@blossom – I wish to correct your spelling error in your post # 77: The college you refer to as “the hardest college in America” is spelled Carleton with an “e” and not Carlton. For our very-capable freshman daughter at Carleton College, the jury is still out as to that characterization. But she does find the classwork a challenge, and it has become increasingly stressful as she progresses in her STEM classes.
Apologies- I disabled spellcheck on one of my devices.
I shall refrain from lauding your D’s school in the future! 
Spellcheck wouldn’t have caught it. “Carlton” is the most common spelling of that name - “Carleton” is a less common variant. It’s still a great school either way.
Re #89: "The average grade at Harvard is A- so it is pretty hard to get a C there. "
Assuming that you are academically apt enough to have been admitted to Harvard, at least.
I would imagine that a student who was academically and motivationally several standard deviations below Harvard’s standard would stick out like a sore thumb. If they wound up there somehow.
The standard of the submitted work/ knowledge to garner that average A- grade is probably pretty darned high, compared to most other places.
Way back when I was in college, a dorm-mate was a grader for a freshman English class. A sibling who TA’d a similar course at Harvard came to visit, and saw some of the work being graded. The sibling said the standard of the submitted written work was far below what they received at Harvard. My school was Cornell University. FWIW, students from all of its colleges took these freshman courses, not just Arts & Sciences students.
re #97, there can be a difference, in my mind, between academically “selective”, and having the lowest admissions rate. The thread makes most sense if it is interpreted as meaning the former.
There have been several colleges, such as those cited, where the admissions pool was historically considered to be more self-selective than at most other schools. IIRC, back when I was applying, U Chicago had a relatively high admit rate, but was nevertheless still categorized as “most selective” in the admissions guides. Its class average SAT scores were very high.
There are schools that have low admit rates but the pool is not so segregated, or selected, by academic criteria.
Curtis is highly selective but academics is not the main factor in admissions, I imagine.
Just one data point, but I took German starting at the beginning at a large public research university. mathmom took the same course at Harvard–don’t think she will mind my mentioning this. We read the same book, Der Richter und Sein Henker, by Duerrenmatt. But she read it in the second semester of the first year courses, whereas I read it in the second quarter of the second year course. I don’t have a way of comparing how closely or intellectually we were both examined on it.
When I took humanities courses, we typically had three books to read–not “text” books, but serious books on the topic. QMP at an Ivy typically had 10. The only course I took with 10 books to read was a literature course, and the books were largely ones I might have read for pleasure.
This can vary very much as Harvard students/alums who are academically mediocre slackers do exist. One Harvard Prof I had for a summer who had taught there for over 20 years stated something along the lines of “You may be surprised that there are plenty of academic mediocrities among the Harvard undergrads(Meaning Harvard College)”
Said Prof singled out recruited athletes and developmental/actual legacies* as the ones who particularly stick out as mediocrities in his experience.
An uncle who was himself an Ivy graduate(Columbia SEAS) had to put up with an inexplicably incompetent secretary who was a Harvard engineering graduate for 10 years.
Said Harvard graduate was placed as secretary because my uncle was the junior-most recently promoted engineering exec and the senior execs needed to find a place where that Harvard graduate could do the least amount of damage after being forced out of the core engineering departments and sales & marketing because he happened to be the idiot nephew of one of the influential partners at the firm.
As soon as that partner left/forced out 10 years later, the rest of the partners and my uncle finally had the chance to do what should have been done decades ago. He still regards that Harvard engineering alum secretary as the most incompetent employee he’s every had the dubious pleasure of supervising in his long engineering career spanning several decades.
It’s one of the reasons why he told his own kids during their HS years that if they ever decided to apply to Harvard to study engineering, they were on their own when it came to financing their education.
I’ve also worked with a few HY graduates who made one past supervisor wonder how they managed to get admitted…much less graduate. Not surprisingly, none of those particular HY graduates survived the probationary period.
