^ Actually, the median GPA tends to be significantly higher at most highly selective schools. At Brown, for example, the median grade is now an A-. At most public universities, the median grade is considerably lower. That doesn’t mean Brown is “easier.” Brown has great students, and most of them take their studies seriously, work hard, and do well in their classes, and they’re rewarded with great grades. If there’s a “curve” it’s an extremely high one, but for the most part there’s no artificial curve; the professors feel they know good work when they see it, and they grade accordingly. Take the typical Brown student out of Brown and place her at another school, and she’d likely do just as well, even with a rigorous curve.
There is a cultural difference. At many less selective schools you’ll find more of a “sink or swim” approach: the school provides the classroom instruction, but the expectation is that it’s up to the individual student to make the best of it, and many may stumble and fall by the wayside. At the most selective schools, the expectation is that everyone will succeed, not only by meeting minimum standards but by excelling in their studies. They strive for a 100% four-year graduation rate. They expect to launch all, or nearly all of their students into successful careers or the most competitive graduate schools. And as jonri pointed out (post #11), the most selective schools invest heavily in academic support services to help everyone succeed. That, combined with lower s/f ratios, smaller classes, and more accessible professors (especially at LACs more so than research U’s) may actually make it easier for some students to succeed academically at highly selective schools. But it depends on the individual. Some people don’t need that kind of hand-holding and can soar academically even in the relative anonymity and sink-or-swim milieu of a large public university
Gladwell’s recommendation does not reflect the reality that students should choose where to go based on consideration of the most important factor - net cost.
Top HS students can do well anywhere, but if they are chasing need, the better schools tend to be miles cheaper options than others where they get merit.
I am a big advocate that, especially in college, students often learn as much or more from their peers, as they do from the books/lectures.
There may be the occasional exception in the case of community colleges where students specifically target the university and major for transfer. For example, Laney College (a community college not far from UCB) offers CIS 61, which is a copy of UCB CS 61A. It is obviously intended for students hoping to transfer to UCB CS or EECS. However, the Laney course has more class time per week and a higher number of credit units, perhaps based on the expectation that community college students, even those aiming for highly selective transfer targets, may have to work more / harder on average than students already at UCB.
I was going to make the same point @jonri did. There is a lot of overlap between “selective” and “lots of money for support programs”. Being able to talk with professors over lunch or at office hours, profs may go over early drafts of papers, there are writing and quant centers staffed with tutors where it isn’t hard to get timely appointments…these all help students succeed and are the norm at many very selective schools. It’s very hard to get lost in the shuffle and flunk out or struggle for long.
Classes may be graded on a curve that would lower some grades, they all curve up if they curve at all. We’ve had several topics on this subject here on CC and the conclusions are all over the map but IMO it’s an issue worth looking at.
I don’t think larger universities necessarily have the most difficult courses. That’s highly dependent on the critical mass of students such institutions serves like smaller LACs.
IME, most of the graduate level courses I took at an Ivy with one notable exception were on the same level or even easier than the intermediate/advanced undergrad colloquium/seminar classes I took at my LAC.
Some of those grad classes even used the same monographs. Also, the undergrad/grad students in the classes I took/sat in on at that Ivy were actually less engaged and would have been considered wallflowers* in comparison to most of my LAC classmates.
A few of the undergrad even asked me to intercede on their behalf because a domineering undergrad with greater perceived background knowledge was putting them down to the point they were intimidated into silence. And this was after I asked my TA friend and Prof permission to debate/go toe-to-toe verbally with this student even though I was just sitting in at their invitation.
Most classmates at my LAC would have gone toe-to-toe with such a person and engage in interesting and sometimes heated classroom debates upon being challenged in this manner…including yours truly.
Ironically, this was an an Ivy commonly stereotyped as for tough independent type-A personalities.
Glad you started this topic…i have a parallel thread going on here at CC concerning the hurdle of having a certain stat before the holistic side of admission comes into play. That is, we want you to be astonishingly interesting & compelling & involved in your community…but first, you need X stat (to keep the college ratings high) before we look at that side of you. Your note ties in because I believe that a sharp kid can take courses pretty much anywhere and do well…and that the argument of “well a kid who gets a 30 just isn’t as well-prepared for the coursework for an elite college than the kid who got a 34” is not an argument that i buy.
Because it was our family decision to do so. Neither of our kids chose the least costly of their acceptances. Both attended colleges that were terrific.
You are implying that only very costly colleges are selective also…and that’s not true either.
This can vary greatly by selective schools. For instance, I’ve known of many cases of students falling through the cracks at Columbia because the university bureaucracy can be unresponsive, slow, or even lose stuff. I’ve also overheard one senior tenured Prof there lose his temper with an undergrad merely for asking to go over an early draft earlier in the semester while I was waiting for my appointment with another Prof in the same department.
While that Prof had the presence of mind to apologize, IMO that inappropriate emotional outburst shows how even at selective schools…this level of student support is very much YMMV.
Yes it sure can. Some schools offer better support than others. But I think it’s safe to say that schools that are struggling to stay open because not many kids are choosing to attend (so, not selective) aren’t going to have the best staffed help centers or professors with lots of time for their students outside of class.
Phrases like that can be very relative. To most classmates at my urban public magnet, especially those in the top third of my graduating class, my LAC would have been considered “small” and “less selective”.
