why do i have so many assignments

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11 Ways to Deal With Homework Overload

Last Updated: June 24, 2024 Fact Checked

Making a Plan

Staying motivated, starting good homework habits, expert q&a.

This article was co-authored by Jennifer Kaifesh . Jennifer Kaifesh is the Founder of Great Expectations College Prep, a tutoring and counseling service based in Southern California. Jennifer has over 15 years of experience managing and facilitating academic tutoring and standardized test prep as it relates to the college application process. She takes a personal approach to her tutoring, and focuses on working with students to find their specific mix of pursuits that they both enjoy and excel at. She is a graduate of Northwestern University. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 255,159 times.

A pile of homework can seem daunting, but it’s doable if you make a plan. Make a list of everything you need to do, and work your way through, starting with the most difficult assignments. Focus on your homework and tune out distractions, and you’ll get through things more efficiently. Giving yourself breaks and other rewards will help you stay motivated along the way. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you get stuck! Hang in there, and you’ll knock the homework out before you know it.

Things You Should Know

• Create a checklist of everything you have to do, making sure to include deadlines and which assignments are a top priority.
• Take a 15-minute break for every 2 hours of studying. This can give your mind a break and help you feel more focused.
• Make a schedule of when you plan on doing your homework and try to stick to it. This way, you won’t feel too overwhelmed as the assignments roll in.

• Make a plan to go through your work bit by bit, saving the easiest tasks for last.

• Put phones and any other distractions away. If you have to do your homework on a computer, avoid checking your email or social media while you are trying to work.
• Consider letting your family (or at least your parents) know where and when you plan to do homework, so they'll know to be considerate and only interrupt if necessary.

• If you have the option to do your homework in a study hall, library, or other place where there might be tutors, go for it. That way, there will be help around if you need it. You'll also likely wind up with more free time if you can get work done in school.

• To take a break, get up and move away from your workspace. Walk around a bit, and get a drink or snack.
• Moving around will recharge you mentally, physically, and spiritually, so you’re ready to tackle the next part of your homework.

• For instance, you might write “I need to do this chemistry homework because I want a good average in the class. That will raise my GPA and help me stay eligible for the basketball team and get my diploma.”
• Your goals might also look something like “I’m going to write this history paper because I want to get better as a writer. Knowing how to write well and make a good argument will help me when I’m trying to enter law school, and then down the road when I hope to become a successful attorney.”

• Try doing your homework as soon as possible after it is assigned. Say you have one set of classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and another on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Do the Monday homework on Monday, instead of putting it off until Tuesday.
• That way, the class will still be fresh in your mind, making the homework easier.
• This also gives you time to ask for help if there’s something you don’t understand.

• If you want to keep everyone accountable, write a pact for everyone in your study group to sign, like “I agree to spend 2 hours on Monday and Wednesday afternoons with my study group. I will use that time just for working, and won’t give in to distractions or playing around.”
• Once everyone’s gotten through the homework, there’s no problem with hanging out.

• Most teachers are willing to listen if you’re trying and legitimately have trouble keeping up. They might even adjust the homework assignments to make them more manageable.

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• ↑ https://www.understood.org/en/articles/homework-strategies
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/homework.html
• ↑ https://kidshelpline.com.au/kids/tips/dealing-with-homework
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/focused.html
• ↑ http://www.aiuniv.edu/blog/august-2014/tips-for-fighting-homework-fatigue
• ↑ http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/homework.html
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/study-partners/

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How to complete when you have lots of assignments ?

Assignment Juggling Mastery: Strategies to Efficiently Navigate and Excel When Facing a Pile-Up of Academic Tasks.

When faced with a heavy workload of assignments, effective planning and execution are key to success. Managing multiple assignments requires strategic prioritization, efficient time management, and a structured approach to ensure quality and timely completion. This guide explores practical steps to tackle numerous tasks: from breaking down assignments into manageable parts and creating a schedule, to staying organized and minimizing distractions. By implementing these strategies, students can enhance productivity, reduce stress, and achieve academic goals effectively. Balancing thoroughness with efficiency, this approach fosters not only completion but also mastery of content, empowering students to excel amidst demanding academic schedules.

Strategic Implementation for Enhanced Productivity and Academic Success

Implementing these strategies enhances productivity, reduces stress, and achieves academic goals effectively. Balancing thoroughness with efficiency fosters both completion and content mastery, empowering students to excel amidst demanding academic schedules.

1. Prioritize Your Assignments:

- Start by identifying which assignments are due. Prioritize them based on deadlines. Consider factors like the complexity of the assignment, the amount of research required, and your familiarity with the topic.

2. Break Down Each Assignment:

- Divide each assignment into smaller, manageable tasks. It could include researching, outlining, writing, revising, and proofreading. Breaking down assignments into smaller steps makes them less intimidating.

3. Create a Schedule:

- Develop a detailed schedule or to-do list that outlines when you'll work on each assignment. Allocate specific time slots for research, writing, and editing. Be realistic about the time needed for each task.

4. Set Goals:

- Establish daily or weekly goals for completing portions of your assignments. Setting achievable milestones will help you stay on track and motivated.

5. Minimize Distractions:

- Find a quiet and focused workspace to minimize distractions. Turn off social media notifications and other distractions while working on assignments.

6. Use Time Management Techniques:

- Techniques like the Pomodoro Technique (working in focused intervals with short breaks) can improve productivity and prevent burnout.

7. Start Early:

- Begin working on assignments as soon as they are assigned. Procrastination can lead to stress and lower-quality work.

8. Utilize Resources:

- If you encounter challenges with a particular assignment, seek help from professors, or you can opt for platforms offering Assignment Help USA . Don't hesitate to ask questions when you're unsure about a task.

9. Stay Organized:

- Keep all your assignment-related materials well-organized, including research notes, outlines, and drafts. Use digital tools or physical folders to manage your resources.

10. Avoid Multitasking:

- Focus on one assignment at a time. Multitasking can reduce the quality of your work and increase stress levels.

11. Take Breaks:

- Allocate short breaks between tasks to recharge your mind. Use this time to stretch, walk, or do something enjoyable to prevent burnout.

12. Stay Healthy:

- Maintain a balanced diet, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep. Physical and mental well-being are crucial for effective time management and productivity.

13. Review and Revise:

- After completing an assignment, take the time to review and revise your work. Check for errors and improve the overall quality of your assignment.

14. Seek Extensions if Necessary:

- If you encounter unexpected challenges or circumstances that hinder your ability to complete an assignment on time, consider requesting an extension from your professor. Be sure to provide valid reason/reasons and request it before the deadlines mentioned in the instructions.

15. Celebrate Your Achievements:

- Acknowledge your accomplishments along the way. Reward yourself for meeting milestones and completing assignments. Positive reinforcement can boost motivation.

You must remember that effective time management and organization are crucial to completing multiple assignments successfully. Following these steps and maintaining a proactive approach to your coursework can reduce stress and produce high-quality work within your deadlines.

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5 Tips for Dealing with “Too Much” Homework

In the case of unreasonable “commitments,” you’re procrastinating doing your homework, but of course, there are people who genuinely are overwhelmed by their homework. With that in mind, how do you manage your time to get it all done? The following are five tips for any student (current or prospective) who’s struggling with getting their workload completed on time.

1. Don’t be a perfectionist

There’s an old principle of Pareto’s that’s been adapted to business (specifically management) called the 80-20 rule. The idea is that 80% of your results, come from 20% of your efforts. Think about that. When you tackle an assignment for school, are you trying to make everything perfect? Remember that you’re a student, no one is expecting you to be perfect, you’re in school to get better; you’re supposed to be a work in progress.

As a result, what may feel like “too much” homework, might really be you tackling assignments “too well.” For instance, there’s a reason “speed reading” is a skill that’s encouraged. A textbook is not a work of literature where every sentence means something, it’s okay to skim or, in some cases, skip whole paragraphs – the last paragraph just recaps what you read anyway.

Moreover, many schools or classes curve their grades. So an 80% could be a 100% in your class.

2. Do your homework as soon as it’s assigned to you

Due to the nature of college schedules, students often have classes MWF and different classes on Tuesday and Thursday. As a result, they do their MWF homework on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in preparation for the following day. Rather than do that. Do your Monday homework, Monday; Tuesday homework, Tuesday; Wednesday homework, Wednesday and so on.

The reason for this is manifold. First of all, the class and the assignment are fresh in your mind – this is especially critical for anything math related to those who are less math-minded. So do the assignment after the class. Chances are, it’ll be much easier to complete.

The second reason is because if you have a question about Monday’s homework and you’re working on it on Monday night, then guess what? You can contact your professor (or a friend) Tuesday for help or clarification. Whereas if you’re completing Monday’s homework on a Tuesday night, you’re out of luck. This can assuage a lot of the stress that comes from too much homework.

This flows into the third reason which is that, rather than having a chunk of homework to do the day before its due, you’re doing a little at a time frequently. This is a basic time management tactic where, if you finish tasks as they’re assigned instead of letting them pile up, you avoid that mental blockade of feeling like there’s “too much” for you to do in the finite amount of time given.

3. Eliminate distractions

All too often, students sit down to do homework and then receive a text, and then another, and then hop on Facebook, and then comment on something, and then take a break. Before they’re aware of it, hours have passed.

The best way to overcome this is to create a workspace. Traditionally, many students go to the library, but there’s no reason you cannot create your own workspace elsewhere. Maybe head to a coffee shop, fold up the backseats of your car, or develop a space in your room for you to specifically to focus on your homework.

If you give your homework 100% of your attention, it’ll pass by more quickly. Regardless of whether you’re writing a paper or working on a math equation, it’s harder to complete any portion of it with interruptions. If you stop writing mid-sentence to answer a text, then you may wonder where you were taking that trail of thought; if you stop a math problem midway through, then you’ll end up going back over the equation, redoing your work, to figure it out.

Eliminating distractions can save you a great deal of time, so find your space.

4. Track your time

Really track it. There are plenty of free sites and apps that will monitor your time. If you can’t (or don’t) eliminate all your distractions, then start clocking where your time is going. Chances are, you’ll be able to cut something that’s draining your hours, out of your schedule.

This is the nature of the internet, social media sites, and games on your phone, usually you use them in micromoments; moments that too small or too insignificant to really be eating up your time, but they do. All too often, students find themselves wondering “where did the time go?” and have difficulty actually placing how much time was spent where or doing what. Time yourself and, more importantly, reserve time to do your homework or reading.

The other benefit of this is that once you start tracking your time, you’ll be able to quantify the problem and manage your time more appropriately. For instance, if a particular class averages 45 minutes of homework, then you know how much time is required to budget into your schedule. Meanwhile, if another class is regularly exceeding three hours, then you may want to consider a tutor or discussing the issue with your professor directly.

5. Accept homework

Homework is a responsibility; it’s a chore. And in the same way that many people don’t take out the trash until it needs to be taken out; many people don’t start homework until it needs to be finished. This is a problem of attitude towards homework more than anything else.

It’s what makes many students feel like there’s “too much” homework, when in actuality, they feel that way because they put off doing it until they absolutely need to do it. As a result, try to change your mode of thinking. Instead of thinking about the volume of reading and writing, accept that it needs to get done. This way, you’re less concerned with the consequences of not doing homework, and more willing to actually get it done.

Hopefully, these five tips will help you in your academic career. Time management is not an easy skill to learn, but once you’ve established it in your life, it will help immensely.

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Too Much Homework in College: Effects and Tips to handle them

College Homework

Homework is part of college life and comes as a booster to students to refine knowledge and skills about certain concepts. However, when colleges give too much homework, it can be counter-productive. We seek to give tips on how to handle assignment burdens in school.

This is because we believe homework is good and can help the learning process. If done in the right way, it will give students a great understanding of the topic.

However, too many assignments affect students’ health and lead to severe cases if left unchecked. It is for this reason that most students hire writers to do their homework and ease the burden.

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Why Do Teachers Give So Much Homework?

Teachers use homework to assist the student in improving on that particular topic or subject. A teacher would want to give you a lot of homework to succeed in that particular study area. Giving so much homework comes with various benefits to a student.

a) Better Grades 

First off, homework encourages the discipline of practice. Repetition is another skill that helps students get better at skills. Homework gives students a chance to understand concepts clearly. 

b) Time Management 

Homework is still another method of teaching the students about time management. It forces students to plan their time well and ensure that they do it within the timeframe. Time management is a requirement when you want to develop problem-solving skills. 

c) Better Communication

Besides, teachers give students homework to open a bridge of communication. This homework creates a super connection between a student and a teacher where a teacher will get to know students, especially in an area of struggle. Students will also understand the area of excellence. 

d) Extra Learning Moment 

Again, homework is helpful to a student to allow additional time for learning. 

That is so because the school hours are not enough to make students understand all the concepts they read. It will be a solution to time shortages. 

The teacher creates a homework plan for the students to induce better study habits. This homework will reduce the period you spend on TV or social media platforms that are always unfruitful to your study course. 

Is Too Much Homework in College Good or Bad?

A research study performed by Stanford University in 2013 revealed too many students come with several negative consequences.

It suggested that it would be counter-productive to spend more than two hours on your homework. 

The best approach when issuing homework is to do it in moderation.

Students should also have extra time to handle other life matters, such as sports and watching a favorite movie.

The homework is only suitable for you if a student finds time to handle other life issues well. 

How to Handle Too Much Homework in College

1. avoid being a perfectionist.

You can apply the Pirate principle, which upholds the 80-20 rule. It states that only your 20% input could lead to 80% of your successes.

Avoid making everything perfect as you tackle your college assignments. You are only in school to get better as long as you are working.

When you are handling college homework, you do not always aim to get 100%. When it comes to grading, sometimes 80% could mean an A!

2. Hire an Expert

Indeed handling too much homework at college could also overwhelm you. You may be handling too many assignments on the table whose deadline is near, causing you to strain your schedule. In the process, you may not handle all the homework and meet deadlines. 

As such, it could be reasonable to look for a helping hand. You can hire someone who has a track record of handling similar tasks effectively.

It could be someone you know, and you can get a referral from a friend who understands the industry. If you cannot write your homework , getting an expert writer is one of the best options to score the grade and manage the workload.

3. Eliminate Distractions

Students encounter challenges in doing their homework when they respond to texts from social media platforms and other forms of online engagements. You can overcome such a challenge by creating a workplace. 

Students can opt to visit the library to reduce such distractions. However, you can still find a conducive environment where you can have some peace to focus on your work. 

