@bernie12: Indeed, in the UK, averaging over 70% across all tests and papers is outstanding, and pretty no one ever averages over 80%.
@rhandco: I believe the assertion was that the calc classes at (good) engineering programs tend to be equally rigorous (irrespective of admit rate), not that CC calc = regular state school calc = Ivy/equivalent calc, but maybe @CourtneyThurston could clarify.
From my own experience I have found huge differences between top notch and lower colleges. I attended a middling liberal arts college my freshman year. It seemed to admit those well to do students who couldn’t get into a top tier school but still wanted a college with name recognition. In my calculus class, the professor graded everything on a curve and watered down the content, slowing the pace so we never completed much of the material. A chemistry class and creative writing classes were fine, though.
I then transferred to a top notch women’s college, where nothing was watered down and all classes were considered difficult. Most of my classes were taught in small discussions and the rigor was very high. It challenged me to work harder and think more deeply, and the experience was far more rewarding and provided me with long term benefits in terms of being able to meet any academic challenges in my later career and schooling.
Later, I went to a Master’s degree program at a state university. The classes I took there at the master’s and PhD level were the same, or lower, rigor as those I took at the top notch women’s college as an undergraduate. The level of discussion and rigor of thought of the majority of masters’ students just wasn’t there. The class discussions often weren’t worth the time, though the interaction with the professors was rewarding. I felt more like a peer than a student at that point.
I do think the caliber of the students drives the caliber of the learning. If you take classes that are difficult with students who are up to the challenge, then you, too, will rise to meet that challenge and benefit in the process. If you are a strong student and must attend a less rigorous school, make sure you get into an honors track of some kind so you will be around other students at your level. It isn’t fun to be the only student in a class who participates in discussion and who does the work.
@bernie12 Thanks for the link - I am not experienced with the Imperial system so it was an interesting read on page 7. I am a big fan of straight-scale grading as it not only encourages students to collaborate than to compete, but also the professor will carefully design the exams to distinguish between Class 1, 2.1, 2.2, etc. In that sense, the professor is giving sufficient attention to teaching which is what matters.
You can correct me if I’m wrong - I think there is somewhat excessive emphasis on GPA in America as it matters for getting into that selective college, getting a research opportunity, your first job offer, etc. I don’t know if it’s as severe as in the European system. If anything, I think the bigger problem is some universities will still give no lower than B for a Class 3 understanding while another university will appropriately give a C.
@UpMagic: It’s definitely more severe in Europe. Most employers here don’t care too much about GPA or don’t have hard cut-offs (except for maybe >3.0). They care more about whether you’d make a good employee.
Over there, a 2:1 is routinely asked for (granted, the Brits have also had grade inflation so at some unis, 80-90% of graduates get a 2:1 or 1st). At least they have external examiners, though.
How can anyone say unless they have attended both an elite and a less selective school within the last 10 years? This thread is silly. Furthermore, the “harder” colleges have more academic resources. The less selective schools won’t even notice if you stop attending classes. In fact, they won’t even drop you, they’ll expect you to pay and issue you Es. Elites will track you down.
Does Harvard really keep track of attendance in its 700-student CS 50 or Economics 1 classes?
DD was a top student in her mediocre public HS class of 500 including being the most advanced student in math. She is at an elite school, taking regular (not honors) calculus, working hard and getting an A-. She had taken calculus at our local (not community) college as a HS junior and got A’s with very little effort. Her HS friends, who had lower grades/test scores than her, attend our mediocre state school, work less and are getting A’s.
Not all elites…especially research 1 universities. For instance, my Columbia SEAS alum uncle, several older Columbia colleagues, HS classmates from my year at Columbia undergrad(College & SEAS), and younger undergrads from the mid-'00s to the present all recounted most Profs not taking attendance or even caring if one showed up.
While Profs weren’t necessarily apathetic towards undergrads, there was the same degree of expecting the undergrads to be proactive in taking the initiative to seek out Profs/resources rather than the Profs/resources seeking floundering/failing students.
