Why can't engineering be more relaxed?

UB-Vinny77 · November 19, 2006, 12:46pm

I think you go on probation before you are kicked out. so he/she still does have a chance.

Il pass, as I know it would be the same. Same as generic soda is the same as coke or pepsi products. Its all the same, you just put a brand name on it.

In my research on grade inflation last semester in advanced writing, I found out that the overwhelming majority of brand name schools give much higher grades than they ate supposed to in almost all subjects. The truth is the hardest part of the big names schools is getting in. They have ridiculous curves and its almost impossible to fail. This is much more prevelant in humanities, but it still occurred quite frequently in engineering and the sciences.

Lets look at My school, Its ranked #51 in my engineering major according to USNews. While in the engineering courses here my school all have a No Curve policy, which makes it extremely difficult. Other schools such as Cal tech and MIT do Inflate grades and they all are looked upon more highly by employers than lower end schools. This is like a double negative for people in lower end schools.

If you didnt knwo this, employers have a ranking of schools between .1 and 1 percents. The more challenging the school is according to employers the higher the number. Cal tech may get a full 1% and my school may get .75. You then take that number and multiply it by the students GPA. The higher this number the better. So though my research and my own experience, lower end schools don’t inflate grades, but they also have a lowert ranking according to employers. While a school like cal tech has a very high rating and they do inflate grades.

Lets take a look

My turnout with a 2.0 GPA

2.0 GPA * .75(the employers ranking) = 1.5

The Turnout of the Cal Tech Grad=

1.99 GPA * 1 = 1.99.

Now to even say more, since Cal tech inflates the grades that 1.99 wouldn’t be a 1.99 at my school it would most likely be much lower.

I say that the engineer at the lower end school had a much more rigorous time in school to deserve that 2.0 compared to Mr. CalTech.

I have proof if you want, just PM me.

sakky · November 19, 2006, 1:00pm

And same with the no-name school. Don’t you see? BOTH guys will be put on probation. The difference is that it is harder for the Caltech guy to get out of probation. You say that it is not that hard for the Caltech guy to repeat a class. But the guy who went to a no-name school and did poorly can also repeat classes.

In my research on grade inflation last semester in advanced writing, I found out that the overwhelming majority of brand name schools give much higher grades than they ate supposed to in almost all subjects. The truth is the hardest part of the big names schools is getting in. They have ridiculous curves and its almost impossible to fail. This is much more prevelant in humanities, but it still occurred quite frequently in engineering and the sciences.

Lets look at My school, Its ranked #51 in my engineering major according to USNews. While in the engineering courses here my school all have a No Curve policy, which makes it extremely difficult. Other schools such as Cal tech and MIT do Inflate grades and they all are looked upon more highly by employers than lower end schools. This is like a double negative for people in lower end schools.

Oh really? Caltech and MIT inflate grades, do they? Perhaps you’d like to present your research, and take it over to the Caltech and MIT sections of CC, and see what the people over there have to say about it. You should prepare for a firestorm of controversy when you tell them that their grades are inflated. But if your research is impeccable, you should have no fear, right?

Don’t PM it to me. Please, by all means, go over there and prove it to them.

sakky · November 19, 2006, 1:05pm

But why would employers do this? Are employers dumb? You said it yourself - that some schools are more challenging than others, and that is why companies weight their grades more. So are you saying that companies shouldn’t do this and so they are being dumb?

Think about what you are saying here. If an employer is really being dumb, then that means that any company who doesn’t use this particular scaling scheme would automatically enjoy a major advantage in the market, because they would be able to hire people from no-name schools for less money and thus enjoy a major cost advantage which they can use to undercut their competitors and bankrupt them. So why not do this? In fact, why don’t YOU do it? Specifically, perhaps you should start a company that hires only people from no-name schools, pays them less, and then undercut all of the other companies that are stupidly hiring too many people from the top schools.

What you are basically saying is that companies out there are giving Caltech grads undeserved advantages. Well, if the advantages are really undeserved, then the free market ought to be competing this advantage away, right? After all, the free market exists to punish companies who are stupid. And what you are really saying is that there exists an unexploited profit opportunity. So why not exploit it yourself then?

pippyvan · November 19, 2006, 1:12pm

UB-Vinny77:
Are you saying the ave GPA at a top rated school is higher than the ave GPA at a lower school?

