Anonymous wrote:Half of US high schools don’t offer calculus. I imagine there may be very bright students at Harvard and elsewhere who have had weak learning environments.

Anonymous wrote:From this I gather that a half dozen colleges within 10 miles of Harvard have stronger students than Harvard's bottom 25%.

Never mind the rest of the country.

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Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

China has it’s own problems to deal with. Nobody is sweating China.

Aside from the USA, everyone is sweating China

China is it's own worst enemy. No ability to self-correct. America is crazy but it recovers from mistakes faster.

Yup. See for example when some kids shot up a school in 1996, or when a famous con artist was elected President. America recovered quickly from those.

Meanwhile stupid China grew GDP at 2-5x the rate USA did for the last half a century.

That was before their new leader who changed the law so he has absolute power until death.

Anonymous wrote:From Reddit:

The hardest math class at my university is disproportionately legacies with several donor kids.
Fluff
It’s fascinating, really, and seems to defy all popular notions.

There’s a math class at my T5 school that’s supposed to be like the hardest undergraduate math class. It’s a cult all on its own, where the kids who are true math nerds and geniuses go to prove their skills basically, and they get shirts that say “I survived ____ class.” All the RSI kids, the ISEF and IMO kids, the kids who want to show that they’re the best at STEM, take this class.

Half the kids drop the class by the end because the crushing high-level, high-time commitment workload is designed to overwhelm and weed people out.

The fascinating thing is that this class is pretty small and has more legacies than most classes in the school. I have several friends in this class, and the amount of legacies is disproportionately high, with a few more donor kids than normal mixed in, too. The amount of wealth is that classroom is crazy considering it’s a class for the nerdiest, most driven and aggressive STEM kids, who I guess are largely legacy.

They are talking about Math55, purportedly the hardest undergraduate freshman math in the country. There is such a huge prejudice against legacy, wealth, and privilege. How do you think the parents achieved their status with a low IQ?

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Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

China has it’s own problems to deal with. Nobody is sweating China.

Aside from the USA, everyone is sweating China

China is it's own worst enemy. No ability to self-correct. America is crazy but it recovers from mistakes faster.

Yup. See for example when some kids shot up a school in 1996, or when a famous con artist was elected President. America recovered quickly from those.

Meanwhile stupid China grew GDP at 2-5x the rate USA did for the last half a century.

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Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.

Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

China has it’s own problems to deal with. Nobody is sweating China.

Aside from the USA, everyone is sweating China

China is it's own worst enemy. No ability to self-correct. America is crazy but it recovers from mistakes faster.

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Anonymous wrote:Harvard is a school. It's goal is to provide an education, not judgenwhatever contest you think it should be running. The lower the ability of incoming students, the more we can see if the school is adding any value.

This is absolutely absurd. Not everyone is capable of doing calculus. There is a significant proportion of the US population that does not have the intellectual ability to understand higher level math regardless of how much time they spend attempting to learn it. People that need remedial math classes are not cut out for Harvard.

Those needing remedial math should probably working on their GED.

dp.. this is a calculus remedial class, so really, beyond a GED.

BUT, I would expect students attending a T10 to be able to take Calc 101 without having to take a remedial calc class first, and also how to write a decent paper.

The fact that Harvard has to have such a class tells me that they are admitting "low caliber" students. Yes, these are lower caliber students for a T10.

One of my closest friends at Harvard is an excellent poet. She is undoubtedly famous and talented (top 0.1%) in creative writing.

You put her at a chalk board and ask her to devise the derivative of F(x), and she will start crying. I’m sure Harvard prefers her in the alumni database than the copious amounts of stem researchers who make $60k.

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Anonymous wrote:In China if you can't do the math you are not going to college.

And in the US, even 30 years ago at my private college, I was tutoring rich students who could barely write a paragraph or do basic math.

Usually the poorer students aren't admitting they can't perform. Not so much with the wealthy.

Didn't have the push on URM, first generation. pell grant, wokeism and test optional back then

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Anonymous wrote:Either Covid learning loss was worse than we thought (and we know it was really bad) or test optional is a complete failure.

Harvard students don’t know algebra?

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/3/new-math-intro-course/

The Harvard Math Department will pilot a new introductory course aimed at rectifying a lack of foundational algebra skills among students, according to Harvard’s Director of Introductory Math Brendan A. Kelly.

It's a function of grade inflation period. Someone posted an article from Bethesda magazine earlier that said MCPS had rampant grade inflation and kids had overweighted GPAs of 4.8 and 4.7 but their teachers/tutors said they could not do algebra 1 and lacked foundational algebra skills.


Weighted GPAs are out of control, and they are not college ready as a result. Harvard and others are seeing an over-inflated resume and admitting them based on misleading stats.

agree. everyone is rushing to blame TO policies but I agree it's happening because of inflated GPAs. everyone is getting "bonus" points for stacking up honors and AP classes and teachers are giving As where they should be giving Bs (at best).

Standardized tests counter grade inflation.

Not really. The rich kids with inflated grades pay for test prep classes and game that system.

Rich kids learn more because their parents put money and/or time into education.
It's true.
You fix that by providing free education to poor kids, and lowering standards for poor kids who show growth.
Not by filling the college with randomly selected students and just hoping they are smart.

A rich kid who is in remedial math despite all their advantages is not comparable to a poor kid in remedial math because they haven't had adequate preparation. I have far more sympathy for the latter student who has a lot more potential to advance academically with the resources Harvard has. If you ever read Sonia Sotomayor's bio, she had to get remedial English support when she first entered Princeton. But she worked like a demon to catch up and graduated with the top undergraduate award available for all around academic and extracurricular excellence.

Yep, crazy but true Harvard is a school. They are supposed to change the students, with teaching.

+1 And we're supposed to want first gen kids with high potential to succeed rather than accepting a class of kids of 1%ers so there's no class mobility.

This is also woke nonsense. Colleges are supposed to educate the best and brightest students. Their purpose is not to promote “class mobility”. China is going to eat our lunch if we don’t stop pursuing destructive equity driven policies.

China has it’s own problems to deal with. Nobody is sweating China.

Amen. China is taking its last gasp before becoming a backwater.

Chinas issue is their birth rates and declining population size. Their college admission system is not the problem and it identifies the most talented people much more effectively than the US system. They are not doling out research grants contingent upon the extolling the benefits of "diversity" in quantum mechanics unlike the US. https://science.osti.gov/grants/Applicant-and-Awardee-Resources/PIER-Plans

Again, America has the most successful tech companies. I guess we’re woke because we don’t put our citizens in “re-education” centers (Uighurs).

TL;DR: China sucks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am lost here-
how did these kids get admitted into Harvard in the first place then??

They have genuine talent. Most people who are important in the US cannot do calculus to save their lives.

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Anonymous wrote:I am lost here-
how did these kids get admitted into Harvard in the first place then??

They have genuine talent. Most people who are important in the US cannot do calculus to save their lives.

In that effect, does a kid who is great in Maths , and has a vigorous coursework and does well in tests get into Harvard?

They would need to be IMO level to get in solely on their math skills

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Anonymous wrote:I am lost here-
how did these kids get admitted into Harvard in the first place then??

They have genuine talent. Most people who are important in the US cannot do calculus to save their lives.

In that effect, does a kid who is great in Maths , and has a vigorous coursework and does well in tests get into Harvard?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am lost here-
how did these kids get admitted into Harvard in the first place then??

They have genuine talent. Most people who are important in the US cannot do calculus to save their lives.

Anonymous wrote:I am lost here-
how did these kids get admitted into Harvard in the first place then??