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:

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?

The student quality may or may not be bad, but professors have always complained about students, ever since college was invented. It doesn't mean anything.

+100. This is nothing more than the older generation complaining about the younger one. An age old story.

As a professor, I can say that the quality of students has significantly declined in less than ten years - thanks to social media, computer distractions, AI, Covid, etc. and the lack of preparation for college. It is hardly generational.

This I believe. It's not uniform but it's real for many groups, especially kids coming out of public schools where there are fewer guardrails.

Yeah, it’s obviously the public schools’ faults and not the tech bros who have made billions on our kids’ attention spans.

At my kids catholic school use of a phone on campus during school hours led to detention and then suspension if repeated. Just sayin.

They can’t outrun the dumbification brought to us by big tech forever. It’s affecting everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Today’s SAT is so watered down that it doesn’t differentiate intelligence even if you don’t prep at all. It’s like trying to differentiate math skills by asking what’s 1+1. And this watering down is done deliberately to curb the population of certain demographics.

This is today's nominee for the 'Stupidest thing I saw on DCUM award'. It is a high bar but your ignorant ass made the leap.

Congrats on winning the ‘Most Evil Soul on Planet Earth’ award.

Really? My response to your backhanded racism is 'evil'. You've got issues mom.

Yes. Pointing out the racist intention of watering down objective metrics is racism? This is exactly why you’re evil.

[Anonymous]

Is the whining and blaming still happening?

Who is at fault:
-professors
-students
-technology
-politicians/gov't
-AOs
-HS, colleges

Did I miss anyone/anything else? It's everyone's fault except for your own damn selves, of course!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the whining and blaming still happening?

Who is at fault:
-professors
-students
-technology
-politicians/gov't
-AOs
-HS, colleges

Did I miss anyone/anything else? It's everyone's fault except for your own damn selves, of course!

I disagree. Public and most parochial schools have dumbed down K-12 education.

1. Teaching as a profession sucks and know attracts only lower performing individuals. It isn’t just the low salaries but going into teaching is a dead end street. You can’t pivot the way you can in business or other industries. Your only option out of the classroom is administration but you have no skills to run an organization. We are expecting C students from bottom tier state schools to somehow grasp the rigor needed to excel at top higher education instructions. It’s like having swim team coaches who can’t themselves get across the pool without water wings.

2. For whatever reason educational graduate programs do not effectively teach math, statistics or data science. Ed admins with graduate degrees are constantly collecting more and more data and then not even able to represent or analyze it. Badly constructed and error riddled excel spreadsheets dominate school administrations. Teachers are tasked with collecting more and more data, often with zero quality control to throw into their salad spinner.

3. Class sizes are too large. Teachers no longer give feedback or use the editorial process to teach writing. Books are no longer given or assigned to save money, Ed tech has been horribly implemented to benefit the employees over the students.

[Anonymous]

Speaking as a professional school prof, it's not just the undergrads--it's the grad/law/business students too. They want and demand much more hand-holding than they did 15-20 years ago, many more mental/emotional issues (in part due to kids now getting their legally mandated ADA services, allowing a wider range of students to do higher ed--not a bad thing), can't handle pressure, don't do the reading, etc. etc. This is a generational thing.

[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?

The student quality may or may not be bad, but professors have always complained about students, ever since college was invented. It doesn't mean anything.

+100. This is nothing more than the older generation complaining about the younger one. An age old story.

As a professor, I can say that the quality of students has significantly declined in less than ten years - thanks to social media, computer distractions, AI, Covid, etc. and the lack of preparation for college. It is hardly generational.

This I believe. It's not uniform but it's real for many groups, especially kids coming out of public schools where there are fewer guardrails.

Yeah, it’s obviously the public schools’ faults and not the tech bros who have made billions on our kids’ attention spans.

At my kids catholic school use of a phone on campus during school hours led to detention and then suspension if repeated. Just sayin.

They can’t outrun the dumbification brought to us by big tech forever. It’s affecting everyone.

But you can help them learn intent and provide a better environment while their brains are developing....it's common sense vs not offending anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Today’s SAT is so watered down that it doesn’t differentiate intelligence even if you don’t prep at all. It’s like trying to differentiate math skills by asking what’s 1+1. And this watering down is done deliberately to curb the population of certain demographics.

This is today's nominee for the 'Stupidest thing I saw on DCUM award'. It is a high bar but your ignorant ass made the leap.

Congrats on winning the ‘Most Evil Soul on Planet Earth’ award.

Really? My response to your backhanded racism is 'evil'. You've got issues mom.

Yes. Pointing out the racist intention of watering down objective metrics is racism? This is exactly why you’re evil.

There was no racist intent....your racism is what is evil.

[Anonymous]

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?

The student quality may or may not be bad, but professors have always complained about students, ever since college was invented. It doesn't mean anything.

+100. This is nothing more than the older generation complaining about the younger one. An age old story.

As a professor, I can say that the quality of students has significantly declined in less than ten years - thanks to social media, computer distractions, AI, Covid, etc. and the lack of preparation for college. It is hardly generational.

What is the objective evidence that supports your conclusion? Because, surely, you didn't come here to discuss your anecdotal experience "as professor." Otherwise, it seems that the quality of professors' thinking and comments have declined as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Today’s SAT is so watered down that it doesn’t differentiate intelligence even if you don’t prep at all. It’s like trying to differentiate math skills by asking what’s 1+1. And this watering down is done deliberately to curb the population of certain demographics.

