Reply to Nate Silver: "Go to a state school"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I attended Stanford for undergrad, and then a flagship state school ranked around #100 for a fully-funded master's degree. I was a TA for undergraduate courses at the state school. Huge difference. A few things stand out to me:

*The amount of work expected of undergraduates at Stanford was significantly more than the state school. I was used to reading at least half a book a week per class at Stanford (and typically an entire book).  At the state school the typical reading load was 20-30 pages out of a textbook, and not a real scholarly book. The writing requirements were similarly low. Two 3-page papers, a midterm, and a final at the state school for an intro class. An intro course at Stanford was a 5-page paper, a 10-page paper, a midterm, and a final. I was used to writing papers in the 15-30 page range, which is more typical of graduate requirements at the state school.

*Stanford encouraged "big" thinking--engaging with big ideas, taking risks. I felt like the state school had me in the weeds, writing about obscure things instead of working at a higher level. Part of that may be undergraduate vs. graduate study, but when I returned to the top-5 for law school, I found myself once again in the "big thinking" world.

None of this is to say that you can't find state schools with rigorous requirements, but I think you really have to move up a lot in the rankings if that's what you're looking for. And this isn't a product of the caliber of the professors--most of the state school professors went to places like Stanford. It was the other students--a professor told me he used to assign more work, but the students just wouldn't do it and eventually he gave in.  [/quote]

You missed that PP was first comparing undergrad, to TA undergrad at a public
Contrary to popular belief, master's degrees are often easier than bachelor's degrees.

The workload for my master's degree was significantly less than for my bachelor's. Both were state schools, but the master's degree came from the higher-ranked school.

Granted, my undergrad was Computer Science, which can be brutally time-consuming.

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