Reply to I believe that admission to elite schools were much more meritocratic 20 years ago versus today

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m not sure the factors you list create more meritocracy but the overall level of achievement is markedly higher today than back then. Whatever grade inflation and SAT scoring you want to cite, students are taking more advanced courses sooner than ever before. They’re just smarter than we ever were. [/quote]

You are conflating smarter with higher achieving.  [/quote]

This^^^

Not sure it's always better to be taking 10+ AP courses in HS.

I was tops in my class, 1400 SAT/4.0 UW in the 80s.  I took 2 AP courses as that is all my HS offered (English in 12th and APUSH).  There were not AP science courses available. 400+ in my graduating class and only 13 of us made it to Calculus in HS (12th grade)--not AP calc.  Yet somehow we all went on to be successful adults, but with way less stress and mental health issues.  I suspect that's partly due to us being allowed to be HSers, not college students at age 15.  
I attended a T10 university and graduated with a 3.9 GPA with a double major that required me to take overload almost every semester in my 5 years in 2 difficult majors/time consuming majors. [/quote]

So despite higher achievement, which is the only tangible evidence you have , you’re comfortable calling them dumber. Ok. [/quote]

I have tangible evidence every day at work that the current undergraduate population is _less_prepared_.  I don't learn anything about the HS stats even of the students who are majors in my program.  I don't hear about their GPAs or their APs, and every year I have to tell them to take their HS extracurriculars off their resumes.  All I know is that they cannot do a whole basket of things as well as students could 20 years ago: absorb written material, identify important concepts, and redeploy them in arguments; memorize key details that are too fundamental and important to be left aside for notes or Google; plan ahead for complex or long-term projects; strike out on their own to find potentially appropriate research materials; write in an organized and compelling way, with minimal errors; and assume with humility and maturity the consequences of their own choices.  This is not just a pandemic thing, and those who think high stats are a sign of great college preparation might want to make sure that their students are ready in these other ways, too.  Because I can't see your SAT score: all I know is that I have to show you how to mine your textbook properly for high-priority information or constantly tell you to provide evidence in your papers.  Yes, I'm paid to do that, but you'd get much more out of our time together (and your tuition dollars) if you could already do that and I could teach you how to participate in the wider world of our discipline.

--College prof[/quote]

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