It is easier to complete your homework if your attention is 100%. When you stop working on your homework midway to respond to other demands, the chances are high that you may not complete it at the right time.

4. Track Your Time

Students should be in a position to account for their time well. You can seek help by using sites or free apps that will assist you in tracking your time.

Such a method is great in helping you to cut down hours that you might be spending fruitful time on something different. 

One should reserve time to read and research for the homework assignment.

Among the benefits of tracking is time to quantify the problem and use it to manage it effectively.

For example, if the classwork can take one hour, you can schedule it to fit in the projection. 

5. Start Early

Once you are out of class, take a break and organize yourself to get your homework ready. Make a list of what you want to complete for each night.

The secret is getting up to start early to reduce the pending quantity of work. If you wait for too long, until late evening, the fatigue will overwhelm you to complete the same assignment. 

6. Set Time to Relax

It is vital to secure some time to do something that you usually enjoy. It could be a home activity or an extracurricular one.

Such gives you a break from letting out any extra energy or frustrations. But do not relax too much. You may end up having to copy other students’ assignments , which is not good.

Negative Effects of Too Much Homework in College

A) sedentary lifestyle.

When students get too much homework, they will lack time to play, affecting their social development. A study revealed that a student who gets better grades spends quality time in play. 

One spends more time while sitting to get lessons from the tutors.

When one gets the homework, it also adds more time to sit while working on the assignments.

A sedentary lifestyle can lead to other health problems, such as obesity and hypertension. 

b) Healthy Problems

If you spend too much time doing homework as a routine, it may lead to several physical health challenges.

First off, it may lead to sleeping problems and digestive issues. It becomes stressful for anyone who is doing homework with headaches. 

Too much homework could lead to stress and other physical health problems. For instance, the student may experience fatigue and body burnout. 

In addition, other physical symptoms include headache, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and weight loss. 

c) Isolation

Too much homework limits how much a student finds free time to intermingle with other people. It becomes harder for one to balance between social life and doing other activities that are outside studies. Such a mismatch may lead to anxiety. 

Furthermore, too much homework makes the students lack balance in their social lives. They tend to face alienation from society. 

d) Sleep Well

The student should take enough time at night to have quality rest. The standard time for any adult should range between 6 to 8 hours. It is a refreshing experience to have quality time to sleep and organize yourself when your mind is cool the following day. 

e) Create a Home Workgroup

It could be in-person or virtual. Creating a homework group it makes it to be less overwhelming. The student will have a fruitful time researching for the correct materials to use for the given assignment. 

Where the student is struggling, the study group becomes a better platform to help students ask enough questions and get instant feedback from friends. It is also a place where you get inspiration from a fellow student on positively approaching the issue. 

Josh Jasen or JJ as we fondly call him, is a senior academic editor at Grade Bees in charge of the writing department. When not managing complex essays and academic writing tasks, Josh is busy advising students on how to pass assignments. In his spare time, he loves playing football or walking with his dog around the park.

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How many times have you found yourself still staring at your textbook around midnight (or later!) even when you started your homework hours earlier? Those lost hours could be explained by Parkinson’s Law, which states, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, if you give yourself all night to memorize those geometry formulas for your quiz tomorrow, you’ll inevitably find that a 30 minute task has somehow filled your entire evening.

We know that you have more homework than ever. But even with lots and lots to do, a few tweaks to your study routine could help you spend less time getting more accomplished. Here are 8 steps to make Parkinson’s Law work to your advantage:

1. Make a list

This should be a list of everything that has to be done that evening. And we mean, everything—from re-reading notes from this morning’s history class to quizzing yourself on Spanish vocabulary.

2. Estimate the time needed for each item on your list

You can be a little ruthless here. However long you think a task will take, try shaving off 5 or 10 minutes. But, be realistic. You won’t magically become a speed reader.

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3. Gather all your gear

Collect EVERYTHING you will need for the homework you are working on (like your laptop for writing assignments and pencils for problem sets). Getting up for supplies takes you off course and makes it that much harder to get back to your homework.

The constant blings and beeps from your devices can make it impossible to focus on what you are working on. Switch off or silence your phones and tablets, or leave them in another room until it’s time to take a tech break.

Read More: How to Calculate Your GPA

5. Time yourself

Noting how much time something actually takes will help you estimate better and plan your next study session.

6. Stay on task

If you’re fact checking online, it can be so easy to surf on over to a completely unrelated site. A better strategy is to note what information you need to find online, and do it all at once at the end of the study session.

7. Take plenty of breaks

Most of us need a break between subjects or to break up long stretches of studying. Active breaks are a great way to keep your energy up. Tech breaks can be an awesome way to combat the fear of missing out that might strike while you are buried in your work, but they also tend to stretch much longer than originally intended. Stick to a break schedule of 10 minutes or so.

8. Reward yourself! 

Finish early? If you had allocated 30 minutes for reading a biology chapter and it only took 20, you can apply those extra 10 minutes to a short break—or just move on to your next task. If you stay on track, you might breeze through your work quickly enough to catch up on some Netflix.

Our best piece of advice? Keep at it. The more you use this system, the easier it will become. You’ll be surprised by how much time you can shave off homework just by focusing and committing to a distraction-free study plan.

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Dispatches • Lifestyle

Dealing With Too Much Homework in College

Feel like you're getting too much homework in college. These seven top tips can help you deal better with your homework...

Students often complain about having too much homework in college, and the excuses for why they don’t get done on time range from a faulty printer to a downed Wi-fi connection.

The thing is, every time you’re assigned a task with a deadline, your ability to manage time gets tested. It can take on many forms, but the endgame is that you didn’t get your homework done because you prioritised other things. It could be that another task is more important, more appealing, or simply easier to do. Ultimately, homework is set aside until suddenly, there’s too much to do in so little time.

Nowadays, you have the convenient option to pay someone to do your homework but if money is tight and you’re aiming for a more long-term solution, then you need to make some changes to your study habits. Luckily, it’s never too late to learn and improve your time management skills. Especially when you’re in college .

Procrastination can be a pain in the bum, but with the following tips and tricks, you can overcome it each time you feel you have too much homework to finish.

Photo, Steinar Engeland.

For many students, doing homework can be a chore. Unless you make some changes to your study habits, that tedious feeling is here to stay. Keeping this in mind, you need to adopt a positive “get it done” attitude. If you accept that your homework needs to be done (instead of thinking about the consequences of not doing it), it’s easier to decide when and how to do it.

Think of this as your starting point. When there’s plenty of work to be done, you need to accept responsibility to see it through to the end. It’s yours to do and yours alone.

Photo, NeONBRAND.

Manage Your Time Effectively

To avoid college burnout, you need to improve your time management skills. Plan ahead by plotting out the time you need to finish your home. Doing so makes a seemingly daunting task much less stressful to approach.

— Set some time each day to finish your homework. See to it that you know your daily class schedule, and then choose a time that’s conducive to working on assignments. This could be early in the morning before your first class or during breaks between classes.

— Plot out your tasks using a school planner or calendar app. Take note of important dates and deadlines, as well as upcoming exams. This way, you can have a bird’s eye view of the things you need to work towards.

— Set realistic goals. To avoid a meltdown, you need to give yourself enough time to finish each task. Estimate how long you think it will take to complete homework, and set aside more time for bigger and more complex assignments.

Photo, Daniel Chekalov.

Create Your Own Workspace

Not all college students have a place to work . But if you do, how can you put it to optimum use?

Whether it’s a couch, a kitchen table, or a place in your dorm room, you can do more homework if you’ve got a spot that you can use regularly. If you have a messy desk, now’s the right time to tidy up.

During homework time, make sure to have everything you need well within your reach. It’s also important to develop a habit of putting things back after using them, to avoid unnecessary clutter.

Keep Distractions at Bay

When it’s homework time, you need to give it your full attention. Friends, gadgets, and social media will inevitably stretch out the time you could have spent finishing homework. Set them aside for later once all the work is done. The less distractions, the quicker you can complete your tasks.

Get Some R & R

Proper time management can do wonders and makes work more efficient and less strenuous. However, it’s just as important to give yourself some ‘me’ time. In fact, you’ll be more productive if you’re feeling invigorated after spending some time doing things you enjoy.

This could be anything, like going for a walk or jogging, hanging out with friends, or watching your favourite Netflix series. Whatever it may be, you need to create a balance between studying and doing the things you love. A healthy and happy mind results in better study habits.

Photo, DESIGNECOLOGIST.

Avoid Being a Perfectionist

The Pareto Principle or the 80-20 Rule, is a well-known aphorism that’s usually adapted to business management . However, college students can also incorporate it into their study routines.

The idea here is that 80% of results come from 20% of your efforts. When you’re working on an assignment or project, do you try to make everything perfect? As a student, nobody’s expecting you to be perfect. After all, you’re in school because you want to learn and get better. Being in college is a work in progress.

Think about it. What may feel like “too much homework” could actually be you trying to achieve perfection in your assignments. For example, speed reading is an acquired skill and it’s highly encouraged in the academic setting. After all, textbooks aren’t literary works where every sentence means something. Therefore, you can probably get away with just skimming or even skipping entire paragraphs. And anyway, the last paragraph is almost always just a recap of what you’ve read.

The truth is that a lot of schools curve their grades. In this case, being able to deliver 80% of your expected outcome, could be a solid 100% in class.

Photo, Tran Mau Tri Tam.

Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Naturally, it’s easy to suffer from sleep deprivation when you’re stressed out over finishing all your homework. According to research , young adults need at least 7 or more hours of sleep a night. Getting plenty of rest greatly improves your focus, memory, creativity, and decision-making ability – all of which are important in and out of college.

Once you learn to handle homework stress, you can get more out of assignments, while also developing better and healthier learning habits. By following the tips above, you can tackle any amount of homework with more confidence and less frustration.

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Don’t Overload Students: Assigning Too Much Work Discourages Learning

H as your to-do list ever been so long that you felt physically drained at the thought of everything that needed to be done?

New   research  has shed some light on the reason behind this feeling and shows that overloading students causes not only academic stress, but also takes a toll on students’ mental and physical health, which, unsurprisingly, hinders learning.

The study, led by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College, shows that although students who spend more time doing homework are sometimes more behaviourally engaged in school, they also tend to be more anxious, and report more physical symptoms due to stress.

“Although the students in our study were averaging more than three hours of homework per night, most did not find this homework engaging, nor did they feel it enhanced their learning,” says Galloway.

“Because homework tends to acts as a stressor in students’ lives, their bodies must find a way to respond or react to this stressor, and although research has shown that some level of stress can be healthy, chronic stress can induce negative physical, mental, and behaviour outcomes,” she explains.

The researchers surveyed over 4,000 students to determine the role that this additional work played as a stressor in their lives.

By asking questions like “How often do you try as hard as you can in school?” and “How often do you complete your school assignments?” they were able to paint a picture of students’ level of behavioural engagement.

The mental and physical well-being assessment consisted of questions like “How often do you feel stressed about your academic experience?” as well as enquiries about stress-related health problems such as headaches, weight gain and sleep difficulties.

Only 6% of students said they found their homework “very useful” in preparing them for learning, tests, papers or projects, and many experienced stress, compromised health and a lack of balance.

Students also voiced their frustration with their workload, saying things like; “There’s never a time to rest, there’s always something more you should be doing;” “It can feel like you are drowning;” and “My body crashes when I’ve done maybe half of my homework.” 

Based on such student feedback, the researchers speculate that homework overload can actually limit a person’s capacity to learn.

“Our study suggests that [students who are overloaded] experience higher levels of stress and more physical problems like sweating, headaches, exhaustion, stomach problems, and/or sleeping difficulties,” notes Galloway.

“In addition, these students report a general lack of balance in their lives, feeling like they need to choose completing their homework over engaging in social, physical, and restorative activities that could support their well-being.” 

Previous research has also shown that assigning too much work can diminish its effectiveness and even make it counter-productive. Clearly, just because students are doing more work, doesn’t mean they are actually learning more.

But what can teachers do make sure that they assign enough work without frustrating and overloading students?

Dr. Galloway notes that any work assigned to students should have a clear purpose and benefit, and should be designed to cultivate learning and development.

She also suggests the following tips for finding the right balance:

• Students and teachers should generally align in their description of the purpose of homework (that is, students should be able to identify the purpose)
• Teachers should not simply check-off homework as “complete” or “incomplete.” Homework should be incorporated or utilized in the lesson to facilitate the learning experience.
• Students and teachers should engage together in co-constructing homework assignments. In such co-construction, students can identify various ways to build upon and expand their learning of a topic or concept.  This also provides opportunities for students to bring their strengths; creativity; cultural ways of learning; and community assets to the learning process.

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The Worsening Homework Problem

My son does an average of five or six hours of homework every night. Is this normal?

Editor’s Note: Every Tuesday, Abby Freireich and Brian Platzer take questions from readers about their kids’ education. Have one? Email them at [email protected].

Dear Abby and Brian,

My son, who is in ninth grade, is a really good student, but I’m worried he’s working far too much. He does an average of five or six hours of homework every weeknight, and that’s on top of spending most of the weekend writing essays or studying for tests. His school says that each of his five main classes (English, history, math, language, and science) can assign no more than 30 minutes a night and that electives can assign no more than one hour a week. That should look like something around three hours a night, which is a lot but at least more manageable.

On some nights, a math problem set can take him more than two hours, and then, after 8 p.m. and sometimes after 9, he turns to his English reading, science textbook, Spanish paragraph, or history outline. He’s working until after midnight and then up at 6 a.m. to get ready for school, beyond exhausted. Is this normal?

How much homework should students be assigned?

Margaret Denver

Dear Margaret,

Homework—when assigned in appropriate amounts and with the right goals in mind—is an indispensable tool for educators. But students should never be put in the position of having to choose between their academic success and their overall well-being.

To understand what constitutes the right amount of homework, we should be clear on what it’s meant to accomplish. We believe it should perform four basic functions. First, homework should be assigned in order to make the most of class time. In an English class, for example, teachers need to ask students to read at home in order to do the important work of leading in-class discussions. Second, at-home assignments help students learn the material taught in class. Students require independent practice to internalize new concepts. Third, these assignments can provide valuable data for teachers about how well students understand the curriculum. Finally, homework helps students acquire the skills needed to plan, organize, and complete their work.

