Here's what I don't understand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are kids these days way smarter than kids of our generation? (80s-90s)
Every kid seems to have top scores and all As. Whereas, at my rigorous public high school in the mid-90s, regular bright well-rounded kids with As/Bs but not Einstein-level grades, were going to Northwestern, Dartmouth, UPenn, Wellesley, etc. I had strong but not exceptional grades and got into Vassar. Now it seems in order to get into a T30, you need all As and all APs. Am I missing something here? How is this happening? Did this generation produce geniuses?

The SAT is able to be studied for now, and there is grade inflation.

The SAT that you took is very different than the SAT that your kids take. Previously, you could get a small edge by doing SAT prep and memorizing vocab. But the logic sections, i.r. kitten:cat::puppy:dog are gone.

There’s grade inflation for sure but the SAT is easier now, and it’s been re-normed so that kids’ scores are higher.

Definately! Those of use who took sat in late 80s and early 90s can add
Verbal: 1.07 * pre 1995 score +53
Math: add approximately 20-40

So your 640 V/740 M is now 740V/760 to 780 M
And all of that was achieved without any test prep (beyond PSAT for me).

740/780 in 1987.
I was NMSF and then took kaplan, it was sort of a waste of time, it doesn't really help at the high end of test scores.
I'm sure the techniques for test prep have gotten better but back in the 1980s it was all geared for the middle of the curve

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think kids are smarter. But that top 10 percent are way more disciplined and focused than my generation ever was.

I went to Stuyvesant in the 1980s and my kids at TJ and his peers are way ahead of where me and my peers were.

They want things I can't even spell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are kids these days way smarter than kids of our generation? (80s-90s)
Every kid seems to have top scores and all As. Whereas, at my rigorous public high school in the mid-90s, regular bright well-rounded kids with As/Bs but not Einstein-level grades, were going to Northwestern, Dartmouth, UPenn, Wellesley, etc. I had strong but not exceptional grades and got into Vassar. Now it seems in order to get into a T30, you need all As and all APs. Am I missing something here? How is this happening? Did this generation produce geniuses?

Mediocre white kids aren’t being given carte blanche admissions anymore. Gotta step your academic game up!

They don't want to. Which is why you see such a ferocious defense of legacy preferences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think kids are smarter. But that top 10 percent are way more disciplined and focused than my generation ever was.

I went to Stuyvesant in the 1980s and my kids at TJ and his peers are way ahead of where me and my peers were.

They want things I can't even spell

I went to New England prep school in the 80s and my kids and siblings' kids are way behind where we were. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

1. The population of high school kids increased at a much higher rate than the number of seats in T30.
2. Financial aid, loans and free rides for low income kids dramatically increased bringing in a new population demographic. For schools bragging that 30% of incoming kids are FGLI, there are basically 1/3 fewer seats available for kids from the area/high school you grew up in 50 years ago.
3. Grade inflation has been uneven. Low and mid performing schools will not fail or hold students back and simply lowered their standards which enabled what would have been B/C students to become A students. Focus on hiding the achievement gap led to across the board inflation.
4. Money from international students and nation state donations/funding surged the % of Chinese and Indian international students.
5. The growth of STEM and need to import educated doctors, researchers and engineers from India and China in the 90s onward introduced a new demographic of high scoring kids.

[Anonymous]

For the last 15-20 years, there has been a sharp decline in the ability of new law firm hires to write well and read and analyze quickly. These are kids coming out of top law schools. They do not read or write nearly as much as students from the 90s and earlier. Even older lawyers have stopped reading outside the profession with predictable consequences for their writing. So there may be an increase in scientific and mathemtical acumen - at least among elites -- but there is a broad and noticeable gap in thinking and communication skills between current youth and past cohorts.

[Anonymous]

I went to a catholic high school in a midwestern town similar to Des Moines, Iowa.

It was mostly working class or poor. A third of the class went to college, a third went to work, a third went into the military.

Zero - ever - went to an Ivy League school. It was not on the radar. Too far, too much money (FA was not the same back then), too little awareness these were even options. If you were going to college at all it was in Iowa. Once every few years someone would go to ND.