To some extent, Harvard’s the same way. Found from several of their underrgrads that the disappearing act our summer Stats prof pulled at the end of each class and delegating questions to the TFs was par for the course.
He didn’t even bother to list his office location on the syllabus though I managed to track him down* and his somewhat dismayed at first reaction when he saw me walk into his office was as if I battered the barricaded door and smashed it open. Funny part was despite that, our rapport developed to the point by the end of the summer, he enthusiastically offered to write LORs for any jobs/grad schools in the future.
- Well before facebook/google became household names.
Isn’t it clear, from all the responses , that there is no one answer to the difficulty question?
Entertains me, that some still try to come up with generalizations based on anecdotal experiences, theirs or something they may have heard from someone else.
Yep, I looked at the OS finals of a directional, an average flagship, a public known for CS (UMD), Yale, and MIT.
Big difference in difficulty between the 1st and 2nd. Decent difference in difficulty between the 2nd and 3rd. Not as much difference between the last 3. Yale’s asked more creative questions. MIT’s questions weren’t more difficult but the exam had more questions (was longer).
But selectivity isn’t a great barometer. The difference in selectivity between Yale/MIT and UMD is far greater than the difference in selectivity between UMD and the average flagship (even in CS).
What matters more than selectivity, IMO, are the aspirations of a department. If a department is proud of sending their grads in to PhD programs, the curriculum will be tough.
Thus, engineering at UIUC was hard even back in the days when it was almost open admissions (these days, it’s not so easy to get in to engineering at UIUC and is down-right difficult to get in to CS at UIUC, though UIUC’s overall admit rate is still north of 50%). It’s just that the kids who weren’t able to hack the curriculum were weeded out.
@UpMagic : Well, they basically are straight scale grading. 40% is pass and 70% is distinction. They are basically allowing for rigor by setting that criteria. They want to write more challenging items than they do low level items. In America, since academically elite students from HS are just used to scoring 90s-100s on in class midterms (sure AP exams are lower, but you only take them once a year), more typical “rigorous” instructors follow this Dartmouth professor’s protocol of writing an exam:http://enallagma.com/wordpress/2015/05/why-are-grades-higher-in-the-humanities-than-in-the-sciences/ which @ucbalumnus kind of described earlier
Grade sensitivity of post-grad options in the U.S: But I always wonder if this a post super-grade inflation thing. As in an era where GPA, especially those coming from top institutions are so compressed, they have adopted much more stringent cut-offs than otherwise. In addition, this still does not fix the problem that U.S. students often do not respond well to challenging exams that are designed more like what is described in the Oxbridge case where average students will get half or less of the test right. The fact is, even if more instructors pitched their course and assessments this way, there would be a curve and the same distribution would likely be achieved and those who get the A and strong B grades will be those who master the material at a much deeper level. I think this is the part that makes many American students uncomfortable. Deeper mastery that allows one to think more fluidly and think through novel problems takes much more time(you may…gasp…have to attend classes, read the book, complete problems and study much more frequently than before the exam…which will take away from ECs, the purpose of life and college). Students are happier with situations where they are merely required to keep up, which most academically elite students are great at (very fast at learning stuff at level say 1 and 2 of Bloom’s pyramid) and where test is most a bunch of softballs under high time pressure.
At least they feel like they will have a fighting chance at a higher score out of a 100 with an okay amount of effort that doesn’t cut down on social life too much. When being pushed to do problems at level 3 and higher more often (often these instructors give evening exams), there is much less certainty even if you study “hard” because you must instead study smart and effectively to really grasp concepts and be able to use them. These types of exams lead to claims of unfairness in the US but seem like a norm in some other places. I think part of this comes from the fixed mindset attitude of learning instilled in many more academically elite students in US grade school (where those who “just get it” get all the pats on the back and all of the praise. It has been suggested that this leads to a tendency of these students to inherit an extrinsic motivation for learning and a disposition toward an achievement orientation that causes them to avoid more risky and challenging tasks of any sort. They want to be constantly seen as perfect and effortlessly brilliant by others even at the expense of becoming truly excellent as the result of engaging in and struggling through, but ultimately rising to a challenge).