Unfortunately, many schools assign homework for its own sake, in amounts that are out of proportion to these basic functions—a problem that seems to have gotten worse over the past 20 years . This isn’t necessarily intentional. Some of your son’s teachers probably underestimate the time it takes their students to complete assignments. But your description makes clear that homework has taken over your son’s life. That’s why he should make sure to tell his teachers that he’s been working past the nightly limits prescribed by the school.

Additionally, he should use those limits for his own well-being: If he can’t get through a math worksheet in half an hour, he should stop, draw a line after the final problem he was able to complete, and talk with his teacher the following day. That way he will be able to spread his time more evenly among classes, and his teachers will get a better sense of how long their homework is taking. Sometimes teachers aren’t aware of how much other work our students have on their plate, not to mention their extracurricular responsibilities. Fill us in! Most teachers would prefer to recalibrate our students’ workload than find ourselves responsible for keeping them up so late.

But the goodwill of individual teachers may not be enough to solve the issue. Schools have any number of incentives to assign a lot of work, one of which is the pernicious assumption that “good” schools provide as much of it as their students can pack into a day. If your son’s workload doesn’t get lighter after he talks with his teachers, contact the administration and explain the situation. Hopefully this will prompt a larger conversation within the school about the reasons to assign homework in the first place—and the reasons not to.

B y submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let The Atlantic use it—in part or in full—and we may edit it for length and/or clarity.

About the Authors

What to Do When You Have Too Many Assignments

Students’ biggest challenge in college is plenty of assignments with sharp deadlines. It often gets too much, and students give in to the pressure. If you are someone who wants to score well and finish all tasks, then this is the perfect place for you!

Seek Online Help

There is so much workload that one person cannot handle it all. The initial days of college might seem fun, but once the actual work starts, you will realize the commitment and effort required. However, it is normal for people to have a bad day. But the thing is, if you miss one day, you set yourself behind by two days. So, how can you overcome this challenge?

Many online platforms offer help. You can approach a cheap essay writing service canada to take up some of your tasks for college. They have the skills, experience, and speed to finish it before the deadline that you, unfortunately, lack at this point. 

It takes a small amount of money to get these services and buy yourself some hours and a brilliantly written paper. Ensure that you approach experts and not a rookie to stay on the safe side.

Prioritize Tasks

Even if you assign some tasks to an essay writing service canada , you still have plenty of essays on your plate. Students run on a budget and can’t always afford to get their work done by experts all the time. So, to finish it by yourself, you need to prioritize every essay at hand. 

Here is how you do it:

• Check the deadlines for each task. Prefer finishing the ones that are due soon;
• See which ones are easier and get rid of them first;
• Leave the research-intensive tasks for later as they take too many hours;
• Prepare quick notes, so you don’t have to go back to research everything and organize it repeatedly.

Prioritizing tasks will keep you on track and help you organize everything instead of staying in a mess and the inability to finish everything. Moreover, you will know what to do and when to do it, which offers greater clarity in such confusing scenarios.

Get Rid of the Distractions

When you approach one of the best essay writing service canada , you trust them with your work, and they will deliver it in time. But guess what helps them deal with such short deadlines? 

They focus on their work more than the things around them. If you want to master the art of saving time and turning in work on time, you must eliminate all forms of distractions.

If you are addicted to your mobile phones or checking social media, put your phone on airplane mode and slide it in the drawer. Take it out only after you’re done with your essays. 

Additionally, you can use an ad blocker to prevent unnecessary and distracting ads from popping up on your laptop while conducting online research. 

Another thing that distracts students is noise. You can’t work on papers if there is a song or too much noise playing in the background. Study in a quiet space, so you don’t lose your focus and do your best.

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What homework should I do first? The easy stuff or hard stuff?

Katie Azevedo December 13, 2016 good habits , homework , productivity , study skills , time management

By Katie Azevedo, M.Ed.

What homework should I do first?

This is the first question I often hear when a student feels overwhelmed with assignments. It’s also the first thought that pops into my own head when my to-do list runs onto page 17 of my planner! (Swapping out homework for tasks , of course.)

We all have things to do — whether homework assignments, work projects, personal goals, etc. But not all tasks are created equal. Not all tasks take the same amount of time to complete or have the same impact when they’re completed.

So how do students know what homework to do first — the big, daunting assignments? Or the small, quick ones?

The first answer: First do whatever homework is due soonest. Have trouble with procrastination? Here are some procrastination tips .

The other answer to ‘ What homework should I do first? ‘: It depends. (Least satisfying answer ever. I know.)

A classic Pros and Cons list reveals plenty of reasons to do the quick and easy homework assignments first, and plenty of reasons to do the harder tasks first. 

Despite the above advantages and disadvantages of tackling the easy or the hard homework first, there really is a proper way to approach your homework assignments that will set you up for getting more done . And here it is:

Do what works for you!

How to know what approach works for you

We all work differently and we all respond to pressure differently. If you are easily frustrated and are quick to feel overwhelmed when things get tough, then perhaps you’re the type of person who should tackle the small, quick homework assignments first. In school, start your afternoons by completing the easiest assignments: doing so will motivate you to move onto the harder ones. This is called “grabbing the low-hanging fruit.” At home, same thing: pick up a few items off your bedroom floor before you dig into your deep cleaning routine. At the gym, start your workout with a short walk to warm up before you hit something harder.

On the other hand, if you tire easily or get bored when things are too simple, then bang out the tough stuff first. In school, start with the biggest, most annoying looming homework assignments (even if they’re not due for a while) so you don’t exhaust yourself on the little assignments. At home, get the biggest project out of the way first (clean the garage!), and then pick away at the smaller tasks.  At the gym, go big or go home. (Or go big, go small, and then go home. Ha.)

What I do when I’m trying to figure out what “homework” to do first

Personally, I go back and forth when it comes to choosing which items from my to-do list to tackle first. Sometimes I start with the small stuff, and sometimes I “eat the frog” first. (I don’t really eat reptiles. “Eat that frog” is the title of an awesome book about time management by Brian Tracy. It’s an expression that refers to killing the big, gross assignments first.) It sort of depends on my mood on a particular day, how much free time I have (scattered moments vs large chunks), and what the task or project is.

So my final advice is this: If you’re constantly questioning what homework should I do first,  try both ways.

Try starting with the small tasks and see how you feel. Then another time start with a big task and see how you feel. Compare how productive you were (or weren’t) and how you felt during each approach.

Another idea is that you could start with a small homework assignment, then do a hard one, and then take a short break. Do another small homework assignment, do another hard one, and then take another short break. Keep going until you’re done with all your assignments.  

So this homework strategy looks like this:

Small Assignment + Big Assignment + Short Break (Repeat as many times as you need)

You can use this strategy over the course of a single afternoon, or over the course of a week. Or, like, forever, really. So the next time you’re wondering  what homework should I do first,  try alternating between easy and hard tasks, while paying attention to how much you actually get done. And then you’ll find your answer!

For a full tutorial on the 5 steps of proper homework prioritization, read this.

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• Learning Disorders
• Too Much Time Doing Homework

Hi, I have always had a very hard time trying to concentrate on doing my homework. It takes me about 6 hours to do something that should take just 1 (not even exaggerating). I get great marks in all my classes, I can zoom through math problems super quick, but when I have to write an essay or give complete answers for questions, it takes me way longer than it should. For answering questions in science, I have to read the question over and over again until I can be sure I haven’t missed anything. I feel that my work has to be perfect or else it’s just not good enough. I put more pressure on myself than anyone else does. I have always struggled with spelling but I have never been diagnosed with a learning disability. I also suffer from anxiety (again I haven’t been diagnosed with anything). Is it possible that I might have a learning disability? Maybe it’s related to the anxiety? Is there anything I can do to help focus and get my work done quicker? var googletag = googletag || {}; googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.defineSlot( '/22836344208/Article_Top_300x250', [300,250], 'gpt-ad-8315842314292-0' ) .addService(googletag.pubads()); googletag.enableServices(); googletag.display( 'gpt-ad-8315842314292-0' ); }); Ad Thanks, Cal

• Dr. Schwartz responds to questions about psychotherapy and mental health problems, from the perspective of his training in clinical psychology.
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• Always consult with your psychotherapist, physician, or psychiatrist first before changing any aspect of your treatment regimen. Do not stop your medication or change the dose of your medication without first consulting with your physician.

It is interesting that something that can be viewed as a disorder under one set of circumstances can also be viewed as a good coping mechanism at other times. What I mean is that, unless I am mistaken, your perfectionism helps you achieve very high grades in school. In the study of science, this would be considered very good.

At the same time, you find yourself spending more time at homework that you feel you should. I want to point out that the word, “should” also varies as to it’s meaning and that depends on the context. If your career goals include work in the sciences, whether it’s medical or other, most people would tell you that you are not spending too much time. The field of science is very competitive and success depends on real academic achievement.

Nevertheless, you are not comfortable with the time you are spending nor with your level of anxiety.

It is entirely possible that you have a learning disability, especially in light of the many spelling errors in your email question. Don’t feel bad a out that because it’s merely a symptom. If you do indeed have a learning disability, it might account for your level of anxiety when doing school work and with the amount of time you spend studying.

Therapists are Standing By to Treat Your Depression, Anxiety or Other Mental Health Needs

Explore Your Options Today

You have several options open to you: 1. You could go to the counselling department at your school and discuss your problem with them. They will have you tested and make recommendations based on the results. 2. You could see a psychologist, discuss the problem and he will have you tested and referred for training to help you deal with the disability and the anxiety. 3. I know some people who went to the “Sylvan Learning Center”and see what they may have to offer.

Mainly, you really have to get yourself diagnosed so that you know what you are dealing with and so that you can take the correct actions.

You are a good student and the idea is to not let anything, such as a learning disorder or anxiety, interfere with that.

Best of Luck

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3 reasons you’re experiencing college burnout (& how to deal)

The stress. The anxiety. The worry. All of us have those moments where we’re completely overwhelmed by the amount of work college demands. While we try our best to finish everything as quickly (and as accurately) as possible, we sometimes digress into a state of despair and self-doubt when our hard work isn’t giving us the results we want. At some point, we begin feeling so helpless and depressed that we retreat into our shell, away from our peers and the people who care about us the most. We’re frustrated, confused, lonely, and don’t really know what to do. Eventually, with everything piling on top of us one after the other, we snap.

College can be a tough time for a lot of  students. Whether you’re trying to fit in or trying to survive classes, I think we can all agree that college life isn’t perfect. However, there comes a time when things just don’t feel good and you’re not feeling the same way towards things as you used to. Sure, everything seems fine but you’re just not happy with where you’re at right now. You’re exhausted and unmotivated; you just want the semester to end now. Feeling stressed out is one thing, but feeling burnout is a whole other issue.

Pressure and Expectations

Entering college, I think a lot of us unintentionally place a large amount of pressure on ourselves. We worked unbelievably hard in high school to get where we are today, and so as soon as we enter college we expect ourselves to start off strong. At first, things seem like they’re going fine (and they are), but once we get deeper into the semester we’re not feeling as confident as we did going into the semester.

I think one of the worst things to feel in college is disappointment. Imagine this: You’re in a class working hard. You stay up late to work on assignments and study for exams. As you’re going through the semester, you notice your grades aren’t as good as you want them. You then work and study as hard as you can. Nothing improves. Getting this feeling is absolutely frustrating and disappointing and can certainly upset many people, including myself.

Look, I may not know much about each and every student’s college experience, but from what I know, hard work does eventually pay off. You’re probably going to feel immense pressure to do well in all of your classes, especially if you excelled in all of your classes in high school. But this isn’t high school. There are people around you who have worked just as hard to get where they are today and deserve to be there. It sucks when people are showing off their 4.0 GPA’s or bragging about how well they did on that last test. However, the truth is, none of that matters because you are who YOU are. Do the best that YOU can and that’s what counts.

Finding the right group of people is hard, especially for introverts like myself. You think, “Oh there’s thousands of other freshman who don’t know many people, I’m bound to be friends with one of them.” This is a good thought, but maybe not realistic.

I know many other people disagree, but I think that finding friends in college can be extremely difficult. There are probably going to be a lot of people you meet within the first few weeks of classes as everyone begins the new semester. However, once those first few weeks are over it seems as if everyone has their own little group and sometimes you get left out of those groups of people.

Now before you accuse me of lacking faith in the friendliness of other people, I’m not saying that people intentionally form their own group of friends to single people out. Rather, I think it’s difficult for some people to maintain contact with others because of their lack of connection. Basically what I’m trying to say is that it’s hard to keep up with people when their schedules are so different. You meet so many people within the first few weeks of class, but let’s face it: how many of them are you going to remember or talk with by the end of the semester?

Nevertheless, finding people you feel the most comfortable with is important in college. Whether you like hanging around people or not, try pushing yourself to go out and meet new people. The best way to make friends is through your classes, because you’ll be seeing them on a weekly (if not daily) basis. If you’re still having trouble making friends, definitely utilize some of the student services your school offers. While they can’t help you make friends, they can definitely help guide you to resources and organizations that cultivate lifelong friendships.

Are you that awkward duck in the middle of the pond? Yup, that’s me alright. I think one of the most difficult parts about being in college is feeling at ease. With homework assignments and exams galore, there isn’t always a lot of time to think about where you’re at in terms of fitting in. However, it can sometimes take a toll on people as it did for me. I felt like I was sort of fitting in with the general population of students, but somehow I felt a personal disconnect from everyone. I talked with people from time to time, but it just didn’t feel the same as high school.

If you’re a college student still transitioning from high school to college, there are plenty of other people who are still having trouble fitting in. I have to admit, even though my school has a smaller student body than some other schools, I sometimes feel like I’m just there. I go to school, do homework, and take tests. That’s it. I know this is probably hard to hear, but things take time. You’re still transitioning, and this feeling is absolutely normal. As you go through the semester, you’ll likely find your way through things and be able to finally enjoy your college experience.

The College Burnout

College can be a rewarding experience for many people interested in learning and growing in a different environment. Compared to high school, the possibilities seem endless. However, college life can be difficult for some people as well, particularly those who are still transitioning from high school to college. While college can bring exciting new opportunities to students, it can also provide additional stress and anxiety with the amount of work and energy demanded.

If you’re feeling college burnout at any time, take some time to relax. Yes, I realize that you have things to work on and study for, but let’s be honest: are you really going to be productive when you’re feeling that bad? Don’t push yourself over the edge; it’s just not worth it.

