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<p>As hard as I am trying not to get sucked back in to this thread after reading Shiloh’s post ^^^ I just couldn’t sit there. “Dubious asset”??? What could you possibly be thinking in making such a comment? College is about education; to be more specific getting one that matters as well as coming away with a sufficient depth of understanding of a subject so you may use it and build upon it. “Getting through" tough classes does not qualify as an achievement, even when those classes you “get through” happen to be at an Ivy. I did just that as a student, I had a professor from hell in Thermo I, our class test averages were typically around a 30. I got through it with a D, as did most of the class. Did I get a D because I was a “marginal student” that shouldn’t have been there in the first place; I’ll leave that for you to decide, I took SATs once and came in with a 750 math SAT, a 760 physics SAT and a 750 math level II SAT. My problem as well as the problem of many of my peers was a lack of study skills, something we never developed in high school. Extra instruction would have been a god send to us; not just in terms of our grades but in terms of our understanding of the subject material so that we could build upon it and not struggle when we moved on to Thermo II.
When it comes to education at any level, what matters is what you come away with and the extent that your education in those tough classes was really a learning experience or an exercise in survival. The other distinction that you are ignoring or just plain missing in your post is the fact that a comprehensive education at a SA occurs in just 4 years. Even with that SAs like the Naval Academy graduate close to 85% of their incoming class. If that wasn’t a spectacular achievement in it’s own right, consider the fact that a major component of the students lost during those four years leave for reasons other than academics; Plebe summer, physical, honor violations etc. If you looked at just the academic side, the real number is likely to be above 90%. How many parent of Ivy students would like to know going in to their sons/daughters education commitment, that they have a 90% chance of gradating in 4 years? There are no colleges outside the academies that, at the end of the day, really seem to care one way or another whether or not you son/daughter makes it through to the end; if it takes 5 or 6 years all the, better, because after all that’s another $50-100k in their pockets.
Having extra instruction as a resource at the SA’s is a tremendous asset, one that colleges across the country would do well to emulate and does not in any way diminish the quality or perception of that education. Quite the opposite is true.</p>