If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?

[Anonymous]

Even at places like Harvard or Stanford, professors complain students are not prepared for college. In Purdue, which isn’t easy to get into for engineering and CS, professors complain that most of their class are using AI and not learning the material. These colleges regularly turn away straight A students, so what is going on?

[Anonymous]

Holistic process selects whoever fits their racial, political, economics or whatever mix. So the selectivity is not about academics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic process selects whoever fits their racial, political, economics or whatever mix. So the selectivity is not about academics.

Racial preference is illegal.
Political preference is bs, conservatives are telling their students not to go to college and on average, are dumber.
Economic status doesn’t really mean much when they’re discussing noticeable declines across all students, including the prep school types.

[Anonymous]

Colleges admit "pointy" *achievers" who game standardized tests, not well rounded academically and intellectually inclined people.

[Anonymous]

HS is not as rigorous as it used to be. Students have UW 4.0 GPAs but the courses were watered down, they were given retakes and were allowed to reschedule tests if they were overwhelmed for any reason. Or they cheated and never really learned how to study.

Either way, many even with the highest rigor and perfect transcripts to into college unprepared because they were coddled.

[Anonymous]

Many of the kids who have the highest GPAs have cheated their way through high school. Or their high school’s grades are inflated. Or they’re just totally burned out by the time they get to college and discover how easy it is to cheat these days.

[Anonymous]

The professors have also gone downhill and its more popular to complain. Think about all the issues that used to go on in schools. Everyone is comparing kids to AI. Kids are using AI and kids are being compared to the most perfect kid imaginable.

[Anonymous]

Start with “excellent sheep.” Now add AI.

[Anonymous]

I think everyone’s attention spans have diminished considerably from phones, but looking at my kid’s graduating class, I would not describe the kids who did the “best” in college admissions as the most intellectual. Just the ones that played the game right. Spread themselves very thin with all the right pieces, but didn’t actually do any of the reading.

[Anonymous]

If you listen to any admissions officers’ podcasts, they are all trying to save people. They all sound like lovely humans who mean well, obviously got into this profession to make a difference, but you can tell they are also a little too idealistic and naive (so many sound so young, in their mid to late 20’s, but even the older ones sound idealistic). They talk so much about “distance traveled”, placing a lot of emphasis on helping first-gen, low income, and especially rural kids.

In principle I agree with them too, but it sounds like in reality, a lot of these kids are just not ready when they come on campus. A lot of resources are being spent on outreaching to these kids, flying them in all expenses paid, paying for college prep experiences for them during the summer after they are admitted, and setting aside special mentors and remedial classes for them once they arrive. Professors are complaining, but they also want to help these kids. I support efforts to advance upward mobility (the world is too unfair) and hope some of these kids do come out swinging on the other side, but there will be some who won’t make it. This is not a movie and life is not The Blind Side, but I understand why they try. In the long run, their well-intended crusade could end up fracturing long-standing institutions; you can already see that happening on campuses. I guess to them, that’s a risk worth taking.

America is an idealistic country and a young country so we always try to force things to happen sooner. In general, I tend to think that’s a good thing. In countries that have been around longer and are more practical like the UK, they let poor kids rise to the top on their own and somehow make it to Oxbridge from dirt poor families, but those kids are rare and typically white. Tuition is also much lower there so the economic barriers are not as high if the universities don’t go out of their way to manufacture a special path for the poor kids.

[Anonymous]

Man...you people have nothing better to do be whine about people. Kids are dumb, professors are dumb, it's everyone else's fault.

Happy Hump Day!

[Anonymous]

I have a PhD so a lot of my friends (and my spouse) are professors, but I am not. The one who primarily teaches nursing and premed students in lab-heavy courses doesn't have these complaints, while the ones who don't teach labs have more of them. It sounds like there was a long post-covid adjustment of kids not showing up, asking for extensions, etc. - not so much about the quality of the work as the expectations of showing up and meeting deadlines. And there may be more motivation with a clearly pre-professional degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holistic process selects whoever fits their racial, political, economics or whatever mix. So the selectivity is not about academics.

No, this isn’t it. You sound dumb.

[Anonymous]

They're picking the wrong students. There are so many packaged students that going to an elite college no longer guarantees being surrounded by top students. It does make the state schools' ROI look more attractive and you know you will find a cohorta there due to sheer numbers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even at places like Harvard or Stanford, professors complain students are not prepared for college. In Purdue, which isn’t easy to get into for engineering and CS, professors complain that most of their class are using AI and not learning the material. These colleges regularly turn away straight A students, so what is going on?

I dispute your premise. What empirical data can you point to validate it?