Why does college prestige matter to you? Rank these reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It matters for my child's future. UVA has nothing to offer for real UMC families. It is great if you want to go into menial careers like engineering or accounting. DC needs a fulfilling career that doesn't just run you stir crazy to make money for others. It has been successful for his siblings who are at Yale and Stanford. I recognize the importance of public education for the lower class and social mobility purposes and that's wonderful for them.

You are an insufferable snob. Go away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It matters for my child's future. UVA has nothing to offer for real UMC families. It is great if you want to go into menial careers like engineering or accounting. DC needs a fulfilling career that doesn't just run you stir crazy to make money for others. It has been successful for his siblings who are at Yale and Stanford. I recognize the importance of public education for the lower class and social mobility purposes and that's wonderful for them.

You are an insufferable snob. Go away.

Another poor underling. I hope one day you can see beyond UVA and see where the elites play and learn. Nothing more sad than seeing poverty eat those in public institutions alive, but I’m sure a secretary position will work wonders for your dc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

surprise!!! Many students aren't going into math or stem. My son scored 5s on all science and math AP exams and does equally as well in STEM--but zero desire to major in it. T10s definitely provide an advantage in his program.

Agree the stem obsession is strange on Dcum. Many brilliant top1% kids pick other fields. And end up in great careers and/or top professional schools.
T10s provide a large advantage to all majors.

My take as a 50+ year old woman with undergrad and grad degrees in STEM- working in the field for over 50 years is it’s a bunch of liberal arts/lawyers/lobbyists/comm majors just so astounded that their kids can do well in STEM, especially girl parents. It’s like they never could do high math and science and think their kids are geniuses.

Our public school system —starting in elementary is very STEM focused. It did get most kids interested in (which is good)- but they did sacrifice a lot of reasoning, verbal, social sciences, arts, etc.

IMO, a truly educated person is well-read and strong in all areas—not just a computer or stem nerd.

My kids are strong in STEM like me, and very strong in all subjects. They have zero desire for computer science or engineering and it seems every single kid in their class is headed for those areas.

There are many very lucrative as well as high paying outside of STEM. It’s getting hard to get jobs now with a CS degree given the glut of CS graduates.

DC's faculty at a top LAC had a recent conversation about the overabundance of STEM applicants and difficulties with finding good humanities students, because so many are falling between the cracks of schools trying to push STEM coursework and being punished for being "bad" or mediocre students. The faculty are consideringn adding a creative writing supplement and ignoring math SAT scores if it means having students who can write out of a tin hat.

There is no shortage of STEM centric kids who can write extremely well yet choose a stem field, and humanities/writing superstars who aced all the hardest stem APs and did post-calcBC math in HS and yet, chose humanities. And wow I met these people when I was in professional school too. There are plenty. The highest concentration of these great at almost everything students are at T15s and such, and many have intense ECs in unrelated areas. The pool os deep. Ivies and the like can choose all. None of the top schools have to lower math SAT bars to get “good writers”. Please. That is as ridiculous as the posters who say kids at the top with straight As and straight 5s are academic drones. You can tell these posters do not have experience in highly academic high schools or colleges, and they do not have (unhooked) children who are in the rarified pool ivies seek.

Please direct this data you have to the faculty and admissions department of a major LAC, whose recent pull had 80% stem applicants. It's easy to have this take when you don't know any of the facts and just make DCUM assumptions, as per usual.

I have been on admissions comm for my ivy. I have seen apps. I do know. There are more stem applicants for sure , especially females the last 3 cycles, but there are plenty of humanities applicants who also have top stem stats. No bars need to be lowered to get humanities kids. There are just less top ones that we reject. Cant speak to all lacs but I know a t4 LAC adcom. They do not have trouble admitting top humanities students who are tops in all areas either

[Anonymous]

^besides, we do not admit by major as we realize all students can change and half do! We admit students who would gave an excellent chance of success in all of our majors, in case they change interests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

surprise!!! Many students aren't going into math or stem. My son scored 5s on all science and math AP exams and does equally as well in STEM--but zero desire to major in it. T10s definitely provide an advantage in his program.

Agree the stem obsession is strange on Dcum. Many brilliant top1% kids pick other fields. And end up in great careers and/or top professional schools.
T10s provide a large advantage to all majors.

My take as a 50+ year old woman with undergrad and grad degrees in STEM- working in the field for over 50 years is it’s a bunch of liberal arts/lawyers/lobbyists/comm majors just so astounded that their kids can do well in STEM, especially girl parents. It’s like they never could do high math and science and think their kids are geniuses.