This is today's nominee for the 'Stupidest thing I saw on DCUM award'. It is a high bar but your ignorant ass made the leap.

Congrats on winning the ‘Most Evil Soul on Planet Earth’ award.

Really? My response to your backhanded racism is 'evil'. You've got issues mom.

Yes. Pointing out the racist intention of watering down objective metrics is racism? This is exactly why you’re evil.

There was no racist intent....your racism is what is evil.

If a racist like says so, it must be true. NOT.
Again, you’re just evil and I hope you rot in hell if there is one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you listen to any admissions officers’ podcasts, they are all trying to save people. They all sound like lovely humans who mean well, obviously got into this profession to make a difference, but you can tell they are also a little too idealistic and naive (so many sound so young, in their mid to late 20’s, but even the older ones sound idealistic). They talk so much about “distance traveled”, placing a lot of emphasis on helping first-gen, low income, and especially rural kids.

In principle I agree with them too, but it sounds like in reality, a lot of these kids are just not ready when they come on campus. A lot of resources are being spent on outreaching to these kids, flying them in all expenses paid, paying for college prep experiences for them during the summer after they are admitted, and setting aside special mentors and remedial classes for them once they arrive. Professors are complaining, but they also want to help these kids. I support efforts to advance upward mobility (the world is too unfair) and hope some of these kids do come out swinging on the other side, but there will be some who won’t make it. This is not a movie and life is not The Blind Side, but I understand why they try. In the long run, their well-intended crusade could end up fracturing long-standing institutions; you can already see that happening on campuses. I guess to them, that’s a risk worth taking.

America is an idealistic country and a young country so we always try to force things to happen sooner. In general, I tend to think that’s a good thing. In countries that have been around longer and are more practical like the UK, they let poor kids rise to the top on their own and somehow make it to Oxbridge from dirt poor families, but those kids are rare and typically white. Tuition is also much lower there so the economic barriers are not as high if the universities don’t go out of their way to manufacture a special path for the poor kids.

I’m so tired of this nonsense coming from mostly wealthy privileged families.

This is so cheap for most of the colleges that engage in this practice. Fly ins are almost exclusively at need blind institutions with billions in the bank. Fly in students are mostly students from top magnet schools and boarding schools. How do I know? I was one of them and most of us knew each other already because we were already identified as top students by CBOs most here would never know about.

A majority of top colleges don’t even have summer “remedial” programs in the way you are discussing them. Many have early access research and other programs, so students are connected to faculty early and can network before your wealthy children come in and take up excessive space. Your entire point about the UK is stupid, because the UK has a nationalized curriculum and even they’ve had to start adopting practices to improve low income representation.

Our issue is people like you are in the way. Instead of advocating for improving resources, you want to dissolve pathways for low income students with no practical replacement for stupid conceptions of merit that are made to exclude. We are already moving back to test required, so I’m excited to see the new excuses this forum makes for when talented low income students are still attending these top institutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Speaking as a professional school prof, it's not just the undergrads--it's the grad/law/business students too. They want and demand much more hand-holding than they did 15-20 years ago, many more mental/emotional issues (in part due to kids now getting their legally mandated ADA services, allowing a wider range of students to do higher ed--not a bad thing), can't handle pressure, don't do the reading, etc. etc. This is a generational thing.

Just make the reading assigned an actual requirement in order to understand and comprehend the class. This is such an easy fix that professors must be a pretty lazy bunch

[Anonymous]

This is a total non sequitur. There could be greater demand for elite universities from a population declining in ability. Lower admission rates tell us nothing over time about national student quality, or quality of students at any given university over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

The student quality may or may not be bad, but professors have always complained about students, ever since college was invented. It doesn't mean anything.

+100. This is nothing more than the older generation complaining about the younger one. An age old story.

As a professor, I can say that the quality of students has significantly declined in less than ten years - thanks to social media, computer distractions, AI, Covid, etc. and the lack of preparation for college. It is hardly generational.

This I believe. It's not uniform but it's real for many groups, especially kids coming out of public schools where there are fewer guardrails.

Yeah, it’s obviously the public schools’ faults and not the tech bros who have made billions on our kids’ attention spans.

At my kids catholic school use of a phone on campus during school hours led to detention and then suspension if repeated. Just sayin.

They can’t outrun the dumbification brought to us by big tech forever. It’s affecting everyone.

But you can help them learn intent and provide a better environment while their brains are developing....it's common sense vs not offending anyone.

Fantastic, I look forward to seeing their robust little brains save us all. I mean, look around, there’s evidence everywhere of the wealthiest among us using their rarified privilege to better the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Today’s SAT is so watered down that it doesn’t differentiate intelligence even if you don’t prep at all. It’s like trying to differentiate math skills by asking what’s 1+1. And this watering down is done deliberately to curb the population of certain demographics.

This is today's nominee for the 'Stupidest thing I saw on DCUM award'. It is a high bar but your ignorant ass made the leap.

Congrats on winning the ‘Most Evil Soul on Planet Earth’ award.

Really? My response to your backhanded racism is 'evil'. You've got issues mom.

Yes. Pointing out the racist intention of watering down objective metrics is racism? This is exactly why you’re evil.

There was no racist intent....your racism is what is evil.

You need help, serious help.

[Anonymous]

When you make rural, poor, first gen, disability, the most coveted of your applicants and claim it’s all “holistic”, don’t be surprised when they can’t handle college level work or need remedial classes.

Just sayin’