Anonymous
05/23/2026 12:18
Subject: Re:If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:^ we have been told by AOs that the WL that end up getting accepted almost always end up being some of the top students. It makes sense because they are the unhooked, well-prepared, smart kids—-not special admits/donors, etc,
I know z kids at Harvard that came off the waitlist, story is complete bunk. Like all threads on DCUM this time of year, this thread just a means for parents convinced Larla was done wrong by the H/Y/S/P/M rejection(s) to commiserate about those “second rate” kids that got in instead.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 12:13
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:HS is not as rigorous as it used to be. Students have UW 4.0 GPAs but the courses were watered down, they were given retakes and were allowed to reschedule tests if they were overwhelmed for any reason. Or they cheated and never really learned how to study.
Either way, many even with the highest rigor and perfect transcripts to into college unprepared because they were coddled.
This is the right answer. Massive grade inflation because boomers kids had to be perfect and it only got worse from there.
Uh, boomer kids would be Gen X. You know, the latchkey kids left entirely alone to do their thing until the sun went down. Television used to have little reminders at midnight - Do you know where your children are. Because boomers would forget about their children and needed gentle reminders. For Gen X, grades and tests were still hard but no one cared. Because, whatever, nevermind. Can't blame grade inflation and this rat race on boomer parents. They could not have cared less.
But the millennials have a lot to answer for.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 11:55
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:prof here--because there is a mismatch between the skills, habits, and intellectual virtues that professors want in their students and the kinds of skills and accomplishments rewarded in many K-12s.
I agree with this but would also add that the process by which students acclimate to the rigors of college have also broken down somewhat. There has been a trend over the last few decades-- in most respects, a very good trend-- to evaluate professors more on "teaching quality" than in the past. The unfortunate part of this is that the most easily measurable aspect of teaching quality is student evaluations. There are other ways that teaching quality could be measured but they are difficult and time consuming and so most universities place too much emphasis on student feedback. When you apply this to freshman-level courses (often taught by either untenured or non tenure track faculty), there is a clear incentive to pander to students. So when students come in to their first year of college with expectations that college coursework and expectations resemble high school coursework and expectations, there is an incentive for faculty to adjust their courses and gradings to meet that expectation. Which leaves them less prepared for sophomore-level courses and so on.
Student evaluations are heavily skewed with an entitlement mindset and is a key part of the problem that led to grade inflation and lower standards. They do very little to accurately gauge teaching quality. It’s a vicious cycle.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 11:42
Subject: Re:If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:^ we have been told by AOs that the WL that end up getting accepted almost always end up being some of the top students. It makes sense because they are the unhooked, well-prepared, smart kids—-not special admits/donors, etc,
Fiction
Nope- even have it in writing.
Absolutely do not. No AO would ever put such a statement in writing if they made such…..which they did not.
Incorrect. H states this in their letter to waitlisted students, WL students, if admitted, end up being some of their best students.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 10:52
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:prof here--because there is a mismatch between the skills, habits, and intellectual virtues that professors want in their students and the kinds of skills and accomplishments rewarded in many K-12s.
I agree with this but would also add that the process by which students acclimate to the rigors of college have also broken down somewhat. There has been a trend over the last few decades-- in most respects, a very good trend-- to evaluate professors more on "teaching quality" than in the past. The unfortunate part of this is that the most easily measurable aspect of teaching quality is student evaluations. There are other ways that teaching quality could be measured but they are difficult and time consuming and so most universities place too much emphasis on student feedback. When you apply this to freshman-level courses (often taught by either untenured or non tenure track faculty), there is a clear incentive to pander to students. So when students come in to their first year of college with expectations that college coursework and expectations resemble high school coursework and expectations, there is an incentive for faculty to adjust their courses and gradings to meet that expectation. Which leaves them less prepared for sophomore-level courses and so on.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 08:00
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:prof here--because there is a mismatch between the skills, habits, and intellectual virtues that professors want in their students and the kinds of skills and accomplishments rewarded in many K-12s.
I thought this sentence was going to end differently. I thought it was going to say — “because there is a mismatch between the skills, habits, and intellectual virtues that professors want in their students and the kinds of skills and accomplishments rewarded by admissions officers”
Anonymous
05/23/2026 07:53
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
prof here--because there is a mismatch between the skills, habits, and intellectual virtues that professors want in their students and the kinds of skills and accomplishments rewarded in many K-12s.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 06:17
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:HS is not as rigorous as it used to be. Students have UW 4.0 GPAs but the courses were watered down, they were given retakes and were allowed to reschedule tests if they were overwhelmed for any reason. Or they cheated and never really learned how to study.
Either way, many even with the highest rigor and perfect transcripts to into college unprepared because they were coddled.