Also, some of the graduate courses I’ve perused…especially at less selective universities through their syllabi/comparing notes with friends/colleagues who took them had the same/less academic rigor/quantity of work than some of the undergrad courses at respectable/elite colleges/universities.
In the worse cases, they were little more than glorified intermediate/advanced undergrad courses labeled as lower-intermediate level graduate courses.
Interesting chart on spending per students, @AroundHere. I’m a little skeptical of these figures because I’m not sure schools count things the same way, but I’d say the correlation between spending and “student outcomes” is pretty imperfect, too.
We don’t have many good metrics of student outcomes, but four-year graduation rate is one. Generally the schools that spend a lot have good four-year graduation rates, but the correlation is far from perfect. For example, Boston University spends far more per student than Boston College (roughly $58K per student at BU v. $37K per student at BC), yet Boston College has a significantly better 4-year graduation rate (89% for BC, 80% for BU). And Notre Dame has a slightly better 4-year grad rate than the University of Chicago (91% for ND, 86% for Chicago) despite the fact that Chicago outspends ND by a factor of 4 ($212K per student at Chicago v. $52K per student at Notre Dame). And although Columbia outspends its sister institution Barnard by a factor of 10 ($280K per student at Columbia v. $28K per student at Barnard), the two schools have pretty similar 4-year grad rates (89% at Columbia, 85% at Barnard).
Maybe there’s an upper bound on how much spending improves graduation rates. Or maybe the figures are just goofy; I find it a bit implausible that it actually costs Chicago 4 times as much to educate a student as Notre Dame, or that it costs Columbia 10 times as much as Barnard. Or maybe some of it is just institutional culture. At some schools, most students move along together as a group and graduate in four years. At other schools it’s well within the mainstream for students to take a semester or a year off to work on a political campaign, or do some major adventure travel, or do a cool service project. So to that extent, 4-year grad rate may be a flawed metric, and as I said, we don’t have many other metrics of student outcomes.
Some of the oddities in spending per student may be due to the existence of expensive professional school divisions which teach some undergraduate courses or programs and therefore have their costs pulled into “spending per [undergraduate] student”.
@cobrat I think we are in agreement. Part of my post got cut off so it may not have been clear. I am a huge believer in the wonderfulness of LACs. My kid is at one. He works his butt off and his brain is being stretched in all sorts of wonderful ways.
Engaging, interesting and heated classroom debates can and should happen at any college. But if an LAC has an ACT 50% range of 31-33 the expectations of professors are going to be different than they will be for the same subject matter at an LAC where the ACT range is ten points lower (yes, I know this is an imperfect measure of student ability).
As you said, critical mass is the key. Choosing for academic fit is critical if you are considering small LACs in a way that is less important if you are trying to choose between larger universities.
Disagree. I think it’s just as important to consider academic fit for universities as LACs.
This was underscored by several HS classmates who were forced to attend our local public universities when they were at their academic nadir in the '90s due to graduating at the very bottom of the class or due to overly protective helicopterish parents who wanted them to commute from home and found they were effortlessly earning As without even opening up textbooks in STEM classes(i.e. CS) while the majority of the class were struggling to eke out a C-. It didn’t help the university bureaucracy was inflexible and marred with red tape that they weren’t allowed into more advanced/honors courses.
Once they managed to transfer up into respectable/elite colleges such as Reed, Columbia, CMU, etc…they found their academic peers and felt they weren’t wasting their time at large public universities which were poor academic fits for them.
@bclintonk The measure used in the study was post-graduation earning power, rather than grad rate.
You can see some of the difference in spending on college tours- nicer facilities, for example. Some of it is more subtle, in terms of how qualified and involved the teacher is and how much attention individual students get. Adjuncts are cheap, but there are limits to how hard they will work for those low wages.
@hebegebe On the other hand, I imagine that your nephew is a remarkably good student to have gotten into Yale in the first place. What seems “easy” to him is not going to be typical.
In my experience, the more selective schools ARE significantly more difficult and have a higher workload, but the students who attend them are on average significantly better prepared and more driven to succeed, so it washes out. The top schools also support their students well, while at the same time expecting a lot of quality work out of them.
I went to a very selective college and am now taking classes at the local branch of a Big State U. The differences I see (and this is just one woman’s opinion):
—Less reading at less selective school. I read 100pp per week per class in the old days. Now? Maybe 30pp and I think I am the only one reading.( This could be related to differences in today’s students and yesterday’s.)
—Many small projects and tests at less selective school vs a few big projects/papers at selective school.
—Due to form of testing at less selective school, less analysis and more restating of facts.
----Easy to get extensions and special treatment at selective school. Not so at less selective. Rules are rules!
—Like hebegebe says, grade inflation at selective school, much less at less selective. I am not sure how pronounced the difference is. I went to a state law school and the profs adhered to a rigid bell curve when grading (control the number of lawyers in the state!). I don’t think it is so tough in undergrad.
I remember some smart kids and good discussions at my selective school, but I see the same at my nonselective school. I do notice a greater range of abilities in the students in my less selective class.
I think less selective school is easier. Less reading, easier, more discrete assignments. Most students do what they need to do and don’t go further than that.
Some less selective colleges have a more diverse student body in terms of age and economic background. That makes for more interesting discussions.
How to advise a high school student about what to choose? I’d look at those golden oldies, price and fit. I don’t mind my coursework being easier right now. I do a lot of extra reading on my own. But I do miss having to write analytical exams and getting to read challenging, insightful material picked by my prof.