However, the grading curve could be higher at more selective schools. For example, at a more selective school, the median could be set for a B+/A-, while at a less selective school, the median could be set for a B-.
True, but even where the curve is higher, the students motivated to seek the best future destinations will still shoot for the highest possible grade. And most of the class may be so motivated.
My son had a pretty good notion as to how well Arabic was taught at different schools through doing three different study abroad programs in Jordan. One of the things he learned was that Tufts had one of the most rigorous language programs, but so did U of Mississippi. No one else came close.
One college classmate found 1 year of Mandarin Chinese at our LAC was the equivalent of 2 full years of Mandarin at a non-flagship in-state public U.
Consequently, his initial plan to take the equivalent of second-year Chinese there so he could leapfrog into 3rd year Chinese at our LAC in the fall was a non-starter.
@cobrat Your friends must be geniuses. When you were in college, Harvard’s social studies concentration was selective; not everyone who applied was accepted. It also produced a disproportionate percentage of “junior 24s”- the top 2 dozen students at H. (The way PBK works or at least worked at H you had to take tough courses across the spectrum.) it was also an overrepresented concentration among Harvard Rhodes and Marshall scholars. The idea that it was a “gut” is preposterous.
@mom2and : I was an undergrad more recently and saved a lot of my course materials which means I can just “donate” my course materials to course hero and get access to content. When I was curious I would mainly pull problem sets and exams from STEM courses and maybe like econ or popular “business” courses. I would make sure that I was comparing roughly equivalent courses by hitting up departmental websites and reading descriptions. Often syllabi are quite empty and lack detail so aren’t as useful. A more reliable source is a course website when made public by a professor that has been teaching a popular/weeder course for years. What you find with many is that there are very minimal changes, even at those selective institutions that have increased their SAT range substantially. What is more interesting is that often course websites post information about grade distributions and you can compare like a current cycle of the course to one as much as a decade back and you may notice hardly any change (not much of an increase in a STEM course) yet assignments are still the same level. But the only problem I have with my own cynicism here is that STEM already has self-selection of higher scoring students (perhaps statistically significantly higher than the rest of the student body), so they are also less susceptible to large increases in the SAT IQR. At selective schools, they were already high. Even at Emory, where I went, I suspect that while the overall scores of the student body substantially lag similar caliber schools, those in STEM may at least look more like your average students (statistically) at peer institutions. I mean, how much higher can they go. I know some selectives with engineering schools( which have separate admissions) are now almost recruiting statistically (in terms of SAT/ACT) perfect students.
But in general I agree with you. It is hard to tell. Until investigating, I thought Emory’s STEM courses must have been substantially easier than all the schools in its tier (like Vanderbilt, CMU, WUSTL, GTown, USC, Berkeley, Rice, that tier), but it really just depended on the department and not scores. Like it wasn’t great at all in physics and math but was among the better in things like biology, neuroscience, and chemistry. And it was also just different in many other classes perhaps because the lecture track faculty have more influence on the curriculum and teach a large amount of students and experiment more with pedagogy. Lecture track faculty are controversial but do, by job description prioritize teaching and it reflected in the subjects I mentioned.
@ucbalumnus and @monydad I think you are both correct in some cases. There is research supporting the harder curve theory of selective institutions (it is what I alluded to before where instructors at the selective will make tests that yield 75 average or lower, and to do this is often much more difficult than at less competitive places. They have to write borderline unpredictable exams that do not directly test content learned in class. They require students to derive, extrapolate, or reason through fairly new or nuanced scenarios. This is especially the case for exams in the 60s and lower) and this still happens at seemingly southern institutions even if selective. Like Duke, Emory, and Vanderbilt, Virginia, Tech, etc still set many of the more difficult STEM courses to B- or B and sometimes a little lower (though Duke is maybe making B/B+ more common). However, at many selective privates, especially those up north (minus maybe Penn and Cornell), B+ or B/B+ is common in tough STEM courses. However, I would argue that even the southern schools with great students will see more parity with their northern counterparts when you hit upper division courses that are not core courses (definitely in electives and non-stringent core courses).
@Saint68 , using my own daughter again, she is your second example in #1. She worked really hard and attends the reachiest school she got into. She is not at all overwhelmed. She actively rejected a scholls where she thought she would be one of the highest achievers because she does not want to be at the top. She is shy, too much attention:-)
For #2, she prefers to be challenged, but her biggest consideration was to be in a college with other hard working, smart students.
