<p>Happened while I was composing. However, you will note that there was no refutation, no attempt to go deeper. No EXPLORATION, if you will.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why? I could have made the same assumption just given family income numbers. I could make the same assumptions about physical strength if you just told me that one group was full of farm kids and the other of suburban kids. That wouldn’t make the assumption true in all individual cases, but it would be playing the odds.</p>
<p>As for your assertion that “mode” would be a better way to measure this class, you are aware that mode could be just two kids, and that the other kids could vary wildly, right? I will say, though, that it would have been better if I’d said “median, mean, and mode” or, better still, just said that every kid had a 1500 and every kid had a 1200.</p>
<p>As for not occurring in the real world, have you never heard of reductio ad absurdum, and its usefulness in exploring abstractions?</p>
<p>Tarhunt, you don’t know me, and I may be wrong, but I think you are a little too sensitive. I think your posts are great, even the ones I disagree with. </p>
<p>Everything doesn’t have to be useful, and there are varying degrees of useful.</p>
<p>The probabilty angle…</p>
<p>The numbers may show that if the average person that goes to Yale, he might succeed 87% of the time and if the average person goes to Rhodes hemay succeed 33% of the time, but those numbers may not reflect me at all.</p>
<p>I may succeed 100% of the time at either place. So the decision for me is what school will I like better, and what is more inexpensive.</p>
<p>Most people posting here have kids that are more likely to succeed than the average kid.</p>
<p>“I have a higher standard for “rational” that you do, I suspect.”</p>
<p>Tarhunt - the exploration and probing often take a while, even here on cc. Give the poor readers a half hour or so, anyway.*</p>
<p>And, I agree with dstark. Sometimes things are so well thought out and summarized that they engender more appreciation than elaboration. That is how I felt about your post #161. I might well have elaborated and probed, referred back to it, etc. as we go on. But you kind of pre-empted that, at least for the time being.</p>
<p>Respectfully,
jmmom</p>
<p>*okay, I see it’s been 2 hours. Time flies when you’re having fun.</p>
<p>Countingdown, don’t you find it disturbing that a school will permit a first year student to take graduate level courses? Perhaps your son is a true geneius in math, the only field that I know that stepping immediately into graduate level courses is possible.</p>
Do you really want that to be your position on your fellow posters? </p>
<p>I’m sorry we don’t meet your standards for worthwhile discourse on these topics. Have you ever thought you may not meet everybody’s standards either? </p>
<p>What about my question about your 1500 /1200 post? Where are these schools with kids who average 1500? And what about my query about narrowing the numbers a bit? Does you opinion stay the same at 1400/1300? Where is your personal breakpoint for lively? How do you factor in UMich and Berkeley having SAT ranges in CR in the same grid as let’s say …Rhodes? Do Michigan and Berkeley not meet your standards for lively? Do any public colleges? </p>
<p>Sorry, but your posts are not the end of the discussion, nor do they seem to me to be divinely inspired. ;)</p>
<p>I didn’t answer your question because the answer is obvious. I thought you were just yanking my chain.</p>
<p>The obvious answer is that, as class size declines and as the scoring differential declines, observable differences in class performance would decline because the difference becomes statistically insignificant and the measuring tool, observation, would not be accurate enough to measure small differences.</p>
<p>padad,
DS is very good in math, but he’s not a math genius, as he would say. The dept. he interviewed with is not math (but both depts. are ranked very highly on a national level). He knows people from his HS who have gotten very advanced placement as high schoolers and as college freshmen at this school. Based on specific personal knowledge (which I won’t get into on this list because it involves other people’s kids), DS could get upper division (undergrad) placement in two subjects, with the opportunity to start taking some grad classes by mid-sophomore year. For a kid who wants to double major and attend grad school (and possibly pick up a teaching credential along the way), this may be a feasible (and, with merit $$), a financially smart route.</p>
<p>rorosen,
What I’m not a “big fan of” is unnecessarily biting remarks that are not called for. Clearly you disapprove of my observations and those of many other people on CC who have noticed similar things about particular colleges & U’s I have noticed. I “blacklisted” no one. (Hence, the lack of a list.) That is also not to say that there are many students that do quite well for themselves & enjoy the heck out of a college that has a narrower range of high school backgrounds & life experiences than some (often larger) U’s & colleges. </p>
<p>The title of this thread is “your kid.” I addressed the OP’s question directly. (Sorry if that’s not “quirky” enough for you.) I enjoy sideways responses. I just don’t enjoy, nor respect them, when they’re unnecessarily bitter & personal. I did not attack you, yet you’ve taken the opportunity publicly here to put me down, then categorize my natural reaction as somehow being indicative of deficiencies in my creative ability, preferences, & insight.</p>
<p>What I have said often, & particularly to the sudents on CC & in their forums, is that neither prestige nor published statistics nor anyone <em>else</em>'s reaction to a particular college, is important to an individual student’s success. What has proven to be the best predictor of a student’s success at any college (assuming no interfering non-scholastic factors such as emotional crises, drinking, drugs, etc.) is that student’s comfort level in that environment. That is why, I repeat, plenty of students do quite well in colleges where the <em>average</em> level of ability, going in, is not outstanding. They do well because they’re happy there, which could be for a variety of reasons. Conversely, it matters not how prestigious or challenging or exciting the school is, in itself. If the student is not happy there, that student is unlikely to thrive & excel. </p>
