<p>What else is new? You don’t actually need to be “smart” to actually go to a good, tier-1 school. High school is just a game, and it rewards those who plays it the right way. In other words, whoever is the most pretentious and goes out of their way to fill up their resume the most will get into college. </p>
<p>My friend, who isn’t exactly “smart”, just got into UNC…</p>
<p>There are a couple of straight up dumbasses I know that got into UVA.</p>
<p>100-300 pages comes from several sources, not one book. It is like assignments from 2-3 books+ several research papers. At least this is normal in my humanities/social science courses. Science classes cover 2-3 chapters a week at least, so these add up to like 40-60 no matter how technical it is.</p>
<p>I’d say I get abour 400 - 600 pages of reading per week. Plus research. I can’t believe some universities hand out degrees for 40 pages of reading per week. The number of complete incompetents with a college education occasionally astonishes me.</p>
<p>Basically, there are rigorous schools and there are “dumbing down” schools. Say for example, Harvard gives most of their students A’s or B’s, where as MIT does not. I seriously doubt there is any differences in intellectual abilities among these two group of students. Obviously, this topic has been discussed in many CC threads already. </p>
<p>On the flip side, college is a training ground. At some point, reading 100 pages is about the same as reading 1000. At some point you will reach the point of diminishing return…</p>
<p>I saw a book in the library, [The</a> Five-Year Party](<a href=“http://www.thefiveyearparty.com/][i]The”>http://www.thefiveyearparty.com/), that basically made the same assertions that colleges and universities do not emphasize learning enough, based on the author’s experience as a faculty member at a third or fourth tier four year residential college where he faced pressure from students and administration to reduce the workload of the courses he taught.</p>
<p>Also, regarding low effort students choosing easy courses, note that there is a widespread belief that law schools and medical schools care little about how difficult a course load an applicant took, so loading up on easy courses to raise one’s GPA is commonly believed to be the way to improve one’s chances to get into law school and medical school.</p>
<p>And let’s not forget that culturally speaking, the American “college experience” doesn’t necessarily have as much to do with education and academics as it may have in the past. It’s little wonder American college students are lagging behind Indian and Chinese students: they take their education much more seriously than we do. For many American students, college may as well be a four-year party without parental supervision.</p>
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<p>Grade inflation is a separate issue from “dumbing down” academic curricula, entirely. If you think Harvard’s courses are “dumbed down” you think wrong.</p>
<p>Hello Mr. President (DE), I recommend the following paper for your reading pleasure.
[A</a> Quest to Explain What Grades Really Mean | HeraldTribune.com](<a href=“http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101226/ZNYT02/12263009]A”>http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101226/ZNYT02/12263009)
[The</a> Truth About Harvard - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/03/the-truth-about-harvard/3726/]The”>The Truth About Harvard - The Atlantic)
Cheers!</p>
<p>@ PioneerJones,</p>
<p>Chinese university system today is not what it was 20 years ago. Kids today are just as lazy (if not worse) in universities in China. I am talking from a person who had gone through the Chinese system 20 years ago.</p>
<p>JanofLeiden: I already know what it feels like to have to read that much. I had one political science class (Arab-Israeli Conflict) last year that was 400 pgs/week alone. And then I had 4 science/math courses along with it. That was an extremely tough semester.