On another note, try not to give yourself a hard time when it comes to grades. Although academics is central to the college experience, don’t allow yourself to become involved only in academics. You’re going to make mistakes. It’s going to suck. But yet, we’re all human. No one’s perfect. You can continue to beat yourself down over your grades, but what good is that going to do? There’s so much more to life than just grades. Your happiness comes first. You might argue that good grades equal greater job opportunities and more money. Look at the expectations you’ve created. They’re nothing unreasonable or anything, but realize what you’re doing to yourself. You’re tired. You’re unhappy. You feel like giving up. Is this the way to live?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pay attention to your academic performance in college, but make sure that you give yourself some credit once in a while. You’re in college. You have an opportunity that others can only dream of. Be proud of yourself for all you’ve achieved. You’ve made it this far. Give yourself a pat on the back and feel proud of everything you’ve done thus far. You deserve it.

College burnout isn’t enjoyable and can almost always affect your college life. That being said, there are other things that can also hinder you from succeeding and being happy in college. To be honest, I’m really struggling in college right now, not just academically. There are days that I feel like I’m at the top of the world and then there are others when I’m in the gutter of despair. You’ve probably heard of this a million times, but college is what you make of it. Be happy, be sad, be angry – that’s your choice. However, know that you deserve to be there, and don’t ever doubt that. Sure, you might have doubts about why you’re there but think about this: you’re there already. Shouldn’t you make the most of what you have now?

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Assignments in the Online Course: How Much is Too Much?

Guest Contributor: Robert Onorato

Given the seemingly unlimited, media-rich learning opportunities you can offer in an asynchronous online course, it may be tempting to craft a reading or resource list as extensive as your own time allows. But at what point will students reach the saturation point? In this article, Robert Onorato, instructor at Fordham University (NY) and a Senior Faculty Programs Consultant for Cengage, shares the experiences that have led him to his own conclusions regarding the answer to the question: “How much is too much?”

I have been teaching college courses for twenty years and I taught my first online course at least eight years ago. Since then, I have taught courses in all sorts of mixed and hybrid formats, those that were offered completely online as part of traditional degree programs, and online classes offered in fully online degree programs

I have also taken several online and hybrid courses. In addition to the content taught in these classes, the format, structure, and processes have proven extremely enlightening. It has been beneficial to “see what the student sees,” instead of experiencing courses only from the instructor’s perspective.

Online Courses: How Much Content Is Too Much?

I have often seen the tendency for some (or many) professors to include, require, or “pile on” large amounts of content in addition to traditional textbook chapters and required assignments and testing. When professors migrate content from the classroom to the hybrid format to the pure online classroom, and the physical student contact becomes further removed and distant, professors often seem to compensate for this lessened contact with increased numbers of required articles to read and videos to view.

I have taken at least three different online courses where this has happened:

• In the first short course (about four weeks), there were several required articles and research studies that were each forty to eighty pages long .
• In another, in addition to the textbook chapters, there were about a dozen articles to read in each of several modules .
• Most recently, I participated in an online course that had several units that each had ten to twelve videos that were four to eight minutes long . That’s an hour of video-watching—in addition to all of the other required work in each unit. And none of this was supplemental.

Instructors: Ask Yourselves These Questions

• Is all of this content really required?
• Do I need ten videos or a dozen articles to get a point across or present different viewpoints?
• Is three or four of each enough?

Digital technology provides what seems like unlimited space for resources and content for hybrid and online classrooms and sometimes our tendency is to fill this space. We can forget that students still have a finite amount of time and often take several courses together. It is one thing to provide supplemental material that students can view or read if that want more information. However, in my experience, professors often make this wealth of resources required.

Often the result is students who are overwhelmed, frustrated, and discouraged . Honestly, this was my reaction. I thought, “Why do I have to watch this seventh, eighth video?” Students can then become less connected and engaged in the coursework and content, and less inclined to participate in the hybrid and online formats, or to take these courses again.

Think about this as you develop your next online course and be careful to include what is needed, and not everything in the world that fits.

Robert Onorato, a Senior Consultant for Cengage in Peer-to-Peer Faculty Development, teaches Marketing, Leadership, and Operations Management at Fordham University in New York. In addition, he has established Candlewood Consulting and has authored various instructors’ resource materials. Robert has earned a B. S. in Marketing and an MBA from the University of Connecticut.

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Why it’s hard for students to “just turn in” missing assignments, and how to get them unstuck

Mar 29, 2023 | Blog

With the end of the semester on the horizon, many students may feel overwhelmed by low grades or feeling behind in some of their classes.

As a parent, it can be stressful to see that your student has overdue work, or get notifications from their teacher that they’re missing assignments. 

It’s even more frustrating when you’ve told them over and over again how important it is to “just turn it in”…but the work is still showing up as missing.

The reality is that no matter how simple it might seem to an outside observer, doing missing work is almost never as easy as “just getting it done.” If they haven’t done the work yet, there’s a good chance that something is getting in their way. 

If you can figure out what the problem is before jumping in to help them (or make them) do the work, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of success.

In our experience, there are usually 3 main reasons students resist submitting their missing work…even when it seems like “just turning it in” would be SO much easier!

Reason 1: They think it won’t make a difference

Once the due date for an assignment has passed, students often de-prioritize it and move on to focus on upcoming assignments instead. It’s tempting for students to justify this by thinking “there are lots of other assignments, missing one or two won’t matter.”

But what they often don’t realize is that because of the way most grading scales are weighted, even one or two zeros can have an enormous impact on their grade. Showing students the difference it makes to turn in just a few assignments can increase their motivation to get the work done. 

Here’s an example of the difference it can make to turn in just a few missing assignments before the end of the semester:

Overall grade with 3 missing assignments: 78.3%

Overall grade when assignments are turned in: 90.1%

It’s hard for students to calculate these averages in their head, so it can be really powerful for them to run the numbers and see firsthand exactly how much they have to gain from making up their missing assignments.

When we do calculations like this with our students, they are almost always surprised by how much this makeup work could improve their grades, and feel much more motivated to submit the assignments when they can see for themselves the difference it will make.

Reason 2: They think it’s too late

Another reason students often resist doing makeup work is that they think it’s too late to get credit for it. 

Even if they’ve done the math and know that submitting the work would make a difference in their grade, they still won’t want to turn it in if they think the teacher won’t accept it.

Especially for introverted or anxious students, it can be very intimidating to have conversations with their teachers. They might think they’ll get in trouble for asking to submit their work late, or worry that the teacher will say “no.”

The good news is that many teachers are flexible with their late work policies and allow students to turn in overdue assignments even when it is past the “official” deadline to submit them.

So if students can find the courage to ask for help, there is a good chance that their teachers will respond positively and allow them an opportunity to make up the work.

For students who are struggling to reach out to teachers, we often find it is helpful to roleplay these conversations in coaching sessions if they’re not sure what to say, or work with them to email their teachers if they’re not sure what to say.

Reason 3: They feel overwhelmed

Students who are behind on their work often have challenges keeping track of due dates, managing time, breaking down complex assignments, prioritizing work, staying focused, or following through with plans….which is why they fell behind in the first place. 

These challenges can become even more daunting when they are behind in their classes, and trying to complete makeup assignments on top of their normal workload.

This can feel so stressful that a lot of students avoid or put off doing makeup work even when they   know   how much it would improve their grade.

For these students to get their work submitted, it’s essential to help them find ways to…

• Break down the assignments so they have a realistic plan for getting the work done that they’re confident they can actually follow through with
• Lower the stress they feel while they are doing the work so they will be less tempted to avoid it
• Visualize the progress they are making so they can see that their efforts are making a difference

Providing support

When students have a lot of makeup work to complete, having some additional support to help them work through it can be invaluable. 

For some students, this may mean finding a tutor to help them with the content they didn’t understand when their teacher was first presenting the material. 

For other students, having a family member or friend nearby as a source of moral support to keep them company while they are working (and a motivating reward to look forward to as soon as the work is completed) can be enormously helpful.

Other students may benefit from working with an academic coach to help them get unstuck and started on their missing work. Sometimes, having someone else who is not a family member step in to help can reduce stress and conflict at home and make it easier for students to take the steps they need to get back on track in their classes. If you think this type of support would be helpful for your student, please feel free to reach out and we’ll be happy to help! 

Assignments: better late than never?

A few days ago, a colleague came to me for teaching advice. On his syllabus, he had written that he did not accept late assignments. One of the students, a young woman who was struggling in the class, had turned in a paper that was woefully incomplete and he told her that it did not meet the assignment requirements. However, rather than rejecting it outright, he took account of her struggles and accepted that she hadn’t decided to order essay online cheap to get it finished, telling her that if she turned in a finished version by the end of the week that completely met the basic requirements of the assignment, he would give her partial credit. At the end of the week, she turned the paper in again, but it was still well short of what he would accept as meeting minimal requirements.

Get that assignment in on time or else!

He asked what I thought he should do. He told me that the assignment counted 15% of her grade, and thus giving her a zero on the assignment would immediately knock her down at least a grade and a half, before taking account of her other less-than-stellar work in the course. But, because he had announced that he didn’t accept late papers and then had recanted on that rule by inviting her to submit a revised version, he felt he had to give her some credit.

After suggesting that yes, it made sense to give her some credit, under the circumstances, I went on to make a more general point about putting strict rules and regulations in a syllabus. At least this way, it would be printed for all the world to see, and nothing beats having it in a hard copy when you want to make a point. An old colleague of mine, who loved using a syllabus for his classes, told me that I should consider using a printing service like Printivity to display all of the information when it came to the year and what the students would be expecting. It’s one of the only ways to make sure that they have been sent a clear message. So, I should definitely consider putting rules and regulations in this type of format. I reminded him that in my syllabi, I never say that I will not accept late assignments. I have no list of punishments or points that will be taken off if assignments are turned in late. My friend, Joe Lowman, and I have had many conversations about this & I’ve benefited greatly from his wisdom. Indeed, when it comes to such matters, I usually find myself asking, “what would Joe do?”

On the first day of class, students often ask me, what are your penalties for late assignments? I tell them I don’t expect late assignments, as all the due dates for assignments are in the syllabus they’ve just been handed. In that case, why would any assignments be late? I find this logic impeccable, but some aren’t satisfied with this answer and persist in questioning me. All I will say is that if they find themselves having difficulty, prior to an assignment being due, they need to talk with me and I will try to help them. I never speculate about what I might do with the late assignment, preferring to deal with each of them on its own merits.

I do this to avoid being put in the situation of my colleague: announcing a hard and fast rule which extenuating circumstances may well require me to break. Over my 45 years of teaching, I have heard about plenty of emergencies, some of which were devastating to the students involved. What would I do if a student told me about a family emergency which gave them no choice but to rush home? I would feel really heartless in telling a student that I was very sorry about the accident and I hoped the victims would recover, but I stood firmly by my policy.

My colleagues are typically astonished when I tell them about this policy. Typically, they raise two objections. First, won’t I get a lot of late assignments? Second, if I do accept late assignments, isn’t that unfair to the students who turn their assignments on time? My answer is “no” to both objections, as I will explain.

First , in my syllabus and on my webpage, every assignment is clearly described with its due date. I use Sakai, which sends out automated notices, reminding students of due dates. The assignment is also noted on the website’s course calendar. For larger assignments, such as term papers, I have multiple milestones that students must meet: reporting their chosen topic, submitting a one paragraph description of their theme, a preliminary listing of references, a rough draft, and so forth. These milestones give me many opportunities to intervene when students show signs of falling behind. I also take a very active role in keeping track of how students are doing, sending emails to students who miss class and asking students to come in and talk with me about assignments, if they have difficulties.

When students approach me about the possibility of a late assignment, and what I would do, the first thing I always say is, “What is interfering with your turning in an assignment on time?” I don’t say, “Remember the penalties.” If, after working with them, it is clear that they will not get the assignment in on time, the next conversation I have with them goes something like this:

Student: “okay, when can I turn the paper in?”

Me: “when do you think you will have it finished?”

Student: “well, will I be penalized?”

Me: “you realize that the reason I ask for assignments to be turned in on time is so I have enough time to read them properly, so I can be sure that I will give each assignment its proper due. Late assignments make that more difficult. However, I will grade it as fairly as I can.”

Student: “okay, I’ll turn it in on Monday.” [ Students almost always pick a date earlier than I would have chosen, if I had picked the date! ]

Cooperative learning means you’re always coming up roses!

One of the consequences of this approach is that I almost never get late assignments! And, my syllabus is not cluttered up with pointless draconian rules that I have no intention of enforcing.

Second , what about the “fairness” issue? Isn’t it unfair to the conscientious students, who get their work in on time, to allow some students to turn assignments in late? I have three responses to this alleged violation of some perceived moral principle. (In what philosophical system is taking account of extenuating circumstances equivalent to a moral failure?)

(1) for students having problems getting assignments in on time, extra time almost never makes a difference in the quality of what they do. The best students in a class are not the ones asking for extensions.

(2) students who get assignments in on time can put that assignment behind them and get on with their lives. By contrast, students who are struggling to complete a late assignment will find they have to forgo other things that they would’ve enjoyed doing, with their assignment-free peers, but instead they are stuck indoors, completing an assignment. Being allowed to turn something in late is no free pass to scholastic heaven. It is a burden.

(3) my goal in assessing my student’s work is to try to figure out what they have learned in my class, and knocking off points from a student’s score because a paper was a day or two late completely muddies the meaning of a grade. I’m not teaching “discipline,” I’m teaching sociology. I want to give students every opportunity to show me what they’ve learned, and if this requires me, every few semesters, to accept a late assignment, I’m quite willing to do so.

Interested in learning more about what to do about late assignments? See this post.

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42 thoughts on “ assignments: better late than never ”.

I’ve been teaching at four-year colleges in the New York area for more than 20 years. I tell students they may hand in assignments late, but if they do, I may not read them and I may not grade them. I tell students I will only possibly read and grade late assignments if I feel I need them to assign a final grade to the student. I don’t believe in “penalizing” a student by downgrading a late assignment….I believe an “A” paper is an “A” paper whether it’s handed in on time or a month late. The opposite is like saying a grilled bronzino with vegetables is “worth” !8.00 if served during the “early-bird” time, but it’s worth 28.00 if served after. Makes no sense!

More accurately, it’s like not having my bronzino served after waiting at the table for an hour, at which point I would leave, taking my appetite and my money to another restaurant. After enough tardy bronzinos, that restaurant would struggle to stay in business.