Our public school system —starting in elementary is very STEM focused. It did get most kids interested in (which is good)- but they did sacrifice a lot of reasoning, verbal, social sciences, arts, etc.

IMO, a truly educated person is well-read and strong in all areas—not just a computer or stem nerd.

My kids are strong in STEM like me, and very strong in all subjects. They have zero desire for computer science or engineering and it seems every single kid in their class is headed for those areas.

There are many very lucrative as well as high paying outside of STEM. It’s getting hard to get jobs now with a CS degree given the glut of CS graduates.

DC's faculty at a top LAC had a recent conversation about the overabundance of STEM applicants and difficulties with finding good humanities students, because so many are falling between the cracks of schools trying to push STEM coursework and being punished for being "bad" or mediocre students. The faculty are consideringn adding a creative writing supplement and ignoring math SAT scores if it means having students who can write out of a tin hat.

There is no shortage of STEM centric kids who can write extremely well yet choose a stem field, and humanities/writing superstars who aced all the hardest stem APs and did post-calcBC math in HS and yet, chose humanities. And wow I met these people when I was in professional school too. There are plenty. The highest concentration of these great at almost everything students are at T15s and such, and many have intense ECs in unrelated areas. The pool os deep. Ivies and the like can choose all. None of the top schools have to lower math SAT bars to get “good writers”. Please. That is as ridiculous as the posters who say kids at the top with straight As and straight 5s are academic drones. You can tell these posters do not have experience in highly academic high schools or colleges, and they do not have (unhooked) children who are in the rarified pool ivies seek.

Please direct this data you have to the faculty and admissions department of a major LAC, whose recent pull had 80% stem applicants. It's easy to have this take when you don't know any of the facts and just make DCUM assumptions, as per usual.

I have been on admissions comm for my ivy. I have seen apps. I do know. There are more stem applicants for sure , especially females the last 3 cycles, but there are plenty of humanities applicants who also have top stem stats. No bars need to be lowered to get humanities kids. There are just less top ones that we reject. Cant speak to all lacs but I know a t4 LAC adcom. They do not have trouble admitting top humanities students who are tops in all areas either

This is a t3 lac. Maybe you don’t have to at an Ivy because have you ever thunk that ivies get 6x the amount of applicants. There’s real difficulty of attracting humanities students, especially if they aren’t in English, History, or Philosophy. I really don’t need your speculation on things the school is concerned about and is thinking of solutions for.

[Anonymous]

(Give)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

surprise!!! Many students aren't going into math or stem. My son scored 5s on all science and math AP exams and does equally as well in STEM--but zero desire to major in it. T10s definitely provide an advantage in his program.

Agree the stem obsession is strange on Dcum. Many brilliant top1% kids pick other fields. And end up in great careers and/or top professional schools.
T10s provide a large advantage to all majors.

My take as a 50+ year old woman with undergrad and grad degrees in STEM- working in the field for over 50 years is it’s a bunch of liberal arts/lawyers/lobbyists/comm majors just so astounded that their kids can do well in STEM, especially girl parents. It’s like they never could do high math and science and think their kids are geniuses.

Our public school system —starting in elementary is very STEM focused. It did get most kids interested in (which is good)- but they did sacrifice a lot of reasoning, verbal, social sciences, arts, etc.

IMO, a truly educated person is well-read and strong in all areas—not just a computer or stem nerd.

My kids are strong in STEM like me, and very strong in all subjects. They have zero desire for computer science or engineering and it seems every single kid in their class is headed for those areas.

There are many very lucrative as well as high paying outside of STEM. It’s getting hard to get jobs now with a CS degree given the glut of CS graduates.

DC's faculty at a top LAC had a recent conversation about the overabundance of STEM applicants and difficulties with finding good humanities students, because so many are falling between the cracks of schools trying to push STEM coursework and being punished for being "bad" or mediocre students. The faculty are consideringn adding a creative writing supplement and ignoring math SAT scores if it means having students who can write out of a tin hat.

There is no shortage of STEM centric kids who can write extremely well yet choose a stem field, and humanities/writing superstars who aced all the hardest stem APs and did post-calcBC math in HS and yet, chose humanities. And wow I met these people when I was in professional school too. There are plenty. The highest concentration of these great at almost everything students are at T15s and such, and many have intense ECs in unrelated areas. The pool os deep. Ivies and the like can choose all. None of the top schools have to lower math SAT bars to get “good writers”. Please. That is as ridiculous as the posters who say kids at the top with straight As and straight 5s are academic drones. You can tell these posters do not have experience in highly academic high schools or colleges, and they do not have (unhooked) children who are in the rarified pool ivies seek.