Still, friends from those days got rich at Microsoft, one is head of surgery at Cleveland Clinic, some doctors, some lawyers, more roofers and SAHMs.

What makes college competition different now is every year, that same high school sends kids to Wisconsin and Illinois and a few every year to a T25 school. Fewer going straight to work, even fewer go to the military.

There are tens of thousands of high schools like mine around the world who went from sending none to sending 1 to "top" school. That changes the competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not even close. It’s grade inflation. Kids are going to college completely unprepared for the rigor.

Not all kids. Sheesh - what a broad statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think kids are smarter. But that top 10 percent are way more disciplined and focused than my generation ever was.

Yep! They are disciplined, focused, and so much more involved. I believe there are more opportunities and that top 10% gladly takes advantage of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are kids these days way smarter than kids of our generation? (80s-90s)
Every kid seems to have top scores and all As. Whereas, at my rigorous public high school in the mid-90s, regular bright well-rounded kids with As/Bs but not Einstein-level grades, were going to Northwestern, Dartmouth, UPenn, Wellesley, etc. I had strong but not exceptional grades and got into Vassar. Now it seems in order to get into a T30, you need all As and all APs. Am I missing something here? How is this happening? Did this generation produce geniuses?

When you went to college, there were a few dozen or so 1600 SAT scores. Now there are between 800-1400 perfect scores every year.

Grade inflation is pretty significant too.
A school in Long Island recently had 21 valedictorians who had straight A+ GPAs. The graduating class is about 300. More than 5% of the class is a valedictorian. Multiple valedictorians are pretty common these days.
There are a lot of trash AP classes now.
AP Calc BC is still rigorous as is AP Physics C-EM, AP US History but there are a lot of trash APs.

There are at most between 300-500 perfect 1600 scores.

PP

Really? Do you have a cite? I think those might be the numbers from the heavily test optional period during the Pandemic.

I've seen estimates that about 0.07% of students get a perfect score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Grade inflation + standardized test gaming/studying + a lot more domestic and intl’l students + activity/extracurricular inflation.

It’s pretty straightforward.

Many of the students lack the proper analytical and critical thinking skills that are necessary to function at a higher level. See, for example the original post of this thread.

Sounds like average students. You’d think the last generation was filled with Einsteins.

Agreed that the average seems to be quite idiotic for a while now. Look at the President. This same group of individuals lived through bush as president. Many of them likely supported the war in Iraq. They’re the white collar class that encouraged globalization. Now they want to rewrite history and blame their kids.

Ugh must we bring everyone back to Republicans? And politics? So intellectually lazy.

Let me guess, PP—you had a 4.0 GPA 😂😂😂

Yes because “kids are dumb” is such an intellectual conversation. Also education is extremely political- it’s where the money is.

If it was just about money, we wouldn't need to racially balance selective schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think kids are smarter. But that top 10 percent are way more disciplined and focused than my generation ever was.

I went to Stuyvesant in the 1980s and my kids at TJ and his peers are way ahead of where me and my peers were.

They want things I can't even spell

I went to New England prep school in the 80s and my kids and siblings' kids are way behind where we were. Not even close.

And where do they go to school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think kids are smarter. But that top 10 percent are way more disciplined and focused than my generation ever was.

I went to Stuyvesant in the 1980s and my kids at TJ and his peers are way ahead of where me and my peers were.

They want things I can't even spell

+1. scientific knowledge has advanced tremendously in the past 30 to 40 years. These kids now have access to knowledge that wasn't even discovered when we were in high school. The new generation is so far ahead of where we were.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think kids are smarter. But that top 10 percent are way more disciplined and focused than my generation ever was.

I went to Stuyvesant in the 1980s and my kids at TJ and his peers are way ahead of where me and my peers were.

They want things I can't even spell

I went to New England prep school in the 80s and my kids and siblings' kids are way behind where we were. Not even close.

This seems to be a reflection of your family, and I'm not meaning to offend. I don't think standards to get into NE prep schools in the 80s were that high -mainly students from wealthy families.

In ours, we were immigrant kids and all did well in the worldly sense, but our kids are definitely ahead of us - a greater interest in learning, more talented, more interesting and just as successful in terms of college admissions.

[Anonymous]

Many students are smarter