John, I wonder if that’s the right analogy. Are instructors the ‘customers’ who are waiting for a tasty dish we order but has been prepared by someone else? Maybe George should have used a less fragile example — a cold sandwich? But I guess you’d still want it when you were hungry. However, here is where the analogy really breaks down. As instructors, we’re co-producers of the assignment b/c we provided the initial resources, including the recipe, and the prep instructions. We’re not just sitting back & waiting for 3rd parties we don’t know to serve us. We’re much more actively involved. Thanks for the thought-provoking comment!

That sounds so logical. I still got penalised as a student, for missing the deadline because I was horribly sick from chemotherapy and brain surgery. Lol teacher did not want to be unfair to other students… well, get brain cancer first and then let’s talk about fair.

I wanted to submit my final essay at school today which is going to be due in 2 business day.however the whole campus is claused because of thinks giving. I didn’t know that the campus would be claused the day after thanksgiving and all my documents are saved on the campus’s computers. Is there any way to help me out ?

In planning ahead, think of this motto: “something is either early or it’s late.” No such thing as “on time.” If you plan your life as if you can always submit stuff “on time,” bad stuff will happen, sooner or later. In this case, you’ll have to throw yourself on the mercy of your instructor, claiming ignorance of school policy. Good luck.

My attitude toward late penalties has changed considerably since I first started teaching nearly 20 years ago. After taking some workshops on learner diversity and First Peoples Principles of Learning ( http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PUB-LFP-POSTER-Principles-of-Learning-First-Peoples-poster-11×17.pdf ), this last semester I finally eliminated all mention of late penalties from my syllabi. I wanted to see what would happen. And you know what happened? Exactly what you described! I’m done with late penalties.

Thank you for articulating all this so well in your post.

Melinda, I’m so glad to hear this! Thanks for having the courage to drop the late penalty clause. Glad to hear it made no difference.

what about? Learning involves recognizing the consequences of one’s actions. ( http://www.fnesc.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/PUB-LFP-POSTER-Principles-of-Learning-First-Peoples-poster-11×17.pdf ),

It is true that people must learn that their actions have consequences, but that is a very generic kind of learning. People must also learn to recognize the contingencies that affect the conditions under which they apply one rule rather than another. For instructors, I would say that “actions have consequences” is something that parents should teach their children, rather than waiting until the kids get to college. By then, they know that general rule. What instructors need to consider are the conditions under which a harsh penalty is appropriate & when it is not.

I think many students (like myself) face appropriate consequences as the panic over their late assignments. I know that asking for an extension is always my last resort, regardless of the course policy on late work.

I’m working on my masters degree, I’m a family nurse practitioner student. One of my classmates and I turned our papers about 20-30 minutes after deadline (midnight). I simply thought that my instructor is not going to read this paper at midnight anyway and my classmate couldn’t do it because her computer was updating. We both got zeros on our papers. I want to talk to my instructor about giving us at least some credit, but I don’t know how I can convince her. I would appreciate an advice from you.

Yulia, sorry to hear of your troubles. First and most important: what is your instructors stated policy? Was it written in the syllabus that late papers were not accepted? If that is the case, then your instructor will argue that you knew the rules and she can’t make an exception. That’s when you can use the arguments that I raise in my blog post. Second, if there was no stated policy, then I think you have a stronger case for at least having the instructor accept the paper and grade it and then perhaps deduct something from the grade because it was “late.” There’s a big difference between getting a zero on a paper and a C or even a B.in the case of no stated policy, I would make the argument that you did the assignment and the instructor should grade it, for otherwise you’re in the same boat as somebody who didn’t do the assignment at all. That doesn’t seem fair. Third, you could send the link for my blog post to your instructor, to give them advance warning of the argument you will make.

Here is an excellent post on getting rid of late assignment penalties from Tom Schimmer: “Enough with the Late Penalties.” https://tomschimmer.com/2011/02/21/enough-with-the-late-penalties/

I read your article with great interest, but from my experience, I must disagree with a lot of your points.

I teach college English composition courses. My syllabus is ironclad and I thoroughly cover everything in the syllabus on the first day of the semester. I don’t accept late work unless there is a death in the family, or they have a medical reason for missing class. Students are required to upload their assignments via Sakai. They are always given a fair amount of time for each writing assignment, so they’re never rushed to finish a project.

I don’t budge on not taking late work for several reasons. Deadlines are deadlines. Students are supposed to learn the responsibility of becoming an adult and part of that is getting tasks done on time. Punctuality shows initiative, and what so many fail to teach students at the college level these days is time management. Yes, being a college student is a major adjustment. It’s a balancing act. They need to learn how to schedule the proper amount of time for each project. Most don’t. We should not reward procrastination, which is what most students minor in. =)

Deadlines are important in the real world. To apply for graduate school, a student must submit an application on time, as well as get letters of recommendation, apply for grants, etc. After graduation, the same holds true. If submitting an application for a particular job is expected by a certain date, the student needs to realize that the “day after” is too late. Often, for employers, they are looking for future workers who are punctual and have the ability to get their work done by the deadline.

Allowing a student X number of days beyond the deadline is unfair to those who did their work on time. What’s the point of even giving a due date, if it’s going to be dismissed afterwards? I’ve also discovered that students hold a higher level of respect for the instructors/professors who set standards and keep them.

Point 2, you state: “By contrast, students who are struggling to complete a late assignment will find they have to forgo other things that they would’ve enjoyed doing, with their assignment-free peers, but instead they are stuck indoors, completing an assignment.” Most students I have are never ‘assignment-free peers’. They start working on another assignment. The ones who turned their work in on time had to forgo other things they would’ve enjoyed, and from my experience, the ‘struggling’ students forwent doing their assignments by doing something they enjoyed instead. Procrastination is commonplace, and cellphone addiction is a conversation for another day. Sadly, the distractions prevent students from focusing on the more important objectives.

Again, I enjoyed reading your article and your view. Very enlightening to see a different perspective. For me, it would never work. Keep up the great work!

Sam, thank you for your thoughtful disagreement with my points. Your comments reminded me that I probably didn’t put enough context into my argument so that him readers could see the setting in which I was able to use these techniques.

My policy regarding late assignments is not a stand-alone policy, divorced from the overall framework in which the course is organized. The course is embedded in a much bigger philosophy of teaching and learning that enables me to use this specific policy, along with many others. The larger perspective can be glimpsed, I think, by looking at my other blog posts and the many papers and postings I’ve made on teaching and learning over the past decades. (See my “Teaching Resources” webpage.)

The first thing to note is that I get almost no requests for permission to turn in assignments late. From day one, I behave as if I don’t expect late assignments and I emphasize ways in which students can complete their assignments on time. (For those sociologists reading this, I truly believe in the “social construction of reality.”) If, early in the semester a question ever does come up about late assignments – – which is extremely rare – – my reaction always is to say that the course is organized so as to make it possible for people to do their work on time. I ask people to let me know as soon as possible if they are having difficulties and to come and see me. If students persist and ask “yes, but what penalties will I get if I’m late?” I just reply, in mock surprise, “Are you aware today that you’ll be late for something a month or two from now?” And then, in so many words, I tell them that will cross that bridge when we come to it. And the path almost all students follow hardly ever takes them across that bridge.

Second, my now retired colleague, Joe Lowman, who wrote a very good book on college teaching(Mastering the Techniques of Teaching), used the same policy during his 40 years of teaching in the Psychology Department here, and with the same results that I have experienced.

Third, you make an excellent point regarding students needing to learn about deadlines and time management, and I spend time on that in class. My syllabus and calendar, on Sakai, are structured to emphasize punctuality and timeliness. For example, see my blog post on using small wins in creating milestones for students.

Fourth, I take the deadlines extremely seriously, which is why I spend so much time creating milestones to make certain that students will be prepared to meet the deadlines.

Fifth, in almost 50 years of teaching, I don’t recall a student ever saying to me that they felt cheated or treated unfairly because another student received a little extra time to complete an assignment. (Recall again that in my classes, I almost never get late assignments, and so this may not be a very fair test.) I try to build a culture of trust in which I hope students assume that I will use my discretion in a just way.

Six, I wholeheartedly agree with you regarding cell phone addiction and the presence of other distractions in the lives of our undergraduates. I wish I had an answer to that question! I can tell you that I don’t allow cell phone use or laptop use in my classes. Students keep them off unless I direct them to be turned on for use in classroom assignments. Some students even seem relieved to be unburdened of that distraction for 50 or 75 minutes!

Thanks again for your thoughtful comments and for an alternative perspective on my proposals.

Repeat on of the learning principles Learning involves recognizing the consequences of one’s actions. When you create an assignment and you establish a deadline to complete the assignment, what is the consequence for not doing it on time? What if that student that has been trained that late papers are just fine becomes a doctor and it is late for an important surgery of your family member? What if that student that has been trained that late papers are just fine, is late in one maneuver and crashes the airplane with you inside or your family members? There are cases that are exceptional cases in which late assignments can be accepted without penalty, but to make that a rule is dangerous.

Actually, nothing I do is ever strictly rule-governed. Life is full of too many contingencies! Instructors have a huge amount of power over their students & they need to learn to exercise it in a nuanced & humane way.

I think even the laziest college students who truly take advantage of their ability to submit late work are capable of understanding that life and death scenarios should be treated more urgently than an essay.

Dear Anna: thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Yes, I agree: students are adults & should be allowed to weigh the life consequences of their decisions without being burdened by rigid rules.

In my experience, the working world, especially people working for the government, was comprised of painfully mediocre people whose best talent was being on time for everything.

Kimberly, not sure how to reply. Are you saying that some people are so obsessed with being on time that they neglect more important things?

Awesome read. Thank you for sharing.

I am in arts university as a sculptor major and nearly every assignment I have handed in to date has been late. I feel absolutely sick about it because I am here to do my best – it is not my first time at university and I take it very seriously. It makes me wonder if this is my best and if so, how can I ever succeed in life? Most of my profs are accommodating because I have a documented learning disability, I am respectful of them and do my best to take risks, utilize their feedback and submit the best piece of work I can. Others seem to think I think I’m too special to hand things in on time like everyone else. I guess my question is… If I would have failed without the willingness of my profs to accept late work thus far, is this then a message to me that I shouldn’t be here? What’s your stance on students who chronically fail to meet deadlines despite working flat out to meet them? Where do they belong? Any advice?

The same kinds of people who are accommmodating you in college will be there, in the world beyond college, and you should expect the same from them. Every person must find their niche in the world, or carve one out, and you are not more or less “special” than anyone else. I would say that if you feel you belong, you belong. It sounds like you have many people who see you as someone they want to work with & see succeed.

Just a lurker reading your compassionate response, and it honestly moved me to tears. I am a BScN nursing student, three quarters of the way through my degree, and working at full scope as an ESN. I have a previous degree in psychology, and completed IB in highschool at age 16. I have a struggled with late assignments throughout my academic career and I believe I probably will for the rest of my life when it comes to handing in written work. I, too, have a diagnosed learning disability as well as chronic health challenges that plague me. I suffer from PTSD, I struggle financially (I survive off of Canada’s student loan program), and many of my friends and family are dead. For those reasons I miss half of my lectures and I do much of my learning on my own through textbooks and recorded lectures from other universities. I am a gifted student, I can at least recognize that now, and my papers and exams are always in the 90s despite my poor attendance (though now I’m in a highly competitive program they’re more often in the 80s). I know that I am a passionate learner with a lot to offer in the real world and my clinical work with patients is impeccable. However, I don’t think I’ve handed a paper/assignment in on time once this entire program. I lose an average of 15% per course based solely on missed deadlines despite my genuine grades being quite high. I believe that’s fair, because it speaks to my weaknesses overall. But what you said about “if you feel you belong, then you belong” really struck a chord with me. I’ve always felt like a black sheep among impossibly functional academic elites. It took me so many years to recognize my strengths for what they were and to be able to envision a future for myself where I could meaningfully contribute to society. It’s professors like you, who saw beyond my organizational difficulties and gave me opportunities to really shine and showcase my talents, that have allowed me to grow with confidence into the competent professional that I feel I am now. Thank you so, so much!

Alexandra, thanks so much for taking the time to write such a full response! I appreciate your affirmation of the approach I suggested. Good luck in your chosen profession.

I stumbled here as a student feeling discouraged about failing to complete an assignment on time — again. I chronically rely on the mercy of professors. As a person who is eager to learn, does the reading, shows up every day and pays careful attention, I appreciate what your philosophy. I can attest that pushing to get work done while knowing most others were able to complete it on time does not feel like a “free pass.” It feels terrible.

I can’t help posting a response to the comments regarding teaching students about the “real world.” I am 35, with 18 years behind me as a punctual and hardworking employee. Students are not employees, and we come to college with different levels of preparation and difficulties to overcome. And unlike a job, when I fall behind in school the only person who suffers is me.

This week I blew it on two papers (after spending far too much time struggling with the first one, I had little time left for the second). I was granted an extension on the first, and turned in an excellent (per the professor) paper three days late. For the second, I obeyed the strict policy in the syllabus and turned in a dreadfully incomplete paper after a desperate all-nighter. My grade is likely destroyed, and I feel humiliated and dejected.

As a grown-up, I know I am responsible for running out of time. I accept the consequences, but I don’t feel I or anyone else gained anything by them.

Jess, your last sentence points to what I see as the hollow reasoning behind penalizing late papers: what lesson is being taught? Who benefits from the penalty? Surely not other students, as they have never told me that my accepting “late” papers is unfair.

Same boat as you. I am now 37 in a masters program. Would be an A+ student in my undergrad except for handing things in late. But I am still doing it. Been in therapy for over 10 years. Working through my issues but it isn’t easy and it just feels so shitty to be asking for professors mercy constantly. The author really has it correct when he describes the burden of being a late submitter.

I am another student in their 30’s, returning to work after over a decade in the “real world”. One of the biggest issues I’ve seen is that professors assume the worst of their students while also relying on them to support their ego.

As an adult, I have real world issues that sometimes need to be prioritized over my assignments because I am simply not the most important thing in my world and sometimes need to show up for other people. Despite my best efforts I do sometimes turn in assignments late or miss class. The few times I’ve tried to explain, professors stop me three sentences in and say “I don’t want to get involved”. I realized very quickly that they were expecting something silly and became very uncomfortable with basic, grown up issues that all adults should feel comfortable discussing.

