This is what I thought but now people are reporting from the trenches that their "99.9 percentile kid is struggling to keep up at their Ivy". Maybe kids are more brilliant now? |
My perfect gpa/test score, top HS rigor, no rank but tough nationally ranked school at a so-called “easy A” Ivy and working their butt off. Maybe some majors, but I’m not seeing it. |
NP. I laughed out loud at this. Such a warped perspective full of misinformation (the whole IQ/SAT correlation and curve obsession). Yikes. |
The previous quotes almost all say 99th percentiles (ave ivy kid) work hard but can keep up. 99.9 certainly does not have to struggle to "keep up" --cannot find anyone who said that and if they did they do not have first hand experience. The classes are still hard & much more rigorous than other schools: aligns with personal and family experience ivy/+ as students and professors. Kids individually are not more brilliant, but the range of students has absolutely changed! Our kids' college shared data of the SAT range of enrolled students in fall 2020(ie pre-TO numbers because the TO numbers were not out) and then showed the matriculating class 1990, showing percentiles not scores(the sat scores have been recentered). The top 1/4 of students in 1990 were 98-99th%ile, now more than 75% of enrolled students are that. The bottom 25% used to be 90th%ile , now it is 98th. The point the dean made was explaining in part why the mental health is harder --much more competition with so many students who are used to being at the very top, rather than merely 1/4 of the student body. Plus, they noted that the top 25% of this college in the 1990s soared into medical school easily(1994 national med accept rate was the same as now): the next 25% got in but not nearly 100%, and it was rare to get in if you were below average at this school back then. They have made the grading more in line with "peer" schools(they named other ivies) in the last few years because they want the 98-99th%ile students to all have a shot at med school if they want it considering this group is capable easily: no more C+ average in orgo, now it is a B+/B average, such that over 75% get B range grades in what formerly were "weedouts". My other kid who does not attend this ivy, but attends another T10 and is premed there, has been told almost the exact same thing by the premed advisors: as long as you are not in the bottom 1/4 you can get into medical school easily, they try to make sure LESS than 1/4 get Cs and it is even less once you move past the first 3 semesters, into upper level science/stem. For those in the bottom 1/4 after the first year who still want it, they put them on a slow down summer classes program or a 4+1 slow down and give them resources to have a shot at med school after a couple years out. TLDR, the students now ARE smarter than the students in the 1990s, and the grade inflation at top schools is purposeful--one or two top schools started it and now all have followed--so that all students who are 99th%iles now can have excellent results even in competitive tracks. |
Mine too. They are getting As but it is a lot of hours in the library and that seems to be standard there, even Friday night and a large portion of the weekend. |
Mine too! Matriculated from a very tough private and kid was flabbergasted by the amount of assigned reading for some courses. Mind you, our attic is filled to the brim with the books required reading for HS--so is no stranger to reading high volume. Thankfully, it is material that they love so enjoys it. But, make no mistake, it is a step up at this level. |
My kid was at the library last Saturday. I asked her why and she said because she was having fun. There's a social aspect to the library. |
Why are there so many more 99th percentile students now so now there is no space for even 95th percentile much less 90th...? Is it population growth? International students? |
Exactly, getting the A’s but comes with an hard work and many hours in library. They also have top notch time management and study skills so are very efficient. I think the show up and basically get A’s is so overblown. |
Could you please provide an example from just one class. The required readings, ideally with titles for the few major ones, but if not, the number of pages. Ideally, also something similar but for your son's HS. What are these books in your attic? |
What happened to the hooked idiots we keep hearing about? Aren't they going to occupy some place at the bottom? |
There are a lot of the 99+ kids in the wild, especially in this area. No one would suspect kids like my oldest to be one—who is quiet, performs adequately on things that don’t interest him, and lacks the ability to effectively communicate because a lot of things are intuitive (plus as an URM 99+% on SATs is not an assumption most people make). I’m not saying my kid deserves to get into the most selective schools, but he does “exist.” Because I can easily see how someone could see him as average, I have to believe there are many, many more low key kids like him out there, and there are even some who _care_ and are intellectually curious. That smaller set are the kids are filling the top schools. |
Thank you. Is your child, for example, getting As on every single test in MS and HS? |
Not on every test, for reasons related to that kid, like inability to buy in and accept the importance of timeliness, hard work, and repetition. (My kid gets 100% on tests on which other students struggle and gets mediocre grades on things he doesn’t put in the time, just like everyone else, and I continue work at accepting that). But my point is by definition for every 100 kids, one is at 99% and in DC there is probably a disproportionate share given the parent population. I’m not even saying Harvard needs to take all 99% kids. I’m just saying that they may be lurking around under the radar at your kid’s school. |
To be clear, that was brought up for MIT and was about STEM classes. |