Hardest colleges to stay in

kyledavid80 · February 7, 2008, 4:47pm

No source for this, I see.

No, as bluebayou said, it hasn’t. Everything (or at least most of what) I’ve said is also supported with data.

No, it isn’t clear. There has been no positive evidence of such.

Again, this discussion is largely over. All those who are adding their opinions now are doing only that, as above.

atomicfusion · February 7, 2008, 5:09pm

Yeah, seriously. 9 full pages and not one mention of Mudd when it is at least as hard of a school to stay in as every school listed so far besides Caltech.

Mudd has an 88% graduation rate (as of last year), which has gone up over the last few years. US News estimates the “predicted” graduation rate at 95% based on the strength of the students. No other top school is even close to the -7% difference (besides Caltech at -6%). In fact, most of the top schools have higher actual graduation rates than the “predicted” ones.

atomicfusion · February 7, 2008, 5:17pm

Other hard schools to stay in:

Caltech
MIT
Cornell
Cooper Union

I can’t really think of many others that deserve to be up there. Chicago and Reed have a strong case, but they don’t have engineering. Olin could possibly be up there as well but I have no idea about how hard it is to graduate from there.

kyledavid80 · February 7, 2008, 5:21pm

I think the fact that Chicago and Reed are as rigorous as they are without engineering is more than enough for them to qualify as some of the hardest colleges to stay in.

atomicfusion · February 7, 2008, 7:43pm

True, but still not on the same level of rigorousness as MIT, Caltech, Cooper, Mudd, and Cornell Engineering.

Humanities can be made really hard and I’m sure they are at Chicago and Reed. However, I don’t think that reading and writing assignments are on the same level of rigor as science/engineering problem sets. They might take as long, or longer, but that doesn’t make them as rigorous. Humanities classes require a lot of work here too in the 5Cs, but everyone just views most of them as more of a time suck than a mind suck.

kyledavid80 · February 7, 2008, 7:49pm

You’re obviously biased. =p Tell that to the students who are failing their writing assignments because reading critically and writing well are acquired skills that can’t be mastered by a memorization of a formula, a quick learning of an equation, or a studying of an application. It really depends on who you are, and for many, language is not something easily parsed and understood.

Not to mention that language courses are well-known to be some of the most difficult – after all, you’re acquiring another language.

Well, we’re not really talking about just engineering. We’re talking about the overall school. The fact that Chicago and Reed have such graduation rates without engineering bringing down such is a testament to their rigor.

atomicfusion · February 7, 2008, 8:36pm

Students at Mudd are required to take more non-science courses than the vast majority of tech schools and the majority of the students find them to be a reprieve from the rigor of the technical classes. Pomona is one of the top colleges in the country, certainly on the level of Chicago and Reed and CMC is very well known for their Econ and Gov programs, which are common for Mudd students to take, yet despite their reputation, their students find these classes to be much easier than the technical curriculum of Mudd. At the Claremont Colleges, Harvey Mudd generally has the least amount of cross-registered students since those here are aware that the classes here are simply more rigorous.

Some classes required for all students have over four hours of in class time a week (For the same amount of credit as a normal, 3/wk 50 minute class) with 2 problem sets due each week. Experimental Engineering, required for all Engineering majors, has 2.5 hours/wk of lecture and six hours of lab. Not to mention that the norm for most liberal arts colleges is 4 classes per semester, while at Mudd it is 5 plus labs which run from 2-8 hours of time a week. The Reading/Writing SAT scores for Mudd students are comparable to those at all top Liberal Arts universities, the only difference being their clear superiority in the sciences.

Also, I’ve never heard of anyone to claim that language courses are some of the most difficult, in fact, I’ve mostly seen the opposite.

kyledavid80 · February 8, 2008, 1:07am

You assume I’m talking only about Mudd. I’m not. Why do you assume that I am (and in turn defend it)?

In addition, Chicago =/= Mudd.

And I’ve mostly seen that they are. Your claim would lead me to believe that the language courses offered in the consortium are simply not rigorous, but I have difficulty believing that. Think about it: your brain is attempting to a) learn words that cannot be broken down into familiar morphemes, b) parse the words into distinguishable phonemes, in order to find a separation in the words, c) attach meanings to the words and recall them in less than a second, d) inflect the words accordingly (nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.), e) arrange the words in the appropriate order, and f) do all of this at the same time, very quickly. The learner is required to gain skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The lexicon of vocabulary required to get the process started is not small, either. Couple that with a (most likely) new writing system, and learning another language can be very difficult.

From what I’ve seen, students tend to struggle in college-level language courses. Even students who have taken a few years of a high school language struggle, though high school courses in language are usually a joke. In college language courses, the curriculum is usually structured around words + grammar (where the students have to learn tons of new words each week, master the grammar quickly, etc.), and develop their skills in the four modes of language quickly. Often the class is conducted in that language.