By only offering flexibility with explanations, the professor holds all the power and can quickly close the lines of communication. I have had to accept zeros on exams and labs despite previous notice of a court summons (not even for something my fault!), and I’ve accepted that even though I’ve never gotten lower than a 93 on an exam, show up to class on time, and complete most assignments on time, I am simply not trusted as a competent adult by all of my professors.

The culture of mistrust towards undergraduates needs to stop. The slippery slopes in the comments above simply aren’t true, and having come from the “real world” into academia, I can now see very clearly why my younger colleagues would often sit on tasks and not communicate if there was an issue or question. If I had gone to college first, I likely would have picked up the same work habits!

The truth is, the strict deadline clauses do not promote personal growth and is an exercise of power, not a lesson in accountability. The real world is harsh, but it is significantly more forgiving than academia.

Hi “Greenstick”! Thanks for yet another example of the absurdity of rigid rules regarding “late” assignments. Instructors can grow into better humans if they learn to recognize the importance of students as individuals, not as “the student who must follow the rules regardless.”

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I look forward to seeing more from you.

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And students should question it. We are not in class or attend school to only accept the status quo or not ask why – or what comes at us. We are to question and question some more. The “no late assignment rule” is inhumane and ableist.

Dear Gregory: Thanks for your note. Good point: question authority was what I was taught, back in the 1960s, and that is still a good motto to live by! Your point about the no late assignment rule being abelist is also well taken.

I’m generally a good student with decent grades, but sometimes (esp in the end of the semester when there’s 3 to 4 deadlines a week) I just get so burnt out and can’t write a word even I have a detailed outline ready. I hand in stuff late for perhaps 1 or 2 times and feel terrible about that because I tried my best but its not enough. It’s true that punishing student harshly for late submission won’t encourage punctuality. It would only make me feel worse and less motivated to hand in higher quality work. I would probably just submit whatever incomplete draft I happen to have next time after receiving a deduction in grade for late work.

Izzy, thanks for pointing out the emotional costs of penalties. I’m curious to learn: when you notice that you’ve going to be late, do you approach your instructor & explain the situation? Many instructors don’t realize the issues students are facing & are surprised when they learn about them. Sometimes, it is just a matter of opening up to your instructor & explaining what’s happening. You may not have to “request” an extension” — they may simply offer it to you. Try it!

It has been fascinating and educational to read your post and the thoughtful and divergent responses. I have a similar policy for substantial assignments — like papers and projects. However, I have a different type of assignment that I am dealing with now. One (though not the only) goal of this type of assignment is to ensure that students have done the reading and thought about it before class discussion. (The course is a freshman seminar that is a general education requirement.) In this case, not handing the assignment in on time means not being prepared for class, so it matters beyond the quality of the work or the individual student. To clarify, these are small, but not inconsequential, assignments that range from selecting quotations from the reading and posing questions about the reading to writing a first-attempt analysis of a quotation from the reading (~300 words). I would be interested to know how you or others treat this type of assignment.

What are your thoughts on someone who has a medical issue who asks the prof for extra time and it is granted and then loses points for the late submission – though this was never articulated and she tells the rest of the class they may submit late?

I would say that you should first find out what her reasons were, if any, and if you find them unsatisfactory, take the issue to the department chair & then to the Dean, if need be. If an instructor is going to impose a late penalty, that should be clear from the outset. It is unfair to give someone extra time & then penalize them for accepting the offer.

I’m on year three of teaching an online course for graduate students, most of whom are working as well. I originally used the same late assignment policy as the ground version of the course, which was No Late Assignments Accepted. Last year, I had multiple students with emergencies who reached out to me. Of course, I wanted to be compassionate and ended up accepting late assignments.

I’m updating my syllabus right now and found your post while searching for examples flexible due date policies. After reading your post, I’m thinking of just simplifying my late assignment policy to “due dates are posted. Contact me as soon as possible if there’s an issue.” Even with some version of flexible due dates, there’s still going to be emergencies and some students will ask, but others won’t think to do so and will just not turn in assignment or drop the course, and that doesn’t help anyone.

I’m going to think on this a bit more. Thank you for this perspective.

I like your new, simpler statement about assignments. You’re right: the ‘smart’ students ask about what to do if they can’t meet a date, but others just try to power through or don’t do the assignment. So, your new policy is a big improvement.

Comments are closed.

What To Do When Assignments Seem Pointless

by Gretchen | Oct 17, 2017 | Academic Coaching , blog , Procrastination | 0 comments

Do you ever struggle to follow through on an assignment because it feels pointless?

A client of mine was recently complaining about the pointlessness of his English class assignments, and you’d better believe this isn’t the first time a student has struggled to find his teacher’s assignments meaningful or relevant to his life.

I helped him explore whether it is true that his class is pointless, and at the end of the investigation, we came up with a fascinating way to make it pointFULL instead. Tune in to find out what we came up with.

Hey there, don’t have time for the full video? No worries, here’s a short summary:

My client a couple of days ago was complaining that the assignments in his English class felt pointless. He has been finding that the class feels like it’s moving slowly, and the “do now” assignments seemed meaningless. He said that he didn’t feel like he could respect the class, it just felt so meaningless and he noticed he was doing less and less of the work. Then we talked through it a bit and went through some strategies I have for investigating the things that we tell our selves and seeing if they are true or not, and one the things I had him really think about was ” is it really pointless?” Now we went through far too many layers for me to go over, but what we came to at the end of it all was a key question. I asked him, “what would give it a point for him?”

He said, “Oh, maybe with every question the teacher asks I could give a class analysis for it.” Class analysis, not like “school classes” but societal classes. Anyways, I said sure, why not? Maybe not in writing each time, but in his head, he could definitely be thinking about the questions from that point of view, that way it would feel to him more meaningful. So he’s going to be trying that this next week, and I’m super excited to see how it goes for him.

In the meantime, I want to walk you all through these 3 steps that he and I went through.

• You are the one responsible for the sense of meaning in your life. Not your teachers or parents. Sure it’s nice if they contribute to the meaning of your life, but you are the one who’s responsible for the meaning.
• Be clear on what ideas or activities will give you a sense of meaning. For my client, thinking about class and governments is interesting and thus thinking about questions or assignments in a sense of the effect of the subject matter in different classes gave it meaning. For me, I enjoy making artful creative notes. So as long as I can take fun notes, I can make any subject matter meaningful. It’s all about finding the ideas or activities that will give it meaning for you.
• And finally, talk about it with others. My client talked with me, and I love showing others my notes. By sharing it with others we can help keep our interest high.

I hope you all found this to be helpful, and if you want more tips on how to make school and homework less boring, please consider checking out my course, The Anti-Boring Approach .

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Pew survey asks why so many U.S. adults don’t have any children

Most under age 50 who are childless say it is by choice, while those who are older often say it just happened that way.

By Lois M. Collins

America’s fertility rate was lower in 2023 than it’s ever been. And a new analysis by Pew Research Center finds among U.S. adults who aren’t parents, the share who say they don’t expect to ever have kids has risen 10 percentage points between 2018 and 2023, to 47%.

That’s not far off the 50% of those under 50 with no children who said they are very or somewhat likely to have children in the future.

The center’s report looks closely at adults over 50 who didn’t ever have children and those younger than 50 who deem parenthood unlikely.

“Broadly, we’re seeing a growing trend of adults not having children,” said Pew Research Associate Rachel Minkin, who co-authored the report, in a news release. “From our previous research, we know this isn’t a new phenomenon, but we do see some different reasons between why adults 50 and older say they didn’t have children and why adults younger than 50 say they’re unlikely to ever have them. The top response for those ages 50 and older is that it just didn’t happen. Those under 50 are more likely to point to not being able to afford having kids, concerns about the state of the world and the environment, or just not wanting to.”

Among the report’s highlights:

• Nearly 40% of those over 50 with no children say they did at some point want children, compared to 32% who said they never did. Another quarter of them said they weren’t sure if they wanted children.
• There’s an age-based gap in reasons for not having children or not having them yet: The primary response for those over 50 is “it just didn’t happen.” In the younger group, choice is the top reason. And the younger women especially say they don’t want to have kids (64% of the under-50 women, compared to half of the men that age).
• Majorities in both groups say being childless has made it “easier for them to afford the things they want, have time for hobbies and interests and save for the future.”
• But more people in both groups also agree that having children makes it easier to have someone to care for them as they age.

The survey included 2,542 adults 50 and older who never had kids and 770 adults under 50 who said they are unlikely to have kids. It was conducted April 29 to May 19, 2024. The report includes data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 and 2022 Surveys of Income and Program Participation, as well.

Pew reported there isn’t much difference between the two groups when it comes to whether there was a medical reason, including infertility, for not having children or in whether the person being surveyed had a partner who didn’t want children.

Different views from opposite sides of 50

Eighty percent of those younger than 50 said being childless gave them more time for hobbies and interests, compared to 57% of those older than 50. Similarly, 79% of the younger group said they had more money to afford what they want vs. 61% of older adults without children.

There were also significant gaps when it came to it being easier to save for the future (75% vs. 57%), having career success (61% vs. 44% “among those who didn’t indicate this doesn’t apply to them”) and being active socially (58% of younger vs. 36% of older respondents who don’t have children).

Work experience related to family formulation has been more varied, with 45% of the younger adults and 35% of the older ones saying they have been able to do more networking outside of work hours because they are childless. On the other hand, close to a third in both groups say they’ve been given more work or responsibilities because they don’t have kids and “many also say they’ve been given less flexibility than those who have children.”

Folks in the survey who are older than 50 were asked about concerns related to growing older. About a third said they worry about having enough money, while just over a quarter are concerned about who will care for them. Almost 1 in 5 are concerned about being lonely when they’re older. Just over 1 in 10 say they “frequently worry about who will carry on their values and traditions when they’re gone,” per the report.

Gender differences

Among the older group, women who don’t have children have higher average monthly wages than the mothers, based on data from the government that compared how having or not having children impacts individuals. Among older men, it’s a different story. Men with children tend to earn more than those who are not fathers.

That’s been documented for at least a decade, most recently in Payscale’s 2024 Gender Pay Gap Report , which said working men who are fathers earn a median 15% more than their male colleagues who don’t have children.

In the younger group, Pew’s survey found that women are more likely than men to say they are unlikely to have kids because of “negative experiences with their own family growing up” (22% vs. 13%).

In the older group, women who don’t have children are more likely than male counterparts to say they’ve been “left out of conversations with coworkers who have children” (38% vs. 28% of men with no kids).

About 4 in 10 of the older women say they felt pressure from society to have kids when they were younger, compared to just 27% of men. Pressure from family members has been more even based on gender: 34% of older women and 29% of older men.

Regardless of gender, sizable majorities of adults in the older group who don’t have any children report being close to at least one of their nieces and nephews.

Life with and without children

The New York Times noted that “the decision to raise kids is shifting from ‘something that’s just an essential part of human life to one more choice, among others,’” citing Anastasia Berg, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine.

Wendy Wang, director of research for the Institute for Family Studies, reported in late 2022 that American motherhood is “shrinking.” She found that in 2020, 1 in 6 women reaching the end of their childbearing years had never given birth. And not only are a smaller share of women having children, but the number of children that women have has been declining for years as well, driven in part by starting families at older ages.

There’s been a lot of debates about who’s happier, those with children or those without. It changes with time, as Wang and Institute for Family Studies scholar and fellow Deseret News contributor Brad Wilcox wrote in 2021. They cited headlines about parenthood causing loneliness , marital problems and other challenges, then countered them.

“There is only one problem with this handwringing: It no longer fits the data,” the duo wrote. “While it is true that parents once were more likely to report they were less happy than their childless peers, today that is most definitely not true. Recent research by Chris Herbst and James McQuivey suggests the happiness tide has turned in toward parents, especially those who are married.”

Research by the Wheatley Institute and the Institute for Family Studies conducted during COVID found that “life for parents is less lonely, more meaningful and happier.” The study noted that of couples married with kids, 85% are at least “pretty happy,” compared to 72% of those who are married but don’t have kids. Among parents who are not married but have kids, 76% said they’re happy, compared to 67% of those who are unmarried and childless.

A study published in 2017 in the American Journal of Sociology found great differences across countries in the amount of happiness between parents and non-parents. The researchers suggested the amount of support parents felt they received might make a big difference, including family policy supports.

Last year, Emily Harris, senior demographer at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, told Deseret News that demographers and others have compelling theories about why fertility has been dropping, but not proof. “There are a ton of issues going on,” she said. “Things people are talking about as societal, institutional issues and problems, such as the inability to find housing, the inability to find affordable housing, the increasing cost of day care or even trying to find a day care. There are inflation concerns. Things are becoming more expensive.”

The American Family Survey, a nationally representative poll conducted for Deseret News and Brigham Young University’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy and Wheatley, has consistently found that most people who are parents like being parents and find it adds meaning to their lives. They’re satisfied with their own family lives, though they sometimes think other families struggle. Recent iterations of the poll, though, have also noted concern about the cost of raising a family.

Watch CBS News

Why the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics are already an expensive nightmare for many locals and tourists

By Elaine Cobbe

Updated on: July 23, 2024 / 9:25 AM EDT / CBS News

Paris — The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics open this week, and athletes from around the world have been arriving to prepare for the competition. France, however, has been preparing for several years, and not everyone in Paris is pleased with the disruption those preparations have brought.

Some Parisians have complained for months on social media about the state of the French capital, with some warning tourists to stay away.

"If you're planning on coming to Paris for the Olympic Games... do not come! Do not come... The city of Paris is making it hell on earth," one resident warned in an  online rant .

City officials insist the Summer Games will be a huge success, but Parisians have fled from their city in droves, and tourism, almost counterintuitively, is down.

Construction linked to the Olympics has made moving around Paris much harder and more expensive. Prices to ride the Paris Metro system have doubled, students have been kicked off campuses to make way for Olympic staff and rents have soared.

"People that were thinking about coming to Paris for holidays, most of them decided not to come because, number one, the city is very congested, number two, the prices are really high," Gail Boisclair, who runs the Perfectly Paris property rental company, told CBS News. "The tourists just simply don't want to deal with it."

She said American visitors looking for a summer European vacation have largely opted to visit Spain, Britain and Ireland this year instead, and that includes some regular visitors to the City of Light.

"I have a lot of returning guests, and if they didn't have to be here for work, they just said 'forget 2024, we're waiting 'til next year to come.'"

Many tourists chose to visit Paris before the Olympics, but even they have found the city unwelcoming.