This is the right answer. Massive grade inflation because boomers kids had to be perfect and it only got worse from there.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 05:50
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We're heading into a second Dark Ages era. Honestly, it probably already started 30 years ago. Look at the entrance exams for high school and college from back in the 1910s and see how far we've come. Intellectually we've fallen way behind.
The reason college admissions are so selective is because intellectual curiosity and excellence have almost nothing to do with the modern desire for a college degree. College is simply an accomplishment that needs to be completed. With that mindset, all that matters is finishing in the best shape with the least effort. It's a simple math equation.
The challenge of the next few decades is to decouple school from jobs. We aught to have a lot more Caltech’s and old Uchicagos around. Instead, we have a lot of schools acting like Harvard, and it’s because education is tertiary to what these universities are doing, and it’s leaked into student culture with an absolute fanaticism towards money above all. All this talk about rigor, meritocracy, and standards needs to take a backseat to the very real reality that no one knows what the purpose of these colleges even is.
It's spelled "ought".
And tertiary to what? What is primary and secondary?
Why make such a meaningless comment? Revision is for kids doing their GCSEs, not an online forum ffs.
It’s also so obvious that tertiary is used not as a literal but as a figurative expression for “not of central focus.” But anyone can answer your question: priority 1 is Money and priority 2 is expanding the administrative chain without actually doing any transformative work. Name a college that isn’t greedy and doesn’t have an administrative bloat issues.
Anonymous
05/23/2026 01:39
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:We're heading into a second Dark Ages era. Honestly, it probably already started 30 years ago. Look at the entrance exams for high school and college from back in the 1910s and see how far we've come. Intellectually we've fallen way behind.
The reason college admissions are so selective is because intellectual curiosity and excellence have almost nothing to do with the modern desire for a college degree. College is simply an accomplishment that needs to be completed. With that mindset, all that matters is finishing in the best shape with the least effort. It's a simple math equation.
The challenge of the next few decades is to decouple school from jobs. We aught to have a lot more Caltech’s and old Uchicagos around. Instead, we have a lot of schools acting like Harvard, and it’s because education is tertiary to what these universities are doing, and it’s leaked into student culture with an absolute fanaticism towards money above all. All this talk about rigor, meritocracy, and standards needs to take a backseat to the very real reality that no one knows what the purpose of these colleges even is.
It's spelled "ought".
And tertiary to what? What is primary and secondary?
Anonymous
05/23/2026 01:36
Subject: If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:We're heading into a second Dark Ages era. Honestly, it probably already started 30 years ago. Look at the entrance exams for high school and college from back in the 1910s and see how far we've come. Intellectually we've fallen way behind.
The reason college admissions are so selective is because intellectual curiosity and excellence have almost nothing to do with the modern desire for a college degree. College is simply an accomplishment that needs to be completed. With that mindset, all that matters is finishing in the best shape with the least effort. It's a simple math equation.
Absolutely agree with this.
College has become a vocational program.
Anonymous
05/22/2026 23:51
Subject: Re:If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:^ we have been told by AOs that the WL that end up getting accepted almost always end up being some of the top students. It makes sense because they are the unhooked, well-prepared, smart kids—-not special admits/donors, etc,
Fiction
Nope- even have it in writing.
Absolutely do not. No AO would ever put such a statement in writing if they made such…..which they did not.
Anonymous
05/22/2026 23:01
Subject: Re:If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
you mean like independent study classes or directed reading programs? Who tips them off to internships?Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:^ we have been told by AOs that the WL that end up getting accepted almost always end up being some of the top students. It makes sense because they are the unhooked, well-prepared, smart kids—-not special admits/donors, etc,
Fiction
Nope- even have it in writing.
I believe it. My Ivy WL admit kid won a departmental award freshmen year and is top of class, granted a fully paid fellowship abroad. Kid has been invited to several special private study groups with profs 2-3 students and all kinds of tip offs for internships.
Anonymous
05/22/2026 21:24
Subject: Re:If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:^ we have been told by AOs that the WL that end up getting accepted almost always end up being some of the top students. It makes sense because they are the unhooked, well-prepared, smart kids—-not special admits/donors, etc,
Fiction
Nope- even have it in writing.
I believe it. My Ivy WL admit kid won a departmental award freshmen year and is top of class, granted a fully paid fellowship abroad. Kid has been invited to several special private study groups with profs 2-3 students and all kinds of tip offs for internships.
Anonymous
05/22/2026 18:04
Subject: Re:If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:^ we have been told by AOs that the WL that end up getting accepted almost always end up being some of the top students. It makes sense because they are the unhooked, well-prepared, smart kids—-not special admits/donors, etc,
Fiction
Nope- even have it in writing.