I don’t know why students at Pomona/CMC/wherever else would think language courses are easy, but from my own experience (taking language courses and seeing many others do the same), they tend to be very rigorous, easily enough to rival math and science courses in difficulty. It’s a different kind of difficulty, yes, but the effect is still the same.

sakky · February 12, 2008, 12:39pm

Uh, in the absence of hard data, we have to work with what we got.

Besides, why don’t you ask this of others? I see plenty of assertions on this thread and numerous others that are not supported by any data whatsoever. I, on the other hand, have an official Berkeley webpage that supports what I am saying. I am also offering a way to resolve this issue once and for all (see below). Others offer nothing at all. Yet I don’t see you questioning their methods.

I’ve seen sakky make a claim in several threads that is being doubted in this thread. It may be that the “clash” observed here on what happens to UC Berkeley engineering majors if they get poor grades in engineering is simply a result of old information being compared to current information. If so, it should be easy to resolve the issue. I’ve just been reading David Hume’s famous writing on what evidence is sufficient for believing a miracle, and this provides a basis for deciding which of the clashing positions has more face-value plausibility. Since the claim by sakky himself is that Berkeley’s policy, as he describes it, doesn’t make sense, there is more plausibility to kyledavid’s statement that Berkeley doesn’t operate as sakky says in current practice. Therefore I will ask sakky to back up his statement with the best available current evidence that we can all read and digest. Anything that happens on the campus of a public (that is, taxpayer-supported and government-operated) large research university with a vigorous campus newspaper surely must be written about by someone. There should be quite a few documents on the issue in dispute here posted on the World Wide Web for all of us to see. I’d like to see links, and I’d like to see as much evidence as possible about what actually happens to Berkeley students in impacted engineering majors if they decide to switch majors. A lot of us out-of-staters want to know more about Berkeley, and this seems like a fine thread in which to gain a better understanding of the situation there.

I would hardly say there is more “plausibility” to kyledavid80’s assertions than mine. I have provided the specific website that details what L&S requires for engineering students to switch. I think that is strong prima-facie evidence that some engineers (particularly the ones who do poorly) will have difficulty transferring to L&S.

Now, I agree that it is not definitive evidence (but there is also no definitive evidence to back kyledavid80’s assertions. So let me suggest a way to obtain the data. Why don’t the 3 of us (you, me, kyledavid80), as well as any other interested parties, jointly write an email to the advising group of L&S and specifically ask whether engineering students are given a break when they attempt to switch? That way we will have an answer in writing, and more importantly, engineering students who do have difficulty in switching will be able to reference this email.

But of course, if the advising staff refuses to answer, or refuse to explicitly state that engineering students do indeed get a break, then that should also serve as something that students ought to consider.

And other students (past and present) agree with me. So what’s your point?

Exactly. There is complete ambiguity - which means that somebody with a 3.2 can STILL be denied (because L&S never actually said that anybody with a 3.0 would automatically be guaranteed a switch).

EECS is also the by far the largest engineering major. Hence, any particular engineering student is more likely to be subject to the (harsh) EECS grading than the grading of any other engineering major.

sakky · February 12, 2008, 12:41pm

Not once have I ever disputed that many engineering students - i.e. the ones with decent grades - will most likely have little problem in switching to L&S.

The issue is what happens to those who don’t have decent grades? What happens to them? What I would really like to hear from is somebody who has terrible grades and yet was still able to switch over. Or, better yet, why not follow my proposal to jointly email L&S and ask them whether they would admit engineering students with, say, a 2.1 GPA.

bluebayou · February 12, 2008, 12:57pm

sakky:

I DID e-mail L&S, and the answer was yes, they can be admitted.

sakky · February 12, 2008, 1:01pm

The question is not whether they CAN be admitted. I am sure they CAN be. The question is whether they WILL be admitted, and specifically, how L&S will treat such students with such low grades.

Here is what I would consider to be definitive proof. If it is really true that, say, any engineering student with a GPA of X (where X is less than 3.0) will indeed have no problem in switching to L&S whatsoever, then an advisor in L&S should have no problem in drafting and signing a document to that effect. After all, if it is really true that such engineering students never have any problems, then why wouldn’t they be able to say so in writing?

If such an advisor is unwilling to sign such a document, then that fact in itself would be quite telling. Then it becomes a matter of what sort of statement that advisor would be willing to sign.

sakky · February 12, 2008, 1:07pm

I assume you’re talking about the CNR.

Since there is no evidence that I am aware of, again, to resolve the issue, why don’t we email them too?

Hardest colleges to stay in

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