Rigor and Absences: New Harvard Policy

[Anonymous]

My kid at another Ivy. Friends from HS that are at Harvard, “are never there”. Skiing now (break), or in Florida a lot on the fall or traveling to London. It’s definitely a thing. Most unintellectual experience of all the kids who went Ivy.

Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised there is a school who lets students miss 2 weeks of classes without a significant, valid, issue. But I’m old school and the LAC I went to took attendance and missing too many classes impacted your grade. Good for Harvard, I guess.

It's very hard to require students to produce evidence of a "significant, valid issue". For medical privacy reasons, faculty are not allowed to ask for doctor's notes. In the post-Covid age, any student who says they are contagious must be excused from in-person attendance. Bereavement, metal and physical health, job interviews, etc. are all reasons I think deserve latitude, but students abuse them and the universities cannot police that. Professors get a lat of pressure to allow students to make up work.

Harvard's policy seems to be that students who miss two consecutive weeks of classes will be put on involuntary leave. That's unlikely to be effective at changing the culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised there is a school who lets students miss 2 weeks of classes without a significant, valid, issue. But I’m old school and the LAC I went to took attendance and missing too many classes impacted your grade. Good for Harvard, I guess.

Some schools only care about grades. I'd argue that attendance and participation grades are a boost to weak students. I a kid can skip class and do well on papers and the exams, then why not do something productive with their time

I doubt a kid skipping class is doing something productive.

I was working. As a senior, I managed a full time job and a full course load.

[Anonymous]

Actual link: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/12/4/fas-leaves-of-absence-entrepreneurs-athletes/

This is for optics and a few egotistical professors who like having a crowd. Students watched recorded lectures decades ago.

Faculty is jealous that the school admits hard working go-getters who don't have time to sit in a hall with 300 students to hear something they already have on YouTube.

The policy says that class is 3hd lecture and 9hr homework. Missing 2 weeks of class doesn't mean missing homework. If there was actually an academic problem, it would show up in grades, and the kids would be on leave for a academic probation, not for hurting admin's feelings.

At top worldwide Universities, as long as you pass your final exam/paper, you can do whatever you want all semester. Student aren't children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid at another Ivy. Friends from HS that are at Harvard, “are never there”. Skiing now (break), or in Florida a lot on the fall or traveling to London. It’s definitely a thing. Most unintellectual experience of all the kids who went Ivy.

Weird.

It's almost like a school that caters to the ultra wealthy is full of ultra wealthy students who don't care about school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writers seem to blame it on careerism when really it’s just a lower quality student who doesn’t care about education. A lot of students are in it for the jobs, and don’t care at all about what they learn, shown by the rise of Econ and CS majors everywhere.

Maybe that is because you do not learn anything anyway….

I hire an avg of 8 kids from t10 schools every year for the last 15 years at an IB in NYC.
I’m yet to hire one who has learn enough. None of them know anything. I could care less if they took Class A, B or C. But if I give them a very complex real world problem, can they solve it? that is all I care about. I will teach them everything else I need them to know.

Investment Banking isn’t known for solving “complex real world problems”. If kids want to do that, they go work for companies trying to create nuclear fusion energy or DNA-based computer chips.

You know…actual complex real world problems. It’s laughable that you would combine that phrase and IB in the same sentence.

So, "trying" to do something that essentially no one actually does is the only "solving" complex real world problems? OK chum. Obviously IB work is super easy and that's why all the work is done for $7/day in Bangladesh slums.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writers seem to blame it on careerism when really it’s just a lower quality student who doesn’t care about education. A lot of students are in it for the jobs, and don’t care at all about what they learn, shown by the rise of Econ and CS majors everywhere.

Test optional

And unlike Dartmouth, Brown and Yale, Harvard remained test optional this year.

Lower quality students

Harvard was test required this year. It was Yale that you could submit anything (including AP tests).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writers seem to blame it on careerism when really it’s just a lower quality student who doesn’t care about education. A lot of students are in it for the jobs, and don’t care at all about what they learn, shown by the rise of Econ and CS majors everywhere.

Perhaps at Harvard those majors are not rigorous. At many other universities they are. I know many smart kids from those majors (not from H).

Harvard has long been known as the hardest Ivy to get in, easiest to graduate from. Opposite of Cornell.

Like PP says, it matters very little. I need employee who are equal parts collaborative, analytical, quantitative and creative. Good luck finding these people in the most rigorous programs. Most of them lean anxious/rigid non collaborative.

That’s what the entire T30 student body is these days, now. That is what this admissions process heavily selects towards. The days of the quirky friendly geniuses are long gone.

[Anonymous]

Kids now are expected to enter college with the equivalent of a college degree from 30 years ago. Why should they bother with class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writers seem to blame it on careerism when really it’s just a lower quality student who doesn’t care about education. A lot of students are in it for the jobs, and don’t care at all about what they learn, shown by the rise of Econ and CS majors everywhere.