First-time visitors Ian and Belinda Caulfield from Wales were surprised at how much construction there was, and how difficult it was to get around.

"I know it's within a certain amount of the city, but if you just want to walk down the Seine, there's a lot of obstructions," said Ian.

Belinda said the couple found they were having to walk more than they expected because of diversions around Olympic construction sites.

Eva and Agnes from Norway also found it difficult to get where they wanted to go.

"We have traveled across the Seine over here, and it was closed, so we had to go all around a lot of buildings to get where we wanted," said Eva.

They didn't cancel any of their plans, but Eva said in hindsight, "it would have been better to come here next year, not this year."

High prices for accommodation are also keeping tourists away. Hotels raised their prices more than a year ago, some asking for double the usual rates — or even higher for rooms that overlook the Seine and the area where the Opening Ceremony will take place on July 26.

Many Parisians also thought it would be a good time to cash in on expected high visitor numbers by renting out their homes. But visitor numbers are down by as much as 30%, according to some studies.

"People were thinking, oh, four times as much, five times as much, who knows," said Boisclair. Last year, she advised owners of the rental apartments she manages to raise their rates by 30% for the Games, but no more than that.

Those who followed her advice found guests immediately, she said. Others wanted to wait to try to cash in for more.

"We can retire on the income that we'll earn for two and a half weeks during the Olympics," was their thinking, she said. But that gamble has not paid off.

Tens of thousands of rental apartments and hotel rooms still lie empty as the market was flooded with offers. A cursory glance at popular hotel and apartment reservation sites shows prices being slashed daily — but the offers still massively outstrip demand.

Others in Paris have found themselves homeless because of the Olympics. More than 3,000 student rooms in the capital's university campuses were commandeered for all the police and firefighters brought in for the Games.

While most students are off for the summer, several thousand were planning on staying in their rooms while on work placements in the capital or to continue with research projects. Several told the Le Parisien newspaper it was stressful having to move out and find somewhere else to live at a time when rents have soared.

Many who work in the tourism industry also got a nasty surprise this year. Some Parisian cafes and restaurants inside the restricted Olympic zones are considering closing their doors during the Games because it will be so difficult for people to get to them.

Some taxi drivers have said they'll work the first few days of the Games at the end of July, and then decide if it's worth staying in the city or, if things are quiet, just going on vacation for August.

Tour guide Lily Heise usually makes the majority of her annual income during the summer — but not this year. 

"I was very excited about Paris hosting the Olympics and had thought it would lead to increased bookings," she told CBS News. "But over the last two months, bookings have been down around 50%. June and July are usually among the busiest months of the year for the tourism sector in Paris. The loss of income is substantial and it's difficult to know if tourists will be back in the autumn, once the Games are over."

The Paris Games are expected to cost $12 billion. That's cheap for an Olympic Games - but many in Paris feel they've paid a higher price themselves in other ways.

Elaine Cobbe is a CBS News correspondent based in Paris. A veteran journalist with more than 20 years of experience covering international events, Cobbe reports for CBS News' television, radio and digital platforms.

More from CBS News

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2 men suspected of possible violent plotting arrested ahead of Olympics

When do the Olympics start and end? See the 2024 Paris Games schedule.

Who has the most Olympic medals? Countries, athletes with the most wins

The Crowdstrike outage showed that risk management is essential. Why are so many businesses reluctant to do it?

Professor of Accounting & Business Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

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Michael J. Davern has received research grant funding in the past from the Australian Research Council (LP130100106 & LP100100068) in conjunction with National Australia Bank and Great Southern Bank for research in operational risk management practices.

University of Melbourne provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

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In the wake of the widespread chaos we saw on Friday, one old adage perhaps feels even truer now than when it was first coined in the 1960s:

To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.

As the world continues to assess the fallout of what has been called “the largest IT outage in history”, industry and government leaders will naturally be pondering how exactly this all could have happened.

Most tragically, the company at the heart of all this – cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike – is explicitly meant to protect the IT systems across our hyperconnected global economy. Is CrowdStrike to blame or were they just unlucky? Could this happen again?

Read more: One small update brought down millions of IT systems around the world. It's a timely warning

For businesses, these are risk management questions as much as they are technical IT questions. Risk is unavoidable in business and life. We can never completely escape it, but we can proactively manage it.

Many big companies hate thinking about and preparing for so-called “black swan” events – major catastrophes that are hard to predict. Friday’s events have shown just how important it is that they do.

Risk isn’t a choice

Businesses face many different types of risks . Of these, Friday’s IT outage was an example of an operational risk event. Operational risk is broadly defined as:

the risk of loss as a result of ineffective or failed internal processes, people, systems, or external events.

In simpler terms, it’s the risk that something goes wrong in the way a business runs.

Friday’s outage instantly wrought havoc on a wide range of technology integrated businesses. It might feel like the kind of event that’s impossible to predict.

But was this operational risk event foreseeable? In general terms – yes! An event like this was inevitable. And it will happen again. Let’s explore some reasons why.

The networked economy

We benefit daily from our networked world, which enables our economy to function at a speed undreamed of decades ago. We depend now on technology for virtually every aspect of our lives.

But this network and speed of activity means when things go wrong, they can go wrong fast, and everywhere. It’s a trade-off decision. If we want the benefits of our data-driven, networked economy, we must accept some risk here.

The trade-off decision extends to the choices made by providers of the upstream software and services we rely upon. This painful lesson was learned by some businesses that had never heard of CrowdStrike last Friday but soon found out key software relied on it. Choosing upstream providers means accepting the risks of their trade-off decisions.

Competition is good, but so are network effects

A fundamental tenet of economics is that competition is good. Yet in technology markets, we often see only a few players dominate. This is in part due to what economists call network externalities .

Positive network externalities arise when increasing the number of users of a product or service increases its value.

Microsoft Windows, for example, is ubiquitous because it has a critical mass of users. Many people know how to use it, which attracts many developers to provide useful applications. Network externalities drive market dominance.

Friday’s events were so wide-reaching because Microsoft and CrowdStrike are dominant players in their respective markets.

Though it wasn’t a Microsoft incident, the company estimated that the outage affected about 8.5 million Windows devices around the world. This is less than 1% of all Windows machines. Microsoft said while this percentage may seem small:

the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services.

We have benefited tremendously from the network externalities of these companies’ dominance, at the price of exposing ourselves to the risk of such narrow dependencies.

How to think about risk

Such vulnerabilities don’t mean we can’t still manage these risks. Effective risk management entails the interplay between three factors:

• risk appetite – how much risk we are willing to accept
• understanding the risks we face – keeping an organisational risk register
• investing in risk treatments to keep risks within our appetite.

Risk appetite and understanding varies significantly across different businesses, so too does the extent of investment in treatments.

But the risk of an outage like Friday’s should have been on the risk register of the affected organisations. We can choose our risk appetite and accordingly invest in risk treatments to keep the identified risks within it.

For example, investing in fully redundant systems as a treatment could have limited some of the damage of Friday’s events. Many systems that weren’t using CrowdStrike weren’t directly impacted. Some organisations were able to revert to paper-based systems .

But redundancy in systems is very expensive, and there is always the risk that multiple systems will fail at once.

Risk management is complex. CrowdStrike itself is a risk treatment – for the risk of cyberattacks. Friday’s outage resulted in part from fast patching – a rapid roll out of an update to treat a specific cyberattack risk. In treating one risk, we can expose ourselves to new risks.

Given the consequences of black swan events, effective risk management for such possibilities would seem essential. But businesses can’t prepare for every contingency and so are reluctant to invest now to protect against a future risk event of unknown impact.

It’s a matter of perspective: we need to take a systemic view as we evaluate the trade-offs in our networked economy. Or as Nassim Taleb, author of “The Black Swan” aptly said : “let’s not be turkeys”.

• Risk management
• Business risk
• CrowdStrike
• Crowdstrike outage

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Why is men's soccer U23 at 2024 Paris Olympics? Explaining rule dating back to Barcelona Games

The largest athletic competition in the world fittingly includes the most popular sport in the world.

With the exception of one year — 1932, in which no tournament was held — men’s soccer has been a part of the Summer Olympics since 1900, just four years after the first modern Olympic Games in Athens.

During that time, the sport’s most historically accomplished countries have taken part in the event, as well as some of the best players of their respective eras, from Lionel Messi to Neymar to Samuel Eto’o.

2024 PARIS OLYMPICS: Meet all members of Team USA at the Summer Olympics

But unlike many of the sports that will be contested over the next several weeks at the 2024 Paris Olympics , winning a gold medal at the Games isn’t regarded as the most prestigious, sought-after accomplishment in international soccer.

The reason for that is pretty simple: an overwhelming majority of the world’s best players don’t compete in the Olympics, which now exists, on the men's side, as an under-23 event.

Why is that the case? Here’s more on Olympic men’s soccer and its history heading into the 2024 Paris Olympics:

Why is men’s soccer U23 at the Olympics?

If viewers are tuning in to men’s soccer games at the 2024 Paris Olympics hoping to see the likes of Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo, Harry Kane, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne or most of soccer’s top superstars globally, they’re unfortunately out of luck.

In some instances, like with Ronaldo, Kane, Haaland and De Bruyne, their countries aren’t in the Olympics for men’s soccer. But beyond that, men’s soccer at the 2024 Paris Olympics and at Olympics for the past 30 years has been an under-23 competition.

The rule came to be in advance of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. At the time, the Olympics was undergoing fundamental changes, shifting from a strictly amateur event to one that allowed professional athletes to compete (the 1992 Games, perhaps most famously, featured the "Dream Team").

Given that switch, FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, put various barriers in place for players competing in the Olympics, which it didn’t want to possibly usurp the World Cup as the premier international soccer showcase. One of those measures was an age restriction. Additionally, since the Olympics are not a FIFA-sanctioned competition, club teams have the right to deny a player from taking part. Many clubs will forbid their players from competing in the Olympics and the Euros or Copa America in a single summer.

This reality makes men’s soccer drastically different than women’s soccer at the Olympics, as the women’s side has no such age limits.

Not every men’s soccer player in the Olympics will be under 23 years old. Each country has up to three spots on the roster to grant to overage players.

Most notably, France was potentially going to use one this year on Mbappe — but his new club team, Real Madrid, would not allow him to compete in the Olympics.

"My club's position was very clear, so from that moment on, I think I [knew] I won't be taking part in the Games," Mbappe said to reporters in June at Euro 2024 . "That's just the way it is, and I understand that too. I'm joining a new team in September, so it's not the best way to start an adventure. I'm going to wish this French team all the best. I'm going to watch every game. I hope they'll win the gold medal."

REQUIRED READING: Olympic women's soccer bracket: Standings, what to know, what's next at Paris Olympics

Olympic men’s soccer champions

Though men’s soccer made its first appearance all the way back at the 1900 Paris Olympics, here’s a list of the gold-medal-winning countries at the Olympics since the age limit was introduced at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics:

• 1992 : Spain
• 1996 : Nigeria
• 2000 : Cameroon
• 2004 : Argentina
• 2008 : Argentina
• 2012 : Mexico
• 2016 : Brazil
• 2020 : Brazil

Brazil, the two-time reigning gold medalist, will not participate in the men’s tournament this year.

USMNT Olympics schedule

The United States men’s national soccer team will be competing in the Olympics this year for the first time since 2008.

The Americans are in Group A of the competition, with the top two teams from the four-team pod advancing to the knockout stage of the tournament. If they win the group, they’ll play the runner-up from Group B, which includes Argentina, Morocco, Iraq and Ukraine. If they finish second, they’ll play the winner of Group B.

Here’s the USMNT’s schedule for the 2024 Paris Olympics:

• Wednesday, July 24 : vs. France, 3 p.m. ET
• Saturday, July 27 : vs. New Zealand, 1 p.m. ET
• Tuesday, July 30 : vs. Guinea, 1 p.m. ET

USMNT Olympics roster

Given the age restrictions, the USMNT roster doesn’t feature many of the team’s most familiar names, be it Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna or Weston McKennie.

Two of the Americans’ exceptions went to players from the current USMNT roster – defenders Walker Zimmerman and Miles Robinson. The third and final exception was used on Djordje Mihailovic, a standout midfielder for the Colorado Rapids of MLS.

Here’s a look at the full 18-player USMNT roster for the 2024 Paris Olympics:

Goalkeepers

• Patrick Schulte
• Gaga Slonina
• Maximilian Dietz
• Nathan Harriel
• Miles Robinson
• John Tolkin
• Caleb Wiley
• Walker Zimmerman

Midfielders

• Gianluca Busio
• Benjamin Cremaschi
• Jack McGlynn
• Djordje Mihailovic
• Tanner Tessmann
• Paxten Aaronson
• Taylor Booth
• Duncan McGuire
• Kevin Paredes
• Griffin Yow

Who’s most likely to adopt — or get adopted

This week, we do a deep dive into your many, many — oh so many! — questions about adoption.

You’ve sent in so many adoption questions that we had two choices: re-christen ourselves the Department of Adoption for the foreseeable future, or don our querying cap, crack each of our knuckles in order and answer as many as we could in one go.

We decided to get cracking. Here goes.

How common is adoption?

We suspect reader Ryan Hanlon might have an ulterior motive for asking this, given that his LinkedIn lists him as president and CEO of the National Council for Adoption.

The answer: While adoption may have been more common in the tough-to-measure past, it’s surprisingly rare today.

Depending on the source, adopted children seem to make up 1 to 3 percent of America’s under-18 population. It’s the fifth most common relationship between a child and a head of household, narrowly ahead of foster care, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) from 2008 to 2022. The vast majority of kids are the biological children (88 percent) or grandchildren (8 percent) of the householder.

While the ACS provides stellar big-picture numbers, it’s hamstrung by its focus on a child’s relationship to a single head of household, regardless of the presence of their parent or parents. To map relationships further, we turned to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS). Unlike many of its rivals, the CPS lists both parents for every child.

Department of Data

About 1.2 percent of U.S. children are adopted, though that’s just kids who are living only with to an adoptive single parent or, more commonly, two adoptive parents. Another 0.5 percent live with one adoptive parent and one biological or stepparent. We assume those adoptions were made by folks who, after marriage or cohabitation, wanted to make the parent-child relationship official.

This measure, at least, shows adoption is so rare that it’s about as common to live with only stepparents, a situation faced by 1.4 percent of children, roughly evenly split between those who have a single stepparent and those who have two stepparents, presumably because of family upheavals.