No Curve Policy harsher than classes with curves? 
Professors aren’t allowed to fail over half the class (although some may come close). A no curve policy would just mean that your tests would be written so the mean would be somewhere around a 70-80%. Where a class with a curve would allow the professor to make the test as difficult as possible. Usually the mean ends up to be 50-60%. The final grades would just be curved so that a bell shaped curve applies (i.e., 15% get A’s, 25% get B’s, and so forth). Contrast that with a no curve policy, the points would just be added up, and what you total pts add up to is your grade in the class.

sakky · November 19, 2006, 1:12pm

I think we have forgotten about one thing. The top-rated schools have BETTER students. Grades are based on competition. Let’s face it. A lot of no-name schools are filled with students who are not that good. Obviously some of the students there are good. But many are, frankly, of mediocre quality. I don’t want to be overly harsh, but a lot of them aren’t particularly smart, they don’t want to work hard, in short, they’re not that good. Again, I emphasize that they’re not ALL like that. But a lot of them are like that.

So take a guy who is doing poorly at Caltech. He can still probably do better than those not-so-good students at the no-name schools, and hence he would still probably pass.

What you need to do to ‘prove’ inflation is take the same quality of student and demonstrate that such a student would have gotten a higher grade at one school vs. another. You have to control for the quality of the student, in terms of some proxy, i.e. SAT scores, or high school class ranking, or whatever it is. If you can demonstrate that, then you might be able to demonstrate inflation. I am particularly interested to see whether Vinny can convince the people on the MIT and Caltech sections of CC that those schools are really grade inflated relative to his school, once controlled for student quality.

katho11 · November 19, 2006, 1:45pm

I’m in my school’s honors engineering program, so I’ll admit my experience at Tech is a bit different than that of a lot of students.

However, the kids in my classes all scored in the top 10% on the ACT/SAT (most that I know of had composites of 29, though), and around a quarter scored in the top 1%. A lot of us had the opportunity of being accepted (and many were) into high-ranked schools but chose our school over them for various reasons.

I don’t know as much about the kids in regular engineering, but don’t even try to say that we aren’t as intelligent as kids at top schools just because we chose a lower-ranked school. I’m sick of people blindly labeling lower-ranked schools as crap.

sakky · November 19, 2006, 2:12pm

Did I ever ‘say’ they were crap. I am simply saying that certain programs have better students than others.

I think you have conceded this point implicitly. You say that ‘we’ chose a lower-ranked school. But let’s face it. What you ‘chose’ was an honors program at your school. Most students at your school had no choice in the matter. IT’s not like they got admitted to your school and Caltech and MIT, and chose your school. Most of them didn’t get admitted to Caltech or MIT, or didn’t even apply to those schools (probably because they knew they wouldn’t get admitted). So it wasn’t really a “choice”.

Don’t get me wrong. Most of us don’t get to “choose” what we really want to do. For example, when I went to college, I didn’t get into my first choice, and I freely admit that I would have gone somewhere else if I had gotten in. And then when I went to get my master’s degrees, again, I didn’t get into my first-choice. In fact, the vast majority of people never get into their first-choice programs. So I am simply making the observation that holds worldwide - that at your school (like almost every other school), many students didn’t really “choose” to go there, but are there just because they didn’t get into where they really wanted to go (or didn’t even apply because they knew they wouldn’t get into where they really wanted to go). There’s no shame in that.

But it also means that we have to admit the truth of what is really happening. You said it yourself - your honors program is different. What about the ‘non-honors’ program? Do you think those students are as good as the honors kids? Of course not. That is why it is called an honors program. And in fact, if you had not gotten into the honors program of your school, but just gotten into the regular program, would you still have taken it? Probably not. You would have probably taken that offer from the better-ranked school. In fact, I am fairly certain that most of your colleagues in the honors program would have gone elsewhere if they had not gotten into the honors program, but were just admitted into the regular program.

And in fact, when you go out interviewing, I am quite certain you are going to state on your resume that you are in the honors program of your school, right? Of course you will. I know I would. But why? Simple - because you are trying to separate yourself from the non-honors kids. In effect, you are going to label yourself with that ‘honors’ signal so that you can separate yourself from the rest of your school.

But don’t you see - that is the SAME THING. You say you are sick of people ‘blindly’ labeling lower-ranked schools, but then you are going to do the same thing when you ‘label’ your resume with your honors program designation, because you want people to know that you are ‘better’ than the non-honors kids. So how is that any different from some guy from MIT also using his ‘label’ to separate himself from the crowd? It’s all the same thing at the end of the day.

katho11 · November 19, 2006, 3:47pm

I was admitted into A&M’s engineering…I didn’t apply anywhere else (other than IIT…where I was also accepted to and offered scholarships, but no biggy) but I would have been competitive with other students for admittance to a top school had I any interest in going anywhere but Tech. But…one of my good friends was accepted to Purdue, my roommate was accepted to Tulane, one of my guy friends was accepted to Duke, several others to Georgia Tech…need I go on?

