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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So basically just a technicality since most of the class can then just get A-s. Ridiculous.[/quote]

I really think that's more or less how it is now.  I don't think this is some kind of significant change.     An A  really hard to get, even now, and an a minus is not as hard.  In other words,  an A minus is what we would have called a B.  I think it's been this way for a while and everyone knows it.[/quote]

60 percent were getting flat As two years ago.  25 percent getting flat As in early 1990s.[/quote]

Okay but I know kids that went to Harvard 35 years ago that would never get in there right now.  The quality of students at Harvard is higher now that it was in the '90s.[/quote]

Opposite for me. Today’s students are grinders; yesterday’s were truly gifted.

Both have merit of course, but grinders more common than the innate geniuses IMO (I’m neither FWIW).[/quote]

Baloney. There are plenty of true geniuses at top schools, likely more than prior years because in the past it was not common for true geniuses attending high school in the south or in flyover country (or international geniuses) to try for the ivies or MIT or Stanford. Now these schools are more accessible and more affordable for the vast majority of the US population, and everyone knows about them. People did not go across the country to college nearly as much in the 80s and 90s. 
 There are more "grinders" for sure but that is because right below the true genius group the top college is filled with mostly unhooked 98-99%ile kids who got in by working hard in addition to being quite smart. Below that are piles of diamond in the rough types who might be 98-99%ile or might not be but are from rural or FGLI families and also worked hard to get there. The middle of the pack at these schools used to be a bunch of northeast private school white males who were bright, could be 95-99%ile, but did not have to grind because their high school was a ticket and there was a higher % of their high schools who were admitted to ivies. They merely had to be top half of their high school. Now, even the most prestigious boarding schools do not send unhooked barely top half students to ivies. [/quote]

PP. Maybe? But if we assume (a) that the proportion of geniuses is relatively constant, while the population of grinders has increased due to college prep strategizing (likely), (b) that it’s become increasingly difficult for admissions to differentiate between the two due to SAT prep (now common, then uncommon), etc., then you are likely to end up with a higher proportion of grinders to geniuses than in the past.[/quote]

The denominator has changed -- Harvard now gets far more applications from lower income kids, international kids, and kids who live outside the east coast.  So if your assumption is genius is equally distributed, then far more geniuses are applying now.[/quote]

To put it in your framework, I’m arguing that the numerator (grinders) has changed (grown) far more than the denominator (geniuses), and that it’s increasingly difficult for admissions to distinguish between the two. [/quote]

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