Meanwhile, 63 percent of children live with two biological parents and 25 percent live with a biological single parent.

How are parents finding these adoptees?

In the case of stepparents, the answer seems obvious. The rest usually rely on foster care or private agencies.

There were 368,530 children in foster care in as of September 2022, according to the Children’s Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services . Of those, 108,877 were waiting to be adopted. That year, 53,665 children were adopted with public agency involvement, typically meaning they came from the foster care system.

We don’t yet have estimates for 2022 adoptions outside of the foster system. With no national source ( yet ), folks have to cobble together the data from state and county records as it dribbles out. But Hanlon estimates that there were about 50,000 domestic private adoptions in 2019 and a pandemic-reduced 40,000 in 2020. In both years, about half of those adoptions involved stepparents.

Another 1,275 children were adopted from abroad in the year ending in September 2023, according to the State Department.

Who’s most likely to adopt?

You may remember reader Kevin Foster from his peerless paper-check data . Well, Foster was moseying home from a Massachusetts grocery store one day when he overheard someone say, “Well, I’m adopted, so it’s okay.” No other context, but it got him thinking: What demographic groups are most likely to adopt?

It turns out gay married men with kids are 12 times more likely to have adopted at least one of them than their straight married counterparts, according to the ACS. Women in same-sex marriages are over eight times more likely to adopt.

Paradoxically, as we’ll see later, the states with the fewest same-sex couples often adopt at the highest rates. That’s because same-sex couples, even today, only lead 1.6 percent of U.S. households, and a large majority of such households don’t include children. So even with sky-high adoption rates among same-sex couples with children, such couples only account for about 3.6 percent of adoptive families — usually not enough to move the needle.

Instead, national trends seem to be driven by race, particularly by high adoption rates among America’s White majority — only Native Americans have higher adoption rates. Adoption is also more popular among rural Americans and veterans.

Older couples with children are also more likely to have adopted. We assume that, as with same-sex couples, they’re choosing adoption due to biological factors as much as cultural ones.

Which state has the highest adoption rates?

West Virginia! It also had the fastest-rising adoption rate in the country between 2008 and 2022, according to the ACS. Based on your questions, we’re guessing some of you might point to the state’s abortion rate as an explanation — it was the fourth lowest in the country in 2019 and 2020 according to the Guttmacher Institute .

Beyond that Appalachian enclave, we saw a correlation between higher abortion rates and lower adoption rates, but it wasn’t entirely consistent. The states with the second and third highest adoption rates, Montana and Alaska, both protect abortion in their state constitutions according their courts and to KFF . They are, however, two of the states with the largest concentrations of Native Americans.

These demographic trends appear to drive most adoption trends. In addition to race, immigration — or lack thereof — seems to play a starring role. Native-born Americans are about twice as likely to adopt, and West Virginia has the lowest immigrant concentration of any state. Three of the states with the lowest adoption rates — California, New York and New Jersey — also have the most immigrants, even after adjusting for population size.

Why do Native Americans adopt at such high rates?

We had no answers until Angelique Day, associate professor at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work and faculty affiliate at the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, stepped in and did all our work for us. She confirmed her theories with a colleague, then called to walk us through an elegant explanation.

Native Americans are much more likely to be in the foster care system than their peers, ACS data shows. But while other marginalized groups with high foster care populations, notably African Americans, often get adopted by White families, many Native American children get placed with Native families thanks to the Indian Child Welfare Act .

Passed in 1978 to help counteract the horrific legacy of a system that removed a third of Native children from their homes, the act allows tribes to participate in adoption cases involving their citizens and prioritizes placing the child with relatives or members of the tribe.

Day encouraged us to think of Native American adoptions as similar to international adoptions, in which the rules are set by agreements between two governments — because that’s really what agreements between tribes and the feds are. This relationship has helped the large Native population in foster care translate into many adoptions by Native American families in a way that’s not possible for non-tribal communities.

What about international adoptions?

The inverse relationship between immigration and adoption has, of course, one glaring exception: the adoptees themselves. Adoptees are about twice as likely to come from abroad as biological children, though that’s changing as international adoptions plummet.

State Department data shows international adoptions peaked in 2004 at 22,987 and have fallen more than 94 percent since then. In 2023, a year when 3,591,328 children were born in America, a record low of just 1,275 were adopted from abroad. Over that time, the flow of adoptees from China has fallen from 7,038 to 16, according to the State Department .

It’s not that Americans have lost interest in adopting from abroad or even just that geopolitics have changed, Hanlon told us. Instead, he ties plunging adoption rates to an international agreement to standardize adoptions that took effect in 2008. Meant to limit sketchy adoptions and human trafficking, it has instead raised costs and wait times to the point where many parents don’t dare begin the process.

“There’s still plenty of children who need and would greatly benefit from intercountry adoption, and there’s plenty of U.S. families that are open to adoption,” Hanlon said. But “we’ve put up a lot of red tape.”

A spokesperson for the State Department, which now oversees overseas adoptions, pointed out that such adoptions started their decline before the international agreement. Political changes, better living standards and other social and economic factors have reduced the number of children globally in need of adoption, the spokesperson said.

How many adoptees have a different race than their parents?

Beth Herman in Colorado was one of several readers who asked about transracial adoptions. From 2020 to 2022, more than a third of adopted children came from a different racial background than their head of household. That’s more than three times the rate for biological children, and substantially higher than the rates for grandchildren or stepchildren.

Put another way, most adoptions aren’t transracial. But only because 92 percent of White kids get adopted by White families, by far the highest in-group adoption rate. If you leave them out, the majority of non-White kids (56 percent) are adopted by parents of another race, and by “another race” we usually mean White.

Most notably, White people have adopted 2 out of 3 Asian adoptees in America. Most Black and Hispanic adoptees are adopted by Black and Hispanic parents, but in both cases, it’s a narrow majority (54 and 51 percent respectively) with White families close behind.

Do children identify with their birth race or their adopted race?

Herman tacked on a twist to the transracial adoption question: Do adoptees identify with the race of their adopted parents?

Adoptees almost always identify with their birth group, at least according to whoever took the time to fill out the Census Bureau’s exhaustive survey (we have no way of measuring how the child would have described themselves). For example, 98 percent of adoptees born in China are listed as Asian, a decent match for the 98 percent of China-born American adults who identify as Asian.

The only consistent exceptions, albeit minor ones, involve children from Hispanic countries. For example, 99 percent of Mexico-born adults in the United States describe themselves as Hispanic, compared with 95 percent of Mexico-born adopted children. Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republican show similar patterns.

That makes sense. Hispanic ethnicity has long been a cultural designation rather than a racial one, though the lines could blur under upcoming Census Bureau policy changes. If an adoptee has been removed from that cultural context, it makes less sense to apply the designation.

Our friends at the Pew Research Center have seen the same trend among Americans descended from folks who hailed from Hispanic countries: Almost all first-generation immigrants identify as Hispanic, but their children and grandchildren are less likely to do so.

Has overturning Roe v. Wade changed adoption patterns?

We don’t have enough data quite yet. We do not see adoptions of younger children rising in the states with abortion bans based on the CPS, but a better picture will emerge as more detailed data is released and our friends in academia start cracking their knuckles, too.

Greetings! The Department of Data craves questions. What are you curious about: What we now know about LGBTQ+ America? Whether Substack newsletter revenue is still growing? Who’s most likely to move in with their in-laws after marriage? Just ask!

If your question inspires a column, we’ll send you an official Department of Data button and ID card. We’ll mail this week’s envelopes to Hanlon, Foster, Herman and a ton of other readers, eveincluding Marvin J. Wolf in Asheville, N.C., who asked about Korean adoptees; Lesley Morgan of Carrollton, Tex., who asked about the effects of Roe being overturned; and David J. Smith of Rockville, Md., who asked about the geography of adoption, among other things.

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The Morning

A new insight into donald trump’s rise.

We examine data on economic mobility.

By German Lopez

A common theory about Donald Trump’s appeal is that working-class white people feel they fell behind as other groups pulled ahead. He recognized the sentiment and spoke to those voters’ concerns.

It turns out that those concerns are grounded in real economic changes, a new study from Harvard researchers shows. The researchers analyzed census and tax records covering 57 million children to look at people’s ability to rise to the middle and upper classes — their mobility — over two recent generations. They found that it had improved among Black people and deteriorated among poor white people, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows:

Change in expected income between generations

Income at age 27 of children who were born poor

–$2,050

(Born in 1978)

(Born in 1992)

The study’s full findings are nuanced, as Ashley and I explain in a story that The Times published today . Black people still, on average, make less money than white people, and the overall income gap remains large. But Black Americans who were born poor have gained ground while their white counterparts have lost some, narrowing the longstanding gap. That shift can help explain why some voters’ attitudes have changed over the past couple of decades.

Cutting in line

After Trump won in 2016, many journalists — myself included — turned to the sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s book on the American right, “Strangers in Their Own Land,” to try to understand what had happened. Hochschild provided a helpful analogy, one that resonates with the Harvard study’s findings.

It goes something like this: White working-class people in red states saw the American dream as a queue moving people to prosperity. Over the past several decades, thanks to globalization and other changes, the queue stopped moving. And other groups have moved to the front of the queue. As a result, working-class white Americans often believe that their shrinking mobility is the result not just of outside forces like globalization but also of other groups that supposedly cut ahead.

The Harvard study suggests that white working-class conservatives were right when they felt their own mobility had slowed, or even reversed, compared with that of Black Americans. (The researchers did not find significant changes for other racial groups.) The study also found that white people born into high-income families have seen their mobility improve — meaning the drop in mobility is restricted to the white working class.

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Method enables fast, accurate estimates of cardiovascular state to inform blood pressure management

If patients receiving intensive care or undergoing major surgery develop excessively high or low blood pressures, they could suffer severe organ dysfunction. It's not enough for their care team to know that pressure is abnormal. To choose the correct drug to treat the problem, doctors must know why blood pressure has changed. A new MIT study presents the mathematical framework needed to derive that crucial information accurately and in real time.

The mathematical approach, described in a recent study in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering , produces proportional estimates of the two critical factors underlying blood pressure changes: the heart's rate of blood output (cardiac output) and the arterial system's resistance to that blood flow (systemic vascular resistance). By applying the new method to previously collected data from animal models, the researchers show that their estimates, derived from minimally invasive measures of peripheral arterial blood pressure, accurately matched estimates using additional information from an invasive flow probe placed on the aorta. Moreover, the estimates accurately tracked the changes induced in the animals by the various drugs physicians use to correct aberrant blood pressure.

"Estimates of resistance and cardiac output from our approach provide information that can readily be used to guide hemodynamic management decisions in real time," the study authors wrote.

With further testing leading to regulatory approval, the authors said, the method would be applicable during heart surgeries, liver transplants, intensive care unit treatment and many other procedures affecting cardiovascular function or blood volume.

"Any patient who is having cardiac surgery could need this," said study senior author Emery N. Brown, Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Brown is also an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School. "So might any patient undergoing a more normal surgery but who might have a compromised cardiovascular system such as ischemic heart disease. You can't have the blood pressure being all over the place."

The study's lead author is electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) graduate student Taylor Baum, who is co-supervised by Brown and Munther Dahleh, William A. Coolidge Professor in EECS.

Algorithmic advance

The idea that cardiac output and systemic resistance are the two key components of blood pressure comes from the two-element Windkessel model. The new study is not the first to use the model to estimate these components from blood pressure measurements, but previous attempts ran into a tradeoff between quick estimate updates and the accuracy of estimates; methods would either provide more erroneous estimates at every beat or more reliable estimates that are updated at minute time scales. Led by Baum, the MIT team overcame the tradeoff with a new approach of applying statistical and signal processing techniques such as "state-space" modeling.

"Our estimates, updated at every beat, are not just informed by the current beat; but they incorporate where things were in previous beats as well," Baum said. "It's that combination of past history and current observations that produces a more reliable estimate while still at a beat-by-beat time scale."

Notably, the resulting estimates of cardiac output and systemic resistance are "proportional," meaning that they are each inextricably linked in the math with another co-factor, rather than estimated on their own. But application of the new method to data collected in an older study from six animals showed that the proportional estimates from recordings using minimally invasive catheters provide comparable information for cardiovascular system management.

One key finding was that the proportional estimates made based on arterial blood pressure readings from catheters inserted in various locations away from the heart (e.g., the leg or the arm) mirrored estimates derived from more invasive catheters placed within the aorta. The significance of the finding is that a system using the new estimation method could in some cases rely on a minimally invasive catheter in various peripheral arteries, thereby avoiding the need for a riskier placement of a central artery catheter or a pulmonary artery catheter directly in the heart, the clinical gold standard for cardiovascular state estimation.

Another key finding was that when the animals received each of five drugs that doctors use to regulate either systemic vascular resistance or cardiac output, the proportional estimates tracked the resulting changes properly. The finding therefore suggests that the proportional estimates of each factor are accurately reflecting their physiological changes.

Toward the clinic

With these encouraging results, Baum and Brown said, the current method can be readily implemented in clinical settings to inform perioperative care teams about underlying causes of critical blood pressure changes. They are actively pursuing regulatory approval of use of this method in a clinical device.

Additionally, the researchers are pursuing more animal studies to validate an advanced blood pressure management approach that uses this method.

They have developed a closed-loop system, informed by this estimation framework, to precisely regulate blood pressure in an animal model. Upon completion of the animal studies, they will apply for regulatory clearance to test the system in humans.

In addition to Baum, Dahleh and Brown, the paper's other authors are Elie Adam, Christian Guay, Gabriel Schamberg, Mohammadreza Kazemi and Thomas Heldt.

The National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, a Mathworks Fellowship, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and The JPB Foundation supported the study.

• Heart Disease
• Hypertension
• Today's Healthcare
• Blood Clots
• Personalized Medicine
• Stroke Prevention
• Wounds and Healing
• Laparoscopic surgery
• Robotic surgery
• Minimally invasive procedure
• Blood transfusion
• Blood pressure
• Mechanical ventilation
• Plastic surgery

Story Source:

Materials provided by Picower Institute at MIT . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Taylor E. Baum, Elie Adam, Christian S. Guay, Gabriel Schamberg, Mohammadreza Kazemi, Thomas Heldt, Emery N. Brown. Dynamic Estimation of Cardiovascular State From Arterial Blood Pressure Recordings . IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering , 2024; 1 DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2024.3408808

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