Please direct this data you have to the faculty and admissions department of a major LAC, whose recent pull had 80% stem applicants. It's easy to have this take when you don't know any of the facts and just make DCUM assumptions, as per usual.

I have been on admissions comm for my ivy. I have seen apps. I do know. There are more stem applicants for sure , especially females the last 3 cycles, but there are plenty of humanities applicants who also have top stem stats. No bars need to be lowered to get humanities kids. There are just less top ones that we reject. Cant speak to all lacs but I know a t4 LAC adcom. They do not have trouble admitting top humanities students who are tops in all areas either

Today I learned that ivies don’t struggle attracting students. News to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

What do you mean? I just gave a task to compare the courses yourself; you can't disagree with that. If you want to refute me, find a comparable course at a VA school outside UVA (or MD school outside MD, etc), ignoring other elite schools of course.

In the thread it was asserted that "even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities. This was asserted without evidence so it can also be dismissed without evidence. The burden is not on me.

The evidence is that in VA, a state with many strong universities, only UVA (the highest ranking school) has a comparable freshman math course.

Show us the courses that you say are and aren't comparable.

The comparable course sequence is 1315/3315 at UVA. Even 2315 uses Williamson and Trotter, which is easier than Cornell's text by Hubbard and Hubbard, but they still are comparable. Every other freshman math sequence at every other VA school is not comparable.

What makes the standards at VT, W&M, W&L etc. lower in your view?

I don't know about the standards for the comparable courses (although I doubt they're at the level of the Ivy+ basic calculus classes I linked above), but the reason I said their sequences are not conpara is because none of them have a proof-based multivariable calculus and linear algebra freshman math sequence like Cornell (and similarly ranked institutions) and UVA (and UGA and UMD as a matter of fact).

You may use this as a canary in the coal mine for rigor throughout the later years of the math program - if you have such a rigorous course for freshmen, you likely have further upper level courses to challenge that course's graduates as sophomores and juniors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Acceptance rate is enough to indicate how prestigious, elite and desirable a college is..

Any acceptance more than 10% is not prestigious tbh

u

Oh please. A number of “prestigious” schools with low acceptance rates game the system. Multiple college admission books name the schools and how they game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Acceptance rate is enough to indicate how prestigious, elite and desirable a college is..

Any acceptance more than 10% is not prestigious tbh

u

Oh please. A number of “prestigious” schools with low acceptance rates game the system. Multiple college admission books name the schools and how they game.

Ok but there’s other metrics to measure. I can say an orange is an orange fruit, and you’re respondent with “okay but some fruits are Green!” Like ok????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

What do you mean? I just gave a task to compare the courses yourself; you can't disagree with that. If you want to refute me, find a comparable course at a VA school outside UVA (or MD school outside MD, etc), ignoring other elite schools of course.

In the thread it was asserted that "even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities. This was asserted without evidence so it can also be dismissed without evidence. The burden is not on me.

The evidence is that in VA, a state with many strong universities, only UVA (the highest ranking school) has a comparable freshman math course.

Show us the courses that you say are and aren't comparable.

The comparable course sequence is 1315/3315 at UVA. Even 2315 uses Williamson and Trotter, which is easier than Cornell's text by Hubbard and Hubbard, but they still are comparable. Every other freshman math sequence at every other VA school is not comparable.

What makes the standards at VT, W&M, W&L etc. lower in your view?

I don't know about the standards for the comparable courses (although I doubt they're at the level of the Ivy+ basic calculus classes I linked above), but the reason I said their sequences are not conpara is because none of them have a proof-based multivariable calculus and linear algebra freshman math sequence like Cornell (and similarly ranked institutions) and UVA (and UGA and UMD as a matter of fact).

You may use this as a canary in the coal mine for rigor throughout the later years of the math program - if you have such a rigorous course for freshmen, you likely have further upper level courses to challenge that course's graduates as sophomores and juniors.

To nitpick, UGA's course (3500H) isn't technically listed as a freshman course like UVA's, UMD's, and Cornell's is, although freshman with BC credit can take it.

The reason that matters is that if it didn't, any school that doesn't enforce prerequisites would automatically be seen as better than those that did, regardless of the actual rigor of their respective typical freshman/sophomore/etc courses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It matters for my child's future. UVA has nothing to offer for real UMC families. It is great if you want to go into menial careers like engineering or accounting. DC needs a fulfilling career that doesn't just run you stir crazy to make money for others. It has been successful for his siblings who are at Yale and Stanford. I recognize the importance of public education for the lower class and social mobility purposes and that's wonderful for them.

