If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Even at places like Harvard or Stanford, professors complain students are not prepared for college. In Purdue, which isn’t easy to get into for engineering and CS, professors complain that most of their class are using AI and not learning the material. These colleges regularly turn away straight A students, so what is going on?

Test optional made it more difficult for the smartest kids to get accepted, and created a situation where the schools were flooded with grade inflated kids with great parent or college consultant "edited" essays who were wholly unprepared for the rigorous university programs.

That and covid cheating culture / grade inflation.

So what’s the excuse for the freshman classes that are test required and still not great students…?

You do know there are SAT 1300 even 1200s got into Harvard, and 1600 ones rejected outright? plus grade inflation, faked research/non-profit, not naming others, it's perfect condition for those faked kids sneak in.

+1. DC 1570 SAT with very little prep other than a few practice tests, highest rigor academics, 4.6 GPA, three varsity sports, PT job, tons of volunteering and shut out of T20. However, DC wrote own essays and didn't have any manufactured ECs.

If you want it to be based on test scores, go to China. We want more from our top students. You'll never understand.

You sound a bit demented.

Most of the world's universities, not just China's, prioritize academic scores in their admissions because, wait for it....they are academic institutions.

It's only some US unis that see themselves as social engineers/ exclusive country clubs and prioritize skin color, sports, legacies, so much non-academic bs.

Well most aren’t competitive so the “some” you are talking about are the actual serious institutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even at places like Harvard or Stanford, professors complain students are not prepared for college. In Purdue, which isn’t easy to get into for engineering and CS, professors complain that most of their class are using AI and not learning the material. These colleges regularly turn away straight A students, so what is going on?

Test optional made it more difficult for the smartest kids to get accepted, and created a situation where the schools were flooded with grade inflated kids with great parent or college consultant "edited" essays who were wholly unprepared for the rigorous university programs.

That and covid cheating culture / grade inflation.

So what’s the excuse for the freshman classes that are test required and still not great students…?

You do know there are SAT 1300 even 1200s got into Harvard, and 1600 ones rejected outright? plus grade inflation, faked research/non-profit, not naming others, it's perfect condition for those faked kids sneak in.

+1. DC 1570 SAT with very little prep other than a few practice tests, highest rigor academics, 4.6 GPA, three varsity sports, PT job, tons of volunteering and shut out of T20. However, DC wrote own essays and didn't have any manufactured ECs.

If you want it to be based on test scores, go to China. We want more from our top students. You'll never understand.

You sound a bit demented.

Most of the world's universities, not just China's, prioritize academic scores in their admissions because, wait for it....they are academic institutions.

It's only some US unis that see themselves as social engineers/ exclusive country clubs and prioritize skin color, sports, legacies, so much non-academic bs.

Feel free to attend school somewhere else. Most elite American schools are private and weren’t put in place to supply engineers, teachers, and accountants for local consumption. They see themselves as more that just academic institutions and have zero need to cater to your whims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone’s attention spans have diminished considerably from phones, but looking at my kid’s graduating class, I would not describe the kids who did the “best” in college admissions as the most intellectual. Just the ones that played the game right. Spread themselves very thin with all the right pieces, but didn’t actually do any of the reading.

+1 I experienced this with my own kids. The smart, studious, intellectual one got in very few top places. The extroverted competitive system-gamer one got into their elite top choice. They had a similar GPA but the smarter one did better on the SAT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The entire reason standardized testing exists was to find diamonds in the rough. The test was supposed to be taken cold, one time, to find high IQ kids whose parents didn’t pay for extracurriculars, who had to work after school, who didn’t take AP classes because they weren’t offered at their school, whose parents weren’t helping with the college app process. Now with test prep, endless retakes, test optional and re-norming the tests have been rendered completely meaningless.
The process for applying to college used to be a lot harder and weeded out lazy or dumb kids. In 2003 I had to make the phone calls to schedule my SAT and mail in a check. I had to mail in all my printed out essays and applications. I had to do phone interviews with AOs. I got no help with any of this. No one read or edited my essays. No one took me to SAT prep class. None of my friends did that either and we were in a pretty wealthy area.

+1

[Anonymous]

Grade inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even at places like Harvard or Stanford, professors complain students are not prepared for college. In Purdue, which isn’t easy to get into for engineering and CS, professors complain that most of their class are using AI and not learning the material. These colleges regularly turn away straight A students, so what is going on?

Test optional made it more difficult for the smartest kids to get accepted, and created a situation where the schools were flooded with grade inflated kids with great parent or college consultant "edited" essays who were wholly unprepared for the rigorous university programs.

That and covid cheating culture / grade inflation.

So what’s the excuse for the freshman classes that are test required and still not great students…?

You do know there are SAT 1300 even 1200s got into Harvard, and 1600 ones rejected outright? plus grade inflation, faked research/non-profit, not naming others, it's perfect condition for those faked kids sneak in.

+1. DC 1570 SAT with very little prep other than a few practice tests, highest rigor academics, 4.6 GPA, three varsity sports, PT job, tons of volunteering and shut out of T20. However, DC wrote own essays and didn't have any manufactured ECs.

If you want it to be based on test scores, go to China. We want more from our top students. You'll never understand.

You sound a bit demented.

Most of the world's universities, not just China's, prioritize academic scores in their admissions because, wait for it....they are academic institutions.

It's only some US unis that see themselves as social engineers/ exclusive country clubs and prioritize skin color, sports, legacies, so much non-academic bs.

Feel free to attend school somewhere else. Most elite American schools are private and weren’t put in place to supply engineers, teachers, and accountants for local consumption. They see themselves as more that just academic institutions and have zero need to cater to your whims.

isn't it strange? like they think princeton's purpose is to produce the local utility's engineers to replace pipes or be coding monkeys at google.

it's a disconnect. it's the same reason they don't understand why their kids wind up in the risk reporting department @ goldman sachs and the princeton hockey player from the next town over runs investment banking (1350 sat, history major).