Harvard and the elite grade inflation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should kids that get into these elite colleges get Bs? A curve at schools <1% of teens in the nation can get into is stupid.

Instead of obsessing over the As these elite kids get, maybe you should obsess over the As and Bs all these worthless colleges give everyone who's breathing. Baristas at Starbucks have bachelors degrees and struggle to read The Times they sell.

I was with you and thought you were going to say... stop obsessing over As and make sure we have good moral kids graduation but then you went dark.

The kids are already smart we just need them to stop tanking the economy for their own financial gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm probably actually one of the few people that attended both Berkeley and Harvard undergrad.

Harvard is not this grade-inflated free for all and Berkeley is not this impossible pressure-cooker. At both schools, there are higher level classes that are notoriously tough for those who want to go on to a PhD (usually) where many people leave early on while you can drop a class. At both schools, there were also notoriously easy fluff classes and majors.

Actually, at Harvard, it was harder to get a 4.0 than at Berkeley. I knew quite a few 4.0s at Berkeley, but nobody at Harvard had one in my graduating class.

That is probably because 1) There are more undergraduate students at Berkeley than at Harvard and, 2) top 1% (~300) at Berkeley would be academically stronger students (since they do not have URM preference, legacy admits, developmental cases, admission through connections etc.) compared to the top 1% (~65) at Harvard although an average Harvard student would probably be stronger than an average Berkeley student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know quite a few idiot sorority girls and frat boys with straight As at their state school.

Education majors. Maybe communications, film. Marketing? There are fluff majors at State schools. The majority of kids in science, math or engineering classes get F's unless they bust their asses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know quite a few idiot sorority girls and frat boys with straight As at their state school.

Education majors. Maybe communications, film. Marketing? There are fluff majors at State schools. The majority of kids in science, math or engineering classes get F's unless they bust their asses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know quite a few idiot sorority girls and frat boys with straight As at their state school.

Education majors. Maybe communications, film. Marketing? There are fluff majors at State schools. The majority of kids in science, math or engineering classes get F's unless they bust their asses.

+1. You can add Comp Sci to the list. Among other things, Calc 2 is usually required and is the ultimate weed-out class, much like Organic Chemistry for pre-meds

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trump, a Wharton grad, is an idiot -- his kids Ivanka and Jr have Wharton degrees and are obviously idiots -- Kushner has a Harvard BA and NYU JD and he's an idiot.

But it's not just rich kids -- look at the athletes. I bet most of Stanford's football team couldn't pass ONE genuine Stanford course, yet some of them are on campus for a few years. Sometimes they receive degrees!

Trump was a joke while at Penn. All his classmates have said he was nothing special and a douche. Ivanka on the other hand has been described as very serious and hard-working by her classmates at Penn. But yeah who knows if she would have been able to transfer to Penn from GTown without Daddy's legacy and money. Kushner is obviously a tool, and his younger brother an bigger tool. Both Harvard grads.

As a Wharton grad (grad not undergrad) I have to agree with you. But, and this is OT, I thought Kushner's younger brother was showing at least a little initiative and breaking into new and progressive areas his family wasn't generally known for. Not that I follow him closely. Not true?

[Anonymous]

I read the comments; the author went to Harvard almost 30 years ago. Seems like it was just a pretext to bash Trump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should kids that get into these elite colleges get Bs? A curve at schools <1% of teens in the nation can get into is stupid.

Instead of obsessing over the As these elite kids get, maybe you should obsess over the As and Bs all these worthless colleges give everyone who's breathing. Baristas at Starbucks have bachelors degrees and struggle to read The Times they sell.

Are you familiar w how admissions to these schools work? Most of the upper 1% kids do not have the academic credentials - they get in through $$$$$ donations or under pretext of a athlete recruitment with $$$$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child at Harvard who is doing a science concentration. This quote stood out to me in particular for being inaccurate from her experiences.

Three biochemistry graduate students I knew and trusted all had an identical story. In the introductory course they taught, undergraduates weren’t required to show up at a single lecture or section; they could score in the teens on the final and still pass. The professor’s basis for leniency, they said, was that “they pay too much tuition for us to fail them.”

In lecture based courses, students are given exams with expectations set to slightly inflated standards (A = 90+, A- = 87-90, B+ = 83-87, B = 80-83, B- = 75-80, etc). The more difficult classes, like organic chemistry, have higher curves (A = 85+, B = 70+, C = 55+), but this is the case at many universities as well (Berkeley O'Chem, A= 80+, B = 70+, C = 60+). In general, students do extremely well, with a median consistently around the 90 range. This is not because they make the tests easier, but rather because the students are exceptionally capable and hard-working. The notion of scoring in the teens and passing seems unimaginable.

