants shared stories that would indicate both. There have been studies showing that students who do little or no homework each week increase their risk of dropping out"(2) Homework also teaches a valuable life lesson, that work does not stop when you get home. "All adults have "errands" to do some people choose to call them responsibilities other people choose to call it "business", no matter what you choose to call it you are doing a form of home work. Take your child with you or sit them down and shown them exactly what your "homework" is, the child will see that the reading homework they have is very important so they can read the bills later in life, they will see that the math homework they hate so much will be important so they can make sure their paycheck is correct when they start working. When I sat my children down and explained to them what would happen if I didn't do my "daily homework" they didn't understand at first, soï¿½I sat down in front of the television and played on the computer ignoring all my responsibilities for that night. An hour after our usual dinner time my children came to me and asked why we didn't have dinner and told me that they were very hungry, I looked at them and explained to them I didn't go to the store and get anything for dinner. I explained to them that my homework for that day was to get food from the store so we could eat it that night, but I didn't want to do my homework because I wanted to play instead. They understood very quickly why homework was important."(3) ---- 1) http://www.memory-key.com... 2) John M. Bridgeland / John J. DiIulio, Jr. / Karen Burke Morison "The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts" Mar. 2006 3) Randy Scarborough "Explaining why homework is important to children" 28 Jan. 2011 http://m.examiner.com...