Harvard Instituting Remedial Math Class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

They're laughing their a$$es off at out equity wokeness.

[Anonymous]

In China if you can't do the math you are not going to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard is a school. It's goal is to provide an education, not judgenwhatever contest you think it should be running. The lower the ability of incoming students, the more we can see if the school is adding any value.

This is absolutely absurd. Not everyone is capable of doing calculus. There is a significant proportion of the US population that does not have the intellectual ability to understand higher level math regardless of how much time they spend attempting to learn it. People that need remedial math classes are not cut out for Harvard.

Those needing remedial math should probably working on their GED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Classic Anglo American: "what is bilingual?'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard is a school. It's goal is to provide an education, not judgenwhatever contest you think it should be running. The lower the ability of incoming students, the more we can see if the school is adding any value.

This is absolutely absurd. Not everyone is capable of doing calculus. There is a significant proportion of the US population that does not have the intellectual ability to understand higher level math regardless of how much time they spend attempting to learn it. People that need remedial math classes are not cut out for Harvard.

Those needing remedial math should probably working on their GED.

dp.. this is a calculus remedial class, so really, beyond a GED.

BUT, I would expect students attending a T10 to be able to take Calc 101 without having to take a remedial calc class first, and also how to write a decent paper.

The fact that Harvard has to have such a class tells me that they are admitting "low caliber" students. Yes, these are lower caliber students for a T10.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know plenty of MIT grads who are not writers. I'm not shocked that there are Harvard kids who are top 1% in something who are not great at calc. Not everyone can be everything.

pre-calc is not top 1% for a college student and certainly not for a student at Harvard

Says who? This is who Harvard wants. What you want for Harvard is something else. It is your expectations that need adjustment.

I agree. This point seems lost based on many comments. What a person thinks or feels a college/university should value or prioritize does not always align to the school's values and mission. Harvard puts in place a program to educate students and people are mad it's not the right students.

It is interesting that with almost 3,000 4-year colleges, folks get worked up over this one. I mean, how many students out of their undergraduate enrollment are even taking this class? Not sure why folks care so much. Alum maybe?

If Harvard was even slightly satisfied with its TO class, it would not have chosen to violate it's TO-until-2030 pledge. The fact that it is willing to do so given the reputational hit indicates just how much the TO classes failed to meet Harvard's own standards.

Not Harvard's fault.
Harvard had to copy Yale's homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

China has it’s own problems to deal with. Nobody is sweating China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In China if you can't do the math you are not going to college.

We aren’t China. We are a far more creative and dynamic population. For all their math abilities, they didn’t create Apple or Microsoft. They just steal the IP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

China has it’s own problems to deal with. Nobody is sweating China.

Amen. China is taking its last gasp before becoming a backwater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Math M isn't a new course, and isn't remedial. It's functions and introductory calculus, which are college level calculus. This is a section of the same course that meets 5 days instead of 3 so that kids can get more support while taking this college level class.

"“What we thought was the best thing to do — instead of adding another course before MA — was to add more time and support into MA for students who would need it.”"

Previous commenters might be great at math but lack reading skills - or the willingness to actually read the article before blathering.

"Students don’t have the skills that we had intended downstream in the curriculum, and so it creates different trajectories in students’ math abilities,” Kelly added." That sounds like these kids aren't capable of taking a math course that begins with pre-calculus. Other schools would call that remedial for a college student, but these are Harvard kids, so we can't have that designation

+++ yes this is struggling with pre-calc. TO led to too many unqualified students getting in to what is supposed to be an elite college for the brightest students. It has long drifted from that goal; the TO phase was a new low in student quality.

This is fairly obvious. If it wasn't due to to TO, then Harvard would've had this type of class pre TO.

IMO, Harvard is holding on to legacy because they aren't admitting the best anymore. MIT will become more prestigious in terms of actual academic strength than Harvard.

It already has- im 40 years old and cant rember when it wasn't. even teh boston brahmins who went to MIT were the smart ones, the dumb ones were 7th gen Harvard grads.

You may think that's true that Ivy kids are stupider, but data show that it's not true. 40 years ago, women weren't part of the applicant pools, and international students were far fewer. The pool of candidates is larger, and candidate quality is higher (despite the typical legacies and donor admits and athletes that bring down the academic rigor).

Ummm... you are off by at least a decade. Women were absolutely part of classes 40 years ago (Admitted to Harvard back then), and my class at Stanford had 10-15% international students in 1984.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I assume this is directed at first gen students, but still seems pretty nuts.

why would you assume that?

Many Asian American students are first gen, and they score very high in math, the highest of all groups.

For the most part it’s because all they do is study.

Actually, they do lot of martial arts (Tae Kwon Do etc.) and soccer and tennis as well.

But all of it is at the insistence of their parents in order to go to an Ivy. So formulaic. It’s like a “plug and chug” personality. Intrinsic motivation is completely absent.

??? Because Ivy's tend to select kids that do martial arts, soccer and tennis? GTFOH.

The notion that asians kids are automatons and white kids are "passionate" is trite and incorrect.

But one of those things that we know are generally true. It has to do with parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do you think would happen to those Harvard faculty?
We have ruined free speech.

Probably because a lot of the kids who were admitted who haven't achieved these requirements are recruited athletes, legacies and donor kids. And because it should be easier to detect these kids in the future now that test optional is gone.

OK - you have never attended an elite school - pretty easy to tell that you have no idea about legacy admits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

These institutions have been selecting qualified "First Gen" kids for decades. But the push to pick them from certain demographic groups, even if they are unprepared, is the problem.

[Anonymous]

Colleges over admit usually for math talent and under admit for artistic and creative talent. The rush to get every student through Vector calc before finishing high school is stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges over admit usually for math talent and under admit for artistic and creative talent. The rush to get every student through Vector calc before finishing high school is stupid.

then Harvard's not doing a great job screening admits for their math talent.