I don't understand what you are trying to point out. You can set grades based on scores but the markings of the paper for the elites could be skewed - I could mark a paper to be 90 when it actually should be a 75. So student gets an A. But was the marking honest? No.

Anyone with any experience writing exams knows you can set the mean anywhere you like through the questions you choose. If 80is an A, and most are getting 90's year in year out, it isn't because the students are bright. It is because the professors have chosen to set the median there. The students may very well be bright, but not because they get 90s on an orgo exam.

It feels lousy to sit for exams where a strong performance is a 70. But there is a lot of educational value to the experience. And such exams really separate the kids who are good enough for med school from the truly stellar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child at Harvard who is doing a science concentration. This quote stood out to me in particular for being inaccurate from her experiences.

Three biochemistry graduate students I knew and trusted all had an identical story. In the introductory course they taught, undergraduates weren’t required to show up at a single lecture or section; they could score in the teens on the final and still pass. The professor’s basis for leniency, they said, was that “they pay too much tuition for us to fail them.”

In lecture based courses, students are given exams with expectations set to slightly inflated standards (A = 90+, A- = 87-90, B+ = 83-87, B = 80-83, B- = 75-80, etc). The more difficult classes, like organic chemistry, have higher curves (A = 85+, B = 70+, C = 55+), but this is the case at many universities as well (Berkeley O'Chem, A= 80+, B = 70+, C = 60+). In general, students do extremely well, with a median consistently around the 90 range. This is not because they make the tests easier, but rather because the students are exceptionally capable and hard-working. The notion of scoring in the teens and passing seems unimaginable.

I don't understand what you are trying to point out. You can set grades based on scores but the markings of the paper for the elites could be skewed - I could mark a paper to be 90 when it actually should be a 75. So student gets an A. But was the marking honest? No.

Anyone with any experience writing exams knows you can set the mean anywhere you like through the questions you choose. If 80is an A, and most are getting 90's year in year out, it isn't because the students are bright. It is because the professors have chosen to set the median there. The students may very well be bright, but not because they get 90s on an orgo exam.

It feels lousy to sit for exams where a strong performance is a 70. But there is a lot of educational value to the experience. And such exams really separate the kids who are good enough for med school from the truly stellar.

I agree. And don't forget the classes where attendance counts for % of the grade or the make up exams. Grades don't show how smart a kid is - as the parent who posted the grade distribution, critical thinking is what we need and we need to measure that. Not regurgitation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought Brown had the most inflation? And Cornell and Princeton have hardest curves?

Brown doesn't have as much grade inflation, but with the drop rules and high levels of pass/fail classes, it might win for gpa inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought Brown had the most inflation? And Cornell and Princeton have hardest curves?

I thought some don't give grades at all?

[Anonymous]

Brown is the most grade inflated school in the country. Not sure what PP means by "Brown doesn't have as much grade inflation".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brown is the most grade inflated school in the country. Not sure what PP means by "Brown doesn't have as much grade inflation".

Agreed 1000%!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child at Harvard who is doing a science concentration. This quote stood out to me in particular for being inaccurate from her experiences.

Three biochemistry graduate students I knew and trusted all had an identical story. In the introductory course they taught, undergraduates weren’t required to show up at a single lecture or section; they could score in the teens on the final and still pass. The professor’s basis for leniency, they said, was that “they pay too much tuition for us to fail them.”

In lecture based courses, students are given exams with expectations set to slightly inflated standards (A = 90+, A- = 87-90, B+ = 83-87, B = 80-83, B- = 75-80, etc). The more difficult classes, like organic chemistry, have higher curves (A = 85+, B = 70+, C = 55+), but this is the case at many universities as well (Berkeley O'Chem, A= 80+, B = 70+, C = 60+). In general, students do extremely well, with a median consistently around the 90 range. This is not because they make the tests easier, but rather because the students are exceptionally capable and hard-working. The notion of scoring in the teens and passing seems unimaginable.

I don't understand what you are trying to point out. You can set grades based on scores but the markings of the paper for the elites could be skewed - I could mark a paper to be 90 when it actually should be a 75. So student gets an A. But was the marking honest? No.

Anyone with any experience writing exams knows you can set the mean anywhere you like through the questions you choose. If 80is an A, and most are getting 90's year in year out, it isn't because the students are bright. It is because the professors have chosen to set the median there. The students may very well be bright, but not because they get 90s on an orgo exam.

It feels lousy to sit for exams where a strong performance is a 70. But there is a lot of educational value to the experience. And such exams really separate the kids who are good enough for med school from the truly stellar.

I agree. And don't forget the classes where attendance counts for % of the grade or the make up exams. Grades don't show how smart a kid is - as the parent who posted the grade distribution, critical thinking is what we need and we need to measure that. Not regurgitation.

Yes. Clearly the original poster with the distributions couldn't pass any stats exam I wrote, even with a curve.