The main reasons I’m in my school’s honors program are for honors housing and early registration, actually. It’s true that the people in honors generally have higher ACT/SAT scores, but I’m not in honors because I’m “better” than the kids that aren’t in it. I’m just in it because I’m willing to do the extra work for the perks.

The honors engineering courses are more involved, but we’re basically tools for them to improve their overall engineering program. They try out the whole living/learning community, robotics stuff, group design projects, etc on us to see how well we do and then implement the things that worked for us on the new kids coming up in both engineering programs.

There’s no way I wouldn’t have been admitted to the honors program, but yes, I still would attend Louisiana Tech if I weren’t in honors.

It may be hard for you to believe, but some people really don’t care about how highly ranked a school is when they know how great it really is (in my region my school is highly respected for engineering even though most people on CC regard it as a no-name school) or if it’s just the right fit (even if I get out of biomedical engineering, I’m sticking with Tech because it’s my second home). I can only speak for myself when saying why I chose my no-name school over other schools, but there are far greater concerns on most people’s minds than rank.

I can agree with you that there are a lot of schools/programs that aren’t up to par with others, but labeling a school/program as inferior based solely on some stupid ranking system isn’t right. There are a lot of great schools/programs with great students that don’t get the attention they deserve. For example, Louisiana Tech was the first university to have an undergraduate Nanosystems Engineering degree program…not MIT.

sakky · November 19, 2006, 4:21pm

Uh, when I said “they”, I think I was pretty clear I was talking about the non-honors kids. And not all of them. I think you have to agree that some of the non-honors kids are there because, frankly, they didn’t get into anywhere else.

What’s so shameful about admitting that? I admit that I didn’t get into my first-choice school for undergrad. In fact, the vast majority of people don’t.

Look at it this way. I am fairly sure that there are plenty of non-honors kids who would like to be in the honors program (for both the perks and for the privilege of ‘saying’ that they are in the honors program), but are unable.

First off, I never said that it should be the ‘only’ thing on everybody’s minds.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Ranking does matter. You say that you don’t care, but trust me, OTHERS CARE, and in particular, EMPLOYERS care. It’s all well and good to say that you don’t care about ranking, but what then happens when you don’t get the job you want because the employer prefers to hire somebody else from a higher-ranked school? Look, you can’t pay yourself. You can’t hire yourself (unless you start your own company). Much of the value of college is a branding exercise to make yourself look desirable to employers. You might say that this is undesirable, and it may very well be. But that is, like it or not, the way that the labor markets work. Most people go to college because they want to get a good job, and many employers care about college brand name. Like it or not, that’s how it is.

Uh, did I SAY that I was using a particular ranking system? I don’t think so. I am making the simple observation that the quality of students at certain schools is higher than others. MIT, for example, has a very high quality of student, on average. I think that’s indisputable. It is this quality of student that largely drives how desirable a particular school is to employers.

I hardly see how this proves that much. I’m quite certain that MIT could carve out its own NanoSystemsE program too if it wanted to, just out of its existing engineering departments. It doesn’t really want to do that, but it could. In essence, many of the existing programs (i.e. MatSci) probably serve right now as ‘de-facto’ NanosystemsE programs.

But anyway, that’s not really the point. My point is, we have to admit to ourselves that certain schools have better students, on average, than other schools. For example, can we at least admit that the quality of students at MIT is, on average, better than the quality of students at Louisiana Tech? I freely admit that MIT has better students than my undergrad program does. So if we can agree on this (and I think this is indisputable), then we have to inevitably reach the conclusion that employers would know this and adjust accordingly. Let’s face it. Louisiana Tech students are not as intelligent and as qualified as MIT students, just like students from my old undergrad school were not as intelligent and as qualified as MIT students. That’s not to say that there weren’t individual students at both places who are just as good as anybody at MIT , but on average, I think the trend is clear. Just like the MIT undergrads are, on average, not as good as MIT grad students. I don’t think there is any shame in admitting that there are groups of people who are better than your group.

katho11 · November 19, 2006, 11:25pm

I agree that the average MIT student obviously has higher stats than the average Tech student, but I don’t agree that those stats make them “better” or higher “quality” than people at lower-ranked schools. Their higher stats also don’t guarantee higher intelligence or greater potential.

Also, employers in my area are very much aware that Louisiana Tech produces great engineers (and employees in general). In fact, many of them are Tech graduates themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them are turned off by graduates with the ugly little elitist attitudes that folks at top schools seem to so widely share, either.