<p>The OP asked about “your” kid. Not about other people’s kids. My response was that <em>my</em> kid would not be happy at places where lots of other kids would be perfectly happy & in fact do well. Such inappropriate places (for my child) include both not-very-selective private as well as highly selective schools with upper-level math geniuses, which may also feature the absence of range of abilities & differences in learning styles.</p>
<p>Whoever posted the point about Olin, thank you. Three cheers for Olin.:)</p>
<p>I want to see where your line is drawn. I’m not being defensive or coy. Any way you’d like to express it is fine with me. SAT scores have been bantied about but I’ll take just about anything. And I’m not asking you to defend it (at this time). I’m just trying to see where your line is, not where “the” line is but more than that I’m trying to get this thread back to civil, if I can.</p>
<p>(Edit: Which I now see may have just left the building. Drats. )</p>
<p>I am all about happy and thriving kids. I also have a kid that would not be happy (or might be happy, but would not “thrive” as much) at a whole bunch of schools, even if other people’s kids would be or are.</p>
<p>Such is the way things are. Different strokes for different folks.</p>
<p>Coming late to the party. I agree with much of what Tarhunt said in post #161, but in the above quote, the odds are stacked. What about a mediocre prof with great students in a small classroom? A great prof with mediocre student in same type classroom? A great prof with great students in a large classroom? There are many variations. I heard one prof who went to Harvard as an undergraduate waxing nostalgic about the large lecture classes he’d attended because he learned so much in those survey classes. He was trying to counter the argument that small is always better.</p>
<p>If you’re not being “coy,” why ask questions that are mathematically obvious?</p>
<p>Even your follow up question is obvious. There can be no breakpoint because it will vary by class size and the accuracy of the measuring instrument. Since the measurement instrument isn’t very accurate, it would suggest that a noticeable break point would be a fairly high number. </p>
<p>I have no opinion on classrooms at Berkeley, Michigan, or Rhodes. I have never taught in any of those places.</p>
<p>I haven’t been able to read through all of the pages of this topic, and the later ones seem to have digressed somewhat, but the overall discussion has been fascinating.</p>
<p>I personally may have to make a hard choice between a top-25 university with a more-than-full-ride scholarship and a top-10 LAC with no money at all. The choice may seem obvious, but the problem is that I would probably prefer a LAC. </p>
<p>There are several factors to consider other than cost and prestige – strength of and access to academic programs and fit with student body are my top two. Ultimately, I think that before you even consider a major scholarship you have to make sure you actually want to go to the school. If you don’t, no amount of money will make your four years there four years well spent.</p>
<p>On the topic of SAT scores: I’d agree that a group of people with higher mean or median SAT scores would be more likely to display a certain type of intelligence. But I would vehemently disagree with any suggestion that they would be more interesting, dynamic, or lively. </p>
<p>If anything, I’d argue that a group of people that had a high standard deviation of SAT scores – that is, a group with many data points spread out from the group’s mean score – would be more interesting, lively, and dynamic than a group with homogeneous scores of any value. Colleges do well to have book-smart students, but I’d bet that a college with only students who got 2400s would be anything but dynamic. There’s a good reason colleges consider other factors in admissions.</p>
<p>marite, I completely agree with you that small is not always better. Too many other factors in the mixes, such as you named, contribute to quality & result, or perception of result. My d <em>hates</em> small classes, hates them. She has eliminated every LAC from her college list. In her case, personality is much of that, but in the case of other students (some of whom I have taught, for example), they really do learn better in the larger environment, for a variety of academically-related reasons.</p>
<p>Well, only if you think a classroom benefits from students who sit there like bumps on a log during class discussion while only one or two people have anything useful to say or, more importantly, useful questions to ask.</p>
<p>I have taught many classrooms with widely divergent scores. I see no advantage in it.</p>
<p>here’s my experience with a similar situation–when it came time to choose a college, I had 3 main options:
the best-regarded undergraduate program in my (intended) field, with no aid.
half-tuition at a top-20 LAC
full ride (tuition, room, board, fees, plus a stipend) at a mediocre state school.</p>
<p>I went with #2 and it was great for me: I made amazing friends, had the latitude to try courses in lots of fields, was challenged academically but still got good grades and had time for extracurriculars/ part-time work, and felt part of a very supportive environment. my college experience inside and outside of the classroom helped me get where I am today: a top-ranked graduate program, where my undergrad school gave me a sizable scholarship to help me attend. </p>
<p>sometimes I think about the fact that had I chosen options 1 or 3, I’d probably be happy: in one case richer, in one case poorer; in one case almost definitely in a different field than I’m heading towards now. Somewhere out there is the best friend I would have made at school #1 or school #3. But that’s not a productive way to live my life–I love the path that I’m on now, I love the best friend I made at school #2 (and all the other friends), and I’m thrilled things worked out as they did.</p>
<p>I think in the good aid v. good school dilemma, there’s only one sure-fire bad choice: to attend whichever school you end up choosing with anything less than a willingness to soak up whatever that school offers.</p>