Selectivity does not necessarily equate with rigor. For some highly selective schools, getting through the gate is much harder than staying in the pasture.
@Lindagaf : Fortunately for her, at a school with hard working, smart students, often the B students are able to get the attention of faculty members especially if their course is rigorous. Often many faculty members end up enjoying the insight of students who maybe do not test the best in their course but do have great ideas and would otherwise be great in the field as a researcher or teacher. Many of the A students may actually fly under the radar because they got their grades by simply doing as they were told. The A students who get the recognition or are singled out are usually just extraordinarily gifted and perhaps also have ideas that a conventional student would not. In fact, at Emory I know several of the more rigorous STEM faculty (like for general biology or organic chemistry) will take certain B students (where the conventional wisdom only says take those with an A) in as TAs for the course because they may have demonstrated ability to explain concepts to colleagues(and a passion for the material) and a great understanding of the material even if they didn’t always perform super well on exams where they were under pressure. In this case, many higher performing students may not be the best at relating to others struggling through the material and may not even have any passion for it (sometimes faculty get tired of cookie cutter high performers who are mainly just obedient. One must keep in mind that many of their university instructors were not Perfect Patricks and Patties either even at the most selective schools. It takes an extra helping of motivation, resilience and even creativity that constant attempts to maintain appearances of perfection may not yield).
They may just perform well under pressure and do what they need to do to get past the class unscathed so may not even retain as much of the material. I think any school where many instructors demand enough from and go even further to inspire students to learn are capable of creating success stories out of their imperfect students. I feel like I am essentially such a case. I think being challenged was very beneficial because I did learn how to learn (basically became much more of an intrinsic learner) quicker and at higher levels than I would have otherwise (in addition, I was fully covered by financial aid so took the risk of taking the more challenging courses simply because I could afford to. Glad I did, because those instructors were not only better but provide great mentoring to this day). Turns out, it helps me to be successful in my research which is kind of in a field that I thought otherwise was out of league and certainly not on my radar.
My story: I switched to chemistry (I did my UG in biology and tried out a Pharmacology lab for an NIH PREP because I thought that was the ideal field to see overlap between chemistry and biology. Was not the biggest fan…) so decided to do a thesis MS at GSU (convenience. They paid a small stipend, offered a tuition waiver, and were in Georgia, my homestate. Seems most schools are phasing out masters so do not offer anything in the way of financial relief or support) and being in graduate classes with many of those students, I am honestly glad I did not go to a school where I coasted because I notice that many who did (including undergraduates there in the honors college who have VERY high GPAs) struggle a lot more with newer content (usually I would have seen it in undergraduate courses perhaps as early as introductory courses in a field) in the graduate division courses simply because the undergraduate courses were not pitched at a level to challenge those at the top of the distribution there. For the most part, I can pretty much say that my training, even in classes where I didn’t score well (some sort of A I guess) made the transition between these disciplines a lot easier. And the coursework was mainly a joke/distraction to me (on top of the easier graduate school grading, some courses were just that much easier than many of my undergraduate STEM courses in terms of cognitive complexity so I didn’t have to put in much effort. There were some doctoral students who did UG at Tech, and it was like that for them as well). Now I get to move on somewhere else and start a PhD in computational chemistry/structural biology or medicinal chemistry (I am thinking Tennesee now because I will likely end up working at Oakridge given my field of interest which has been a dream of mine. In addition, I got a huge fellowship!), fields I would not have even tried (and certainly would not have completed) if my undergraduate training did not teach me to think quickly on my feet.
However, much of this is up to course selection of students. If college is a stepping stone and you need to just get through unscathed so that you can show off a pretty transcript to say, a professional school (mainly medical and law), then being challenged may not be the best or should be done in moderation, but in cases where your training really does influence your performance (and not just access to) in the next step, I think a more challenging school or curriculum plan cannot harm you if you are capable of doing decently (not necessarily meaning A/A-) in most courses. There can be many indirect benefits in the long-run such as the mentoring I allude to which remains a resource (and reference letters!) that I can tap into. At many selective schools, perfection is not required for greatness or a fruitful academic experience. Everyone wants it and it may be a worthwhile goal, but it isn’t necessary to optimize one’s experience and in some cases may hinder it.
