Harvard Instituting Remedial Math Class

[Anonymous]

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

And in the US, even 30 years ago at my private college, I was tutoring rich students who could barely write a paragraph or do basic math.

Usually the poorer students aren't admitting they can't perform. Not so much with the wealthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Chinas issue is their birth rates and declining population size. Their college admission system is not the problem and it identifies the most talented people much more effectively than the US system. They are not doling out research grants contingent upon the extolling the benefits of "diversity" in quantum mechanics unlike the US. https://science.osti.gov/grants/Applicant-and-Awardee-Resources/PIER-Plans

[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: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.

Chinas issue is their birth rates and declining population size. Their college admission system is not the problem and it identifies the most talented people much more effectively than the US system. They are not doling out research grants contingent upon the extolling the benefits of "diversity" in quantum mechanics unlike the US. https://science.osti.gov/grants/Applicant-and-Awardee-Resources/PIER-Plans

Again, America has the most successful tech companies. I guess we’re woke because we don’t put our citizens in “re-education” centers (Uighurs).

TL;DR: China sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

My father in law is a Harvard grad from the 60s. He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered. Much, much more impressive than the Harvard grads I work with nowadays. Anecdotal, n=1, sure. He talks about all the people who were smarter than him in college.

[Anonymous]

From this I gather that a half dozen colleges within 10 miles of Harvard have stronger students than Harvard's bottom 25%.

Never mind the rest of the country.

[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.

Aside from the USA, everyone is sweating China

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yesterday's news. China produces more patents as the USA these day. https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/patents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yesterday's news. China produces more patents as the USA these day. https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/patents

Eh. I wonder how many of those are based on fake research. The amount of fraudulent scientific research coming out of China is astonishing.

[Anonymous]

From Reddit:

The hardest math class at my university is disproportionately legacies with several donor kids.
Fluff
It’s fascinating, really, and seems to defy all popular notions.

There’s a math class at my T5 school that’s supposed to be like the hardest undergraduate math class. It’s a cult all on its own, where the kids who are true math nerds and geniuses go to prove their skills basically, and they get shirts that say “I survived ____ class.” All the RSI kids, the ISEF and IMO kids, the kids who want to show that they’re the best at STEM, take this class.

Half the kids drop the class by the end because the crushing high-level, high-time commitment workload is designed to overwhelm and weed people out.

The fascinating thing is that this class is pretty small and has more legacies than most classes in the school. I have several friends in this class, and the amount of legacies is disproportionately high, with a few more donor kids than normal mixed in, too. The amount of wealth is that classroom is crazy considering it’s a class for the nerdiest, most driven and aggressive STEM kids, who I guess are largely legacy.

They are talking about Math55, purportedly the hardest undergraduate freshman math in the country. There is such a huge prejudice against legacy, wealth, and privilege. How do you think the parents achieved their status with a low IQ?

[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: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.

Aside from the USA, everyone is sweating China

China is it's own worst enemy. No ability to self-correct. America is crazy but it recovers from mistakes faster.

[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: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.

Chinas issue is their birth rates and declining population size. Their college admission system is not the problem and it identifies the most talented people much more effectively than the US system. They are not doling out research grants contingent upon the extolling the benefits of "diversity" in quantum mechanics unlike the US. https://science.osti.gov/grants/Applicant-and-Awardee-Resources/PIER-Plans

Again, America has the most successful tech companies. I guess we’re woke because we don’t put our citizens in “re-education” centers (Uighurs).

TL;DR: China sucks.

Everyone in America way overhypes meritocracy and kisses the feet of Asian education as if it isn’t a miserable existence and doesn’t drive out many students every year who try to come to our universities.

Then when you actually suggest merit, everyone here gets up in arms about how “actually” sports recruits are just as intelligent as the other students…yeah right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

One of my closest friends at Harvard is an excellent poet. She is undoubtedly famous and talented (top 0.1%) in creative writing.

You put her at a chalk board and ask her to devise the derivative of F(x), and she will start crying. I’m sure Harvard prefers her in the alumni database than the copious amounts of stem researchers who make $60k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

One of my closest friends at Harvard is an excellent poet. She is undoubtedly famous and talented (top 0.1%) in creative writing.

You put her at a chalk board and ask her to devise the derivative of F(x), and she will start crying. I’m sure Harvard prefers her in the alumni database than the copious amounts of stem researchers who make $60k.

You’re forgetting that everyone here thinks that the humanities have all but crumpled and died- don’t ask them about their New Yorker subscriptions or the last time they perused Harper’s Mag. According to DCUM, the Ivy League is just MIT-lite with no humanities students. Mind you, there is many a remedial-level writing course for engineering and science majors, but no one needs to know how to write in the first place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Yesterday's news. China produces more patents as the USA these day. https://www.wipo.int/en/ipfactsandfigures/patents

Do you realize you sound like a drunk with these posts, not the lawyer in the law library you once said you were? Why do you start every meaningless comment with "eh"? An "eh" signals to the reader your subsequent comnent is not going to be worth reading. Also that you are a woman. You are diminishing your own comments by doing this.

Eh. I wonder how many of those are based on fake research. The amount of fraudulent scientific research coming out of China is astonishing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

And in the US, even 30 years ago at my private college, I was tutoring rich students who could barely write a paragraph or do basic math.

Usually the poorer students aren't admitting they can't perform. Not so much with the wealthy.

Didn't have the push on URM, first generation. pell grant, wokeism and test optional back then