It instills that you are just gifted in something or not and that if you are gifted or good in it, then it should always come super easy and you should never struggle through or be challenged by the area which is quite a perverse message because most experts in the STEM or any field I am familiar with took a lot of training to become a leader in the field and embraced challenging problems in it, even those who displayed early aptitude. We are very often told in so many ways that having promise in something means displaying effortless perfection in it, so a challenging course that makes one really fight for a decent grade in college becomes a huge deterrent instead of a message that you will always actually have a lot to learn in order to truly excel in or understand whatever and learning certain things is not always easy. We love putting effortless perfection in academics on a pedestal in the U.S. which is very interesting considering how much we also value long hours and “hard work” when it comes to a job. I guess we really applaud those for whom it is super easy to achieve a prestigious career with these long hours lol.
Do you have any evidence of this? Most studies suggest that URM’s have significantly lower graduation rates than non-URM’s.
For his kid, OP is raising the topic of highly or most selective colleges. That points to a different subset of kids, to begin with. Not generalizations. Adcoms are vetting for skills needed to succeed, not just stats. Among the range of holistic values, that includes certain drives, an ability to self-advocate, find and accept support, if needed. And more. The top colleges- and certainly, the tippy tops- have strong grad rates.
Plus, OP seems to have made a bold generalization that UR kids come in with less prep. Or, it seems, that what might be a match for his kid is a reach for these others. Not sure where that came from.
There is no straightforward answer to this. It makes sense to say that the more selective school is harder because A) the other students are generally more well prepared and the teacher can move quickly through material without remediation and B) despite rampant grade inflation everywhere, grades are still a competition and its easier to be the A student in a pack of non-A students (you know, the same way it would be easier to be the fastest runner if your competition is people who have never trained very hard vs. Olympic athletes).
However, while this argument may be true a lot of the time, it’s not universally true. Imagine, for example, an ivy league caliber student who decided to try to be king of the hill at a more modest school. He’s not only generally dealing with less student competition, he’s dealing with less talented teachers. He may get sick of their incompetence. He may correct them or inadvertently embarrass them. And these teacher might resent him and grade him down. Also, there are some schools, including many non-competitive conservative Christian schools, where abiding by authoritarian rules is as important than any learning. In such an environment a very gifted student might struggle.
Picking the right school is really about the right fit for the individual student.
With all the good PhDs out there, many working at these other colleges, you can’t call them “less talented.” But the overall student context is different.
Parents involved in this choice need to know their kids, their tolerances and what drives them. D1 chose a school where she knew there would be stronger kids to spark her, keep her on her toes. She is resilient, almost to a fault, and an eager learner, for the sake of that learning, not grades. D2, despite being superbly educated, should have chosen a college where she’d be a little more ahead of the pack.
@Farquhar , I don’t think you understand how deep the academic talent is in the US.
The profs at colleges in the #100-200 range would blow away 99% of undergrads at a tippy-top in their subject of expertise.
Even a few decades ago, when typical GPAs were significantly lower (see http://www.gradeinflation.com ), there were plenty of stories around colleges about pre-med grade-grubbing and cutthroat competition. Presumably, the first-cut GPAs for medical school admission processes were lower then, but the process was still such that pre-meds had heightened awareness of the need to compete on grades to even have a possibility of getting into a medical school.
Knowledge, sure.
But talent? Not at all. The talent of both professors and students follows a bell curve. There is significant overlap among these curves, even among elite college professors and their students.
The talent may follow a bell curve, sure. But we can’t generalize by college tier. There can be good and bad, at any. It’s one reason posters are saying the dept and classes/profs matter.