My kid is at Harvard studying in a STEM field. Some classes are academically difficult and some aren’t. It depends on the professor more than anything. The average grade at Harvard is A- so it is pretty hard to get a C there. Some professors will tell you that there are no tests only psets and 90 per cent of the students are getting As. Some professors will make it more difficult. A lot of how difficult it is at Harvard depends on how difficult the student wants to make it.
There was just a Yale joke on the Rachel Maddow show (about the difficulty of failing a class there).
My son attended both a directional state U and a state flagship. He said there was a huge difference in both the quality of the students/classes and the pace of the classes. He estimate that the state flagship (go blue!) covered about 50% more material in the same time frame. Average grade was about the same.
@collegedad13 : I bet there is certainly a lot more variation after intro courses at Harvard but my general understanding is that unless you take some level of an honors course (like math and physics have like 2-3 honors levels), you generally have one section per offering for many STEM intro courses. That one instructor thus dictates the whole cohort’s experience which is not true for many places (where 3 or more instructors may teach the course and there may be no standardization, so you will have much more variation. Seriously sections of say…ochem at my school ranged from HYPM level to maybe much less competitive state school. Some of the weaker instructors pitched their courses only but so much higher than GSU counterparts for example which I consider “standard level courses”. And there are actually indeed some selective schools who have no instructors going much beyond standard level. Like my school, they do standard level at a faster pace and maybe do some “hand-waving” on more in depth content in lecture but would actually never test students at that level). Also, I know schools that offer very rigorous honors courses like your Harvard tier undergraduates basically offer “relief” for those taking those honors courses by grading much softer or making a grade much more achievable under less high stakes. Like math 55 and similar classes may be mostly problem sets and take home exams HOWEVER, those assignments are usually very demanding,
Again, after looking at some H classes versus the counterparts at many other very selective schools not in its tier, perhaps the H students deserve a bigger grade inflation since grades among these elite schools are kind of being used as more of an external signal (as thus as a competitive tool) or interschool comparison tool than an internal standard. Also, I think, from my knowledge, there are intro. STEM courses at H with only a B average which is normal. Often the wide distribution requirements allow for ways that students can craft a more “balanced” schedule in lieu of taking a couple of classes that may grade on the lower end. Those in an engineering or STEM intensive school may not have this luxury as much.
I think there are some more infrastructural differences that account for why H tier schools can pitch “weeder STEM for the masses” at a higher level than other selectives. But I will not bore you with the details, I have already done enough of that
I just bet that even at H, the STEM grades are bit lower than those in other depts.
@bernie12 wrote
You attribute that to the department, but I attribute it to the kids attending-Emory is well known for producing a lot of medical professionals, and the Emory medical center is top-notch (we make the drive all the way down there for the glaucoma specialist for my FIL, for example). The kids that attend Emory wanting to become doctors are pretty impressive (I’ve talked to a few doing residencies there while at the medical center).
The kids who are phenoms in math and physics are all across town at Georgia Tech.
@MotherOfDragons : You could be correct. Even in the 1990s, due to the pre-health draw at Emory, I remember reading an article from my cell biology instructor. He is a top lecture track faculty and was leading a series (in a journal) on whether or not survey courses were necessary and if so, how they should be taught. He wrote his own piece mentioning that maybe like 30% of students back then taking introductory biology had AP/IB credit and many more had at least taken the course and maybe foregone the exam. Today, you probably have that same rate of AP/IB students but also tons who have done some interesting research in STEM for more than one summer or even year before attending. The same can be seen in chemistry and neuroscience. It is indeed like some students are essentially primed well before coming to succeed in those fields or as a pre-health. And it may mean that you have more instructors who feel comfortable challenging students at unusual levels (especially given its SAT range which almost always lagged the others, but is now especially lagging). You can definitely see self-selection biases into the classes of top instructors with instructors so notorious for teaching and their intensity that students often hear about it from either parents or older siblings. I know my organic instructor and another has an almost legacy effect where, despite its difficulty, if a younger sibling attends Emory is a science major, the older one recommends it.
