DP: Actually, in many cases, the First Gen kids are often better. - Some admits have had all of the advantages that money and educated parents can pour at them since before birth — from private schools with small class sizes, to tutoring, enrichment activities of all kinds, and parents who know how the system works. Compare them with kids who lacked most or even all of those advantages— and still manage to do well enough to get accepted to top colleges — and do well once they get there. - Doesn’t that make you wonder what those more privileged admits might look like as a cohort — if they hadn’t had lifetimes supported by all of those privileges? |
Prove this. Shouldn’t be hard since it’s something you say they “openly.” And define “standards” while you are at it. |
I refer to the data discovered in the scotus case. The entire premise of affirmative action is that it is okay to lower standards for certain groups to achieve diversity, which allegedly serves the greater good. So I don’t get why my statement is the least bit controversial. You actually think black kids and Asian kids are held to the same standards in any respect? |
There was data that students at Harvard submitted lower quality work and there was pressure to give them better grades? That was your stupid claim. |
It’s the Squid Game school of management. An extremely weird example to use when describing the “real world,” bc the rules are both arbitrary and human-designed, no less so than a hypothetical college with a documented policy that assigns everyone an A. |
No, because (according to my sons' teacher, who constant defends his ridiculous curve) if everyone taking it gets 100% then the test was too easy. |
The reason for the high gpa across these schools is because they permit students to easily drop classes at the end of the term - utilized when performing other than “A” work. The old survivorship bias. |
I can confirm that an ivy, not Yale, this is done. Not sure if this is unique with ivies. Its probably the same elsewhere. |
There's a drop policy - but not at the end of the term. |
Well, I guess that depends upon the goal. If the goal is mastery of a specific set of skills or a specific body of knowledge— and all of the students master that knowledge, many would say that they were good students with a good teacher. Perhaps your “sons’ teacher” has a different goal. |
You can’t “easily drop classes at the end of the term” — it’s much earlier on in the term than that. This type of plan was put in place, at least at Yale, to encourage students to take more academic risks and challenges, and to discourage being overly focused on grades. Also, students still have to maintain a minimum number of courses/ credits each term. So someone taking, say, 5 courses might be able to drop one, while someone taking 4 courses might not be able to drop any courses and still remain in good standing. I’m not clear what your comment has to do with “survivorship bias”. |
Why have grades at all? I would argue differently. I'd say that if you take a group of kids who've been taught to chase for perfect brass rings all of their lives and give them all A's for "effort," you're not encouraging them to take risks, or do more than the minimum, or really anything but rest on their laurels. I mean you kind of have to, because we've collectively decided they're all too delicate to fail. Not all colleges follow this stupid, privileged grading policy, just like not all colleges have their students' work graded by adjunct graduate students making 3k a semester-- |
Your premise is not correct— or at least not universally correct. There really are students who are intellectually curious, highly motivated learners. Many of them get excellent grades. It’s incorrect to assume that they aren’t taking risks , that they’re not doing more than the minimum, or even that they have chasing “for perfect brass rings” as a goal. While this might not be your particular experience, schools like Yale actively seek out these kinds of students. And parents like many who post here complain when their kids who match your description don’t get in. |
It is the bonus season with my employer with a bonus pool of 500K for a group of ten SWEs. They will NOT give out a 50K bonus per employee. There is a ranking system and some will get 100K and some will get 20K. I am being compared with others in my group and everyone can't have the same exceptional performance. It is like a tennis tournament where there is only one winner at the end, then a runner up, semi-finalist, and so on. That's how college should be grading students. Not everyone is a winner. |
Why though? Should the process of being educated be more about competition than mastery? Because you have the kind of job that rewards competition? If so, that suggests an interesting strategy for excellent students: Instead of seeking out equally excellent peers, novel experiences and difficult challenges, they should go where they will most surely win accolades and prizes. Why risk their gpa or class standing or whatever ranking and bonus system that people like PP value so highly. Learning and accomplishments are apparently only to be valued if you’re publicly ranked superior to your supposed peers and get to buy more toys. Is this what people like Felicity Huffman were thinking? Values like this would have Brewster and Giamatti rolling in their graves. But possibly not Schmidt, so, there’s that. |