You are an insufferable snob. Go away.

Another poor underling. I hope one day you can see beyond UVA and see where the elites play and learn. Nothing more sad than seeing poverty eat those in public institutions alive, but I’m sure a secretary position will work wonders for your dc.

Wow

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It matters for my child's future. UVA has nothing to offer for real UMC families. It is great if you want to go into menial careers like engineering or accounting. DC needs a fulfilling career that doesn't just run you stir crazy to make money for others. It has been successful for his siblings who are at Yale and Stanford. I recognize the importance of public education for the lower class and social mobility purposes and that's wonderful for them.

You are an insufferable snob. Go away.

Another poor underling. I hope one day you can see beyond UVA and see where the elites play and learn. Nothing more sad than seeing poverty eat those in public institutions alive, but I’m sure a secretary position will work wonders for your dc.

Wow

It’s like a cartoon villain

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

surprise!!! Many students aren't going into math or stem. My son scored 5s on all science and math AP exams and does equally as well in STEM--but zero desire to major in it. T10s definitely provide an advantage in his program.

Agree the stem obsession is strange on Dcum. Many brilliant top1% kids pick other fields. And end up in great careers and/or top professional schools.
T10s provide a large advantage to all majors.

My take as a 50+ year old woman with undergrad and grad degrees in STEM- working in the field for over 50 years is it’s a bunch of liberal arts/lawyers/lobbyists/comm majors just so astounded that their kids can do well in STEM, especially girl parents. It’s like they never could do high math and science and think their kids are geniuses.

Our public school system —starting in elementary is very STEM focused. It did get most kids interested in (which is good)- but they did sacrifice a lot of reasoning, verbal, social sciences, arts, etc.

IMO, a truly educated person is well-read and strong in all areas—not just a computer or stem nerd.

My kids are strong in STEM like me, and very strong in all subjects. They have zero desire for computer science or engineering and it seems every single kid in their class is headed for those areas.

There are many very lucrative as well as high paying outside of STEM. It’s getting hard to get jobs now with a CS degree given the glut of CS graduates.

DC's faculty at a top LAC had a recent conversation about the overabundance of STEM applicants and difficulties with finding good humanities students, because so many are falling between the cracks of schools trying to push STEM coursework and being punished for being "bad" or mediocre students. The faculty are consideringn adding a creative writing supplement and ignoring math SAT scores if it means having students who can write out of a tin hat.

There is no shortage of STEM centric kids who can write extremely well yet choose a stem field, and humanities/writing superstars who aced all the hardest stem APs and did post-calcBC math in HS and yet, chose humanities. And wow I met these people when I was in professional school too. There are plenty. The highest concentration of these great at almost everything students are at T15s and such, and many have intense ECs in unrelated areas. The pool os deep. Ivies and the like can choose all. None of the top schools have to lower math SAT bars to get “good writers”. Please. That is as ridiculous as the posters who say kids at the top with straight As and straight 5s are academic drones. You can tell these posters do not have experience in highly academic high schools or colleges, and they do not have (unhooked) children who are in the rarified pool ivies seek.

Please direct this data you have to the faculty and admissions department of a major LAC, whose recent pull had 80% stem applicants. It's easy to have this take when you don't know any of the facts and just make DCUM assumptions, as per usual.

I have been on admissions comm for my ivy. I have seen apps. I do know. There are more stem applicants for sure , especially females the last 3 cycles, but there are plenty of humanities applicants who also have top stem stats. No bars need to be lowered to get humanities kids. There are just less top ones that we reject. Cant speak to all lacs but I know a t4 LAC adcom. They do not have trouble admitting top humanities students who are tops in all areas either

This is a t3 lac. Maybe you don’t have to at an Ivy because have you ever thunk that ivies get 6x the amount of applicants. There’s real difficulty of attracting humanities students, especially if they aren’t in English, History, or Philosophy. I really don’t need your speculation on things the school is concerned about and is thinking of solutions for.

Have you thought about doing what Bard does with their admissions essay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

You’re missing the point.
The average student in average math are not “average”. I have kids at ivies and spouse and I went ourselves. The average student has gotten much smarter since we attended. It is very different than what our siblings and nephews have experienced at lesser schools that are not close toT30.

You're missing nuance. UChicago is not in the Ivy League yet their honors analysis sequence (which is formally open to qualified freshmen) is graduate level and at least on par with if not harder than math 55.

On the flip side, UMD is outside the T30 but still has the type of proof based calc 3+ linear algebra courses (340+341) that Cornell does (2230+2240)