DwightEisenhower: I’ve never actually seen any material from Harvard (like homework, P-Sets, or exams) and am kind of curious of science courses in particular (I think some profs. here could do better). I’ve seen MIT’s (OpenCourseWare), and know that some of our class sections (notice I said only sections b/c I realize like us, MIT may have several different profs. for the same course) in the psychology and neuroscience department are flat out tougher (like one intro. neuroscience course here seemed to include topics for like 2-3 of theirs and the exams in that class were harder here merely b/c of the format). Also, looked at the organic chemistry. Very tough, but at least two professors here rival it. They seem to be doing the engineering style (focusing more on things like NMR/IR) while also focusing on reactivity, but there were hardly any intense biomedical applications, which often appear on ours (the 2 profs.) and make the exams way harder. MIT’s physics, calc., and intro. bio courses kill us of course. I’m just wondering if Harvard gives access (intentionally or accidentally) to such coursework. Would be interesting to compare given that I was surprise that any courses at “meager little old” Emory could stack up to some at MIT (could also compare Harvard and MIT). Then again, difficulty is at the discretion of the profs. and how much time they want to put into the course and what they believe “X-caliber” students should be able to handle. I know some teachers water their courses down to avoid complaints and keep their own enrollment up (especially if they don’t have tenure yet).</p>
<p>Some prof. are tougher than others, even in the same department.</p>
<p>The sheer number of pages read is a pretty meaningless measure of anything. Students who read and discuss fewer pages in greater depth are probably making considerably more “academic progress” than students who give a large volume of text a superficial treatment. In law school, entire classes will often be devoted to discussing fewer than five pages of text.</p>
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<p>What college is this? I can’t imagine that’s even close to true.</p>
<p>theres more to life than studying- americans are learning how to live and not be working robots</p>
<p>Yeah 800 pages per class per week sounds like ******** to me.</p>
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<p>500-800 pages/week/class was the norm for many intermediate-advanced history and poli-sci courses…especially the colloquium/seminar type classes meant for upper-class students at Oberlin. </p>
<p>High school classmates and friends at other topflight LACs/universities had similar workloads judging by their course syllabi…especially during their last year of study if they happen to be poli-sci/history majors.</p>
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<p>Do you have any syllabi for these classes? Because what I can find isn’t even anywhere close to that. For example:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/mblecher/Syllabus%20(239).pdf[/url]”>http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/mblecher/Syllabus%20(239).pdf</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://new.oberlin.edu/dotAsset/2687237[/url]”>http://new.oberlin.edu/dotAsset/2687237</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://new.oberlin.edu/dotAsset/1713763.pdf[/url]”>http://new.oberlin.edu/dotAsset/1713763.pdf</a></p>
<p>Yeah, 500-800 pages/week/class doesn’t sound very unreasonable for upper level history and poli-sci courses at all. I know many people at my LAC who have 500+ pages of reading/week for multiple classes.</p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
<p>One of my spring quarter classes last year assigned 300+ pages of reading a week. (This was, for the record, a first-year class.) Class discussion was atrocious, and by atrocious, I mean truly, truly terrible; the professor was horrible at directing the flow of the conversation, and most of my classmates would simply make superficial comments about the text for an hour and a half. Compare this to another class I took that assigned only 75-100 pages of reading a week; class discussion was much more focused, with a great deal of deep analysis taking place.</p>
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<p>If that’s a first year course, I can understand why most classmates would make superficial comments. Most college freshmen are not used to doing much, if any reading during their high school years, much less discuss it in a critical meaningful manner. Add a Prof who is horrid at directing class discussions and it’s little wonder your class went south. </p>
<p>Then again, if judging by your “Windy City” location and the fact you’re on quarters…I’m guessing you’re at UChicago? If so, your reading load is not unusual judging by what I heard from high school classmates who went there. </p>
<p>Only difference was they actually relished the challenge of managing a heavier than average first-year undergrad workload. Some even claimed bragging rights to jokingly put down the rest of us “college slackers”…including yours truly. :D</p>
<p>Then again, I’ve also encountered many undergrads at lower-level universities and colleges who complain about even doing 20-40 pages* of reading…which begs the question of whether they’re hoping to coast to a college degree without having to do any real work. </p>
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<li>40 pages of reading/week for each course is a lower reading load for some/most courses than even many rigorous high schools…whether public or private.</li>
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<p>Of course it sounds unreasonable. How are you going to discuss 800 pages of reading with any meaningful level of depth in a couple of hours? That’s probably why no undergraduate classes actually assign near that level of reading.</p>