Mr_Payne · November 20, 2006, 12:10am

Choosing an easy school was a big factor for me.

rocketDA · November 20, 2006, 1:58am

Supposedly, CMU (for grad) multiplies some school’s student GPAs by “Q factor” to weigh them against other schools. Can you guess the two schools that have Q>1?

katho11 · November 20, 2006, 2:22am

I’ll bite. Which two schools get 1+?

rocketDA · November 20, 2006, 2:28am

can’t tell you yet. it’ll spoil the fun.

katho11 · November 20, 2006, 2:42am

Of course.

sakky · November 20, 2006, 9:59am

Well, just think about it from a reputational standpoint. If Louisiana Tech (or my old undergrad school) really produced grads that were, on average, as good as MIT grads, then Louisiana Tech would have the reputation of being the best engineering school in the country. School prestige is not a ‘random’ phenomenom. Society didn’t arbitrarily “decide” that one school should be more famous than another. There are reasons that one school is deemed to be better than another. Just like there are reasons for Ohio State being deemed the top college football team the country right now.

Look, nobody is saying that Louisiana Tech is a ‘bad’ school. And I’m sure that your school offers plenty of job opportunities.

But we have to agree that some people do in fact probably know more and work harder than others, on average. Obviously this is a statistical argument and so doesn’t apply to EVERYBODY. For example, just because you smoke doesn’t mean that you’ll die young. Heck, my grandfather smoked 3 packs a day and still lived to be over 90. But even he would concede that smoking is an unhealthy thing, and he would tell his grandkids not to smoke.

Similarly, you say that stats don’t automatically guarantee that somebody is quality. But they are highly correlated with quality. After all, think of it this way. MIT’s students have high stats. But what does Louisiana Tech use as admissions criteria, along with every other school? The same kind of stats, meaning high school GPA and standardized test scores. If stats don’t really mean anything, then why is Louisiana Tech using them as admissions criteria? Is your school admissions committee being stupid? If so, then perhaps you should contact your school’s adcom and convince them that they’re being stupid for relying on stats that don’t mean anything.

Besides, I’ll put it to you this way. If you get consistently higher grades than somebody else at Louisiana Tech, do you think you deserve to get a better job or better grad school placement than that guy? I think you would. But why - after all, college grades don’t automatically equate to quality either, right? But you would think you deserve more than the other guy because you worked harder and know the material better than that other guy. In fact, I am quite sure that you would feel somewhat miffed if you saw that guy end up with a better job than you did, even though you worked harder. So is this a matter of elitism? If it is, I would characterize as the elitism of the meritocracy. The guy who worked harder and got better grades deserves a better outcome than the guy who didn’t, according to the norms of a meritocracy.

But look, the point is, whether we like it or not, society is out to judge and label people. We can complain about it all we want, but that’s the reality of the situation. When employers come in to recruit, they don’t come to give job offers to just anybody, but to only certain people that they deem to be ‘the best’ (whatever that means). And when it comes to layoffs and promotions, they are going to promote the ‘best’ people and layoff the worst people. That’s judging and labeling people right there. When your prof has to decide who gets an ‘A’ and who gets a ‘F’, he is supposed to give the ‘A’ to the top students and the ‘F’ to the bad students. Again, that’s a case of judging and labeling people. In fact, your own program, the honors program, is another case of your school judging and labeling people, because not everybody gets into the program, either because they’re not good enough or they’re not willing to put in the hard work, or whatever it is. Don’t you see - at the end of the day, this is all the same thing. Whether we’re talking about MIT, or honors, or high grades, or getting/not getting a job, at the end of the day, this is all a matter of judging and labeling people, whether you like it or not.

monydad · November 20, 2006, 11:10am

"Their higher stats also don’t guarantee higher intelligence or greater potential.

Also, employers in my area are very much aware that Louisiana Tech produces great engineers (and employees in general). In fact, many of them are Tech graduates themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them are turned off by graduates with the ugly little elitist attitudes that folks at top schools seem to so widely share, either"

This was the reality in two areas of the country where I worked. Engineering hiring is highly regional, and the best regional engineering schools were highly overrepresented in company management hierarchy, and in recruitment efforts.

These firms are able to find state college grads that are “plenty good enough” for their purposes. That’s who they hire, mostly, and that’s who goes on to run their companies.

If you want to eventually work for an engineering company in one of these regions, frankly I see no reason to look beyond the most regionally respected state u. Even the second or third most repected state u will have significantly more representation there than the ivies, MIT, etc. At least that was the case where I worked.

merper68 · November 20, 2006, 12:00pm

2 schools - Caltech and MIT?

rocketDA · November 20, 2006, 12:59pm

merper68 -
close.

Dirt_McGirt · November 20, 2006, 3:59pm

My guess would be that rocketDA’s urban legend from Harvey Mudd has Harvey Mudd being one of these two schools. At least we have a completely unbiased and substantiated source for this tidbit of information.

Why can't engineering be more relaxed?

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