Perhaps at Harvard those majors are not rigorous. At many other universities they are. I know many smart kids from those majors (not from H).

Harvard has long been known as the hardest Ivy to get in, easiest to graduate from. Opposite of Cornell.

Like PP says, it matters very little. I need employee who are equal parts collaborative, analytical, quantitative and creative. Good luck finding these people in the most rigorous programs. Most of them lean anxious/rigid non collaborative.

That’s what the entire T30 student body is these days, now. That is what this admissions process heavily selects towards. The days of the quirky friendly geniuses are long gone.

They're at flagship honors colleges and LACs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actual link: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/12/4/fas-leaves-of-absence-entrepreneurs-athletes/

This is for optics and a few egotistical professors who like having a crowd. Students watched recorded lectures decades ago.

Faculty is jealous that the school admits hard working go-getters who don't have time to sit in a hall with 300 students to hear something they already have on YouTube.

The policy says that class is 3hd lecture and 9hr homework. Missing 2 weeks of class doesn't mean missing homework. If there was actually an academic problem, it would show up in grades, and the kids would be on leave for a academic probation, not for hurting admin's feelings.

At top worldwide Universities, as long as you pass your final exam/paper, you can do whatever you want all semester. Student aren't children.

A) that's absurd. Don't have time? Wtf are they doing, curing cancer? B) Attendance isn't taken in huge lecture classes. This refers to the section meetings where the teaching actually happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writers seem to blame it on careerism when really it’s just a lower quality student who doesn’t care about education. A lot of students are in it for the jobs, and don’t care at all about what they learn, shown by the rise of Econ and CS majors everywhere.

Perhaps at Harvard those majors are not rigorous. At many other universities they are. I know many smart kids from those majors (not from H).

Harvard has long been known as the hardest Ivy to get in, easiest to graduate from. Opposite of Cornell.

Like PP says, it matters very little. I need employee who are equal parts collaborative, analytical, quantitative and creative. Good luck finding these people in the most rigorous programs. Most of them lean anxious/rigid non collaborative.

That’s what the entire T30 student body is these days, now. That is what this admissions process heavily selects towards. The days of the quirky friendly geniuses are long gone.

They're at flagship honors colleges and LACs.

Not at the top LACs. You want me to believe there is a single quirky, friendly genius anywhere on the Swarthmore, Williams, or Amherst campuses these days? Please. Have you been on those campuses lately?

State schools — not even necessarily flagships — yes. That’s where the quirky friendly geniuses are.

[Anonymous]

The need to implement this new policy indicates how far Harvard has declined. Such a shame. They need to overhaul the admissions process and stop prioritizing legacy and rich private school students who don't take the gift of this education seriously. If they stop behaving like a corporate entity rather than a leading educational institution, would certainly help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The writers seem to blame it on careerism when really it’s just a lower quality student who doesn’t care about education. A lot of students are in it for the jobs, and don’t care at all about what they learn, shown by the rise of Econ and CS majors everywhere.

Perhaps at Harvard those majors are not rigorous. At many other universities they are. I know many smart kids from those majors (not from H).

Harvard has long been known as the hardest Ivy to get in, easiest to graduate from. Opposite of Cornell.

Like PP says, it matters very little. I need employee who are equal parts collaborative, analytical, quantitative and creative. Good luck finding these people in the most rigorous programs. Most of them lean anxious/rigid non collaborative.

That’s what the entire T30 student body is these days, now. That is what this admissions process heavily selects towards. The days of the quirky friendly geniuses are long gone.

They're at flagship honors colleges and LACs.

Not at the top LACs. You want me to believe there is a single quirky, friendly genius anywhere on the Swarthmore, Williams, or Amherst campuses these days? Please. Have you been on those campuses lately?

State schools — not even necessarily flagships — yes. That’s where the quirky friendly geniuses are.

Yeah, I've been to all three and the culture was noticably more chill and friendly than the Ivies we visited. Maybe not Williams so much, but yes at Amherst and Swarthmore. But I also agree plenty of brilliant kids at state honors colleges these days.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, kids. Creativity and interpersonal skills can’t be cultivated in a classroom. Analytical skills and quantitative maybe but what good is that without the rest? A well-trained robot could do it. Oh wait, these days we call that AI.

These kids aren’t en masse at LACs or T20 either. We usually get them by referral. If not, we comb through thousands of resumes and look for evidence of both. We’ve had unexpected success with 2 college mascots.

Also very good employees come from other countries who are just more straightforward, which is good in a work-environment. I don’t want 2 hours of arguing over Shakespeare vs modern foreign trade. We’re setting up a business division for crying out loud.