What makes schools like Harvard and peer elites special is that one has a far greater chance of meeting super-genius types or above-average intellects passionate about their respective fields and far less chance of meeting the academic mediocrities compared with a directional-level public/private college.
However, that doesn’t mean one there are no academic mediocrities at such institutions or their numbers are so small you’ll never encounter one in class there or in one’s professional/social life.
- Those who are children of alums with notable professional achievements in their fields, celebrities, and/or those who are wealthy enough to donate tens of thousands to the alma mater each year at the very least.
Interesting.
I’ve seen some astoundingly abysmal writing samples from Ivy undergrad/recent graduates including those from Harvard. And many of them had the benefit of a respectable/elite private day/boarding school education.
To add: Some while ago on CC, a Chicago student mentioned that his reading assignments for a course at Chicago came to 100,000 pages, for one course (one quarter or one semester, whichever Chicago is on).
It’s arguable that the Ivies even want to bring in a portion of their class who aren’t the very top academically in order to fashion the type of environment that they want.
None of them have any desire to become the old UChicago or present Caltech/Mudd, after all.
Chicago is on the quarter system.
That’s corresponds with what I’ve heard from colleagues/HS classmates who were UChicago alums.
It’s also a reason why my circle of HS friends had an old dark joke whenever we’re asked why we didn’t consider applying to UChicago or schools with similar reputations: “If I was somehow admitted to UChicago, it’s very likely the exceedingly high academic rigor/workload would result in me graduating in a box.”
Some of the friends who used that half-joking reply are now HYPS/peer elite university alums.
I read @cobrat post at 106 and I agree with it completely based upon the number of Harvard students I have met.
The one thing that struck me about Harvard and it is probably true for a lot of the elites is the amount of resources. There is no fighting for classes. There is lots of TA and other help. Summer opportunities seem abundant.
Do the math. A quarter is about 2.75 -2.5 months.
You meet twice or three times a week. How can you possibly get to 100,000 pages? Absurd. However, if you want to get into UChicago or top ivies, perhaps work on your grammar a bit.
A quarter is 10 weeks of instruction. Reading 100,000 pages in one quarter means reading 10,000 pages per week.
@ucbalumnus : Chicago is one of those “complaint” schools. Sure it is quite rigorous, but many students there take the complaining/brag-complaining a bit too far, using hyperbole (in a way that convinces you that they are being truthful) to gain sympathy or applause. It is completely unnecessary. Most people get that Chicago was and is still pretty tough. Well, I guess it is better(more justified) than when students at some other schools do it. Basically the places where students were mainly aiming for a social experience but act surprised and caught off guard when courses were not necessarily a pure skate fest for them. They then proceed to claim “grade deflation” because they are, you know, just too smart to get Bs in college, even in STEM courses at an elite! lol. There is that and the fact that many students are naturally (as in, it is understandable that one only knows their context and what they have “heard” about elsewhere) misinformed about grading norms and level of courses at other schools.
^^My cousin (who graduated from U Chicago and now works in the finance world) loves to say that U Chicago was where fun went to die.
Can there be more selective than Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, CalTech, Yale, Princeton? Wal-mart beats them hands down - 23,000 applicants for 600 slots, a measly 2.6%. More difficult to get into than Harvard or Yale. If Wal-mart were a reach, Harvard and Yale would be safeties.
http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-mart-receives-23000-applications-2013-11 >-)
Have you not heard of grade inflation ? Google it.
Re: the number of pages in one course at the University of Chicago, for one quarter. As any professor knows, the fact that reading is assigned does not necessarily mean that all of the pages will be read. As any student knows, the chapter he/she skips is the one that will be most important for the exam.
It is all finacial based first and then what makes sense second imo.
The college experience may be better at elite or privates, but I just highly doubt the education is much different if we are talking undergrad level.
Given the lack of value in today BS/BA market why pay more? Except to say “My son or daughter went to blah blah blah.”
All the Doctors, PA’s, NP’s, Lawyers, engineers went to normal state flagships.or public colleges except a Stanford and a Tulane, it made no difference on there career at all!!