Same happens to another section, like one section of general biology which had an instructor I took an honors lab with (who apparently recently had 2 students who seriously attempted to make an E.bola kit,and even this introductory psychology professor who is known for a course that has an even distribution across all letters) Basically, the background of many of the students perhaps allow them to do much more than their SAT scores suggest. Not only that, but a good chunk are WILLING to do more and this may be because of a de-emphasis of things like sports or lack of a super intense party scene to distract students (do not get me wrong, students there were/are very busy with extracurriculars and socialize a lot, but the venues that facilitate over-indulgence in the latter are not as intense as, say D-1 schools). Also, despite its lower selectivity, when Siemens was around (only recently discontinued right? Now there are other competitions), it was one of the few medium sized places (so excluding USC) in that tier who could more consistently pull some of the semi-finalists and finalists (mainly those interested in life sciences and healthcare) and many more ambitious enough to participate, so there were some pretty “pointed” admits.
You have many instructors who can give two cares about the standards you could hold students to (they just want to do research and keep students out of their office so will water it down. Happens everywhere else too) and you have a solid threshold others on the other extreme that clearly believe that many of the students should be aiming to get as solid a training as you can. They know that if they teach well, they can pitch the course as they want or have a completely different course delivery format and the students taking them will not complain as much as they would elsewhere (even at other selectives). It has more of a “suck it up and do the work” culture. It is why you do not see tons of threads that ask “how hard is Emory or is there grade deflation” getting many responses or getting varied opinions. It isn’t something that is constantly discussed. Students don’t act oppressed to the point they want to come somewhere like CC and discuss it (I notice there are many schools apparently like that, even outside of the ones known to be super rigorous like an MIT or Caltech. They are ready to swear up and down that their school has bad grade deflation and then you go look at the courses they are talking about and go “wow! Really, this isn’t unusually challenging to begin with”. They complain among friends some, but ultimately just do the work and ultimately appreciate the instructors who push them. It could be that departmental norms and institutional culture morphs with the behavior and attitudes of the students, but again, things like social culture (are you a D-3 or D-1 school?) can play a role.
There is clearly a difference at a directional State U and a highly selective flagship or private. The question is more whether classes at a super elite and a just plain highly selective school will be all that different. Most kids applying to an Ivy or other top school do not end up at a directional State U.
Bernie, thanks. looks like you have done a lot of research.
@mom2and: It really depends on the subject and school, IMO.
Schools that send a lot of their kids in to PhD programs in a field (in either absolute or relative percentage terms) will certainly have one track in that field that is at or near the top in rigor.
There are always a few colleges that are not among the most selective but have a well-deserved reputation for rigor. The University of Chicago is hyper-selective now, but until a little more than a decade ago its acceptance rate was around 40%. That qualified it as “selective,” but hardly more than that. Nevertheless, it was fearsomely demanding and rigorous, sort of an intellectual Parris Island. It remains a little fearsome still, despite dropping its acceptance rate into single digits.
Another college that probably belongs in that category is Reed, whose acceptance rate is also around 40% now. And St. John’s College, the “great books” place, has an acceptance rate close to 80%, and still has a reputation for rigor.
@PurpleTitan : An excellent point. Those schools that produce lots of PhDs have departments that are either more innovative or more rigorous partially because they have a specific track for those aiming for grad school or just flat refuse to cater to pre-professional crowds even in courses for “the masses” (your pre-professional crowd). They basically adjust content and pedagogy to reflect the needs of those doing who plan to do research or get a job in the field. For example, STEM courses will not do much to be “pre-med friendly” (may have more stringent cores or research requirements) and strong political science and economics programs may have stronger statistics/mathematical or research components than normal. More courses will focus on experimental methods, data analysis (even primary literature reading as early as intermediate courses), and higher level problem solving in a field and less content overload. Again, this will not initially comfort most noobs out of an HS curriculum (some who do decently may take up to 2 years to adjust) who have no research or exploratory experiences in said field. Pure memorization and basic level application (like say, learning in a way that prepares you for DBQs on AP social science exams but this is not equivalent to a social science course that forces students to understand the details of a study, how data was gathered, and the nature of statistical analysis) is more comfortable for most and learning faster isn’t as much of an adjustment as learning deeper and faster.
The Mines schools in SD and NM are not that selective, but rigor is there, mainly because many of their majors are ABET accredited engineering majors with relatively high minimum standards.