norcalhop wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 6:32 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 5:41 pm
norcalhop wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 4:41 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 8:57 am
DocBarrister wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2024 3:00 am
Top students at top schools are just better today. Better prepared. More experience in research, internships, etc. More tutoring and prep programs. More extracurriculars. It’s not even close. Today’s top students at top schools are far better than their counterparts of yesteryear. They work harder, too.
I think grading on strict curves to limit the number of “A” grades is just asinine and promotes cutthroat competition. That kind of GARBAGE should be exiled from academia.
It is also unfair. I think much of the “grade inflation” is due to more students doing “A”-quality work.
I earned my four university degrees over a period of more than two decades (with a lot of work in research, clinical medicine, academia, lobbying, and consulting interspersed). I have personally seen the difference in the quality of students from my college years to my later graduate and professional years. In my later university years, the students simply did a lot more in college, were better organized, etc. They worked harder, too. That’s saying something since I went to Hopkins for college.
I don’t begrudge today’s students their “A” grades. They are simply better students these days, and they earned their good grades.
DocBarrister
On this one, I totally agree Doc.
Indeed, I find it perplexing that some posters on here don't understand that competition to get into the most selective schools has grown hugely over the decades since when most of them went to these schools like Hop, Harvard, Stanford, etc. Hugely more applicants with much greater geographic reach competing for admission and enabled by financial aid policies that open the aperture to a much broader demographic with outstanding talent on offer. Much larger population base and very small growth in total admitted students at the finite number of most selective schools.
This isn't a matter of HS GPA and standardized test scores, it's simply far more students from all over the world striving to get into the very top brand schools makes it incredibly difficult for a less "smart" and prepared applicant to get in. With the reduction in legacy admissions benefit (or elimination) and the pressure on athletes to be high academic achievers as well, these most selective schools take fewer and fewer students outside of the top 10% academic students in the world. (Harvard has been mentioned here; their admission rate is regularly below 5%)
And, at the top 10% level, the preparation, as you suggest, is heavily augmented with special tutoring, internships, and other ways of expanding the students' academic exposure pre college. One can argue that below this top level, academic standards and preparation may be no greater or even have slipped, but this is a matter of haves and have nots, where the top students really are way better prepared entering college than in yesteryear. Or just flat out smart as hell from a less advantaged situation.
So, you're right that it makes sense that super high achievers would, on average, continue to be super high achievers in college.
But what some posters are pining for seems to be an older way of thinking about the purpose served in the educational process of such schools. That old school thinking suggests that these schools should 'separate the wheat from the chaff' through forced curve grading, making clear that not all students are high achieving on a relative basis to their classmates. But that's the old school logic, especially applied in math and sciences, that led to extremely low graduation rates with degrees in these majors of those beginning in those majors...high flipping out midstream to other less demanding majors...including at selective schools...
Contrast this approach to a local school, UMBC, that produces more graduates of color who go on to masters, PhD's, etc in the sciences than any other college in the nation...their philosophy, novel at the time, was that their job wasn't to 'separate' but rather to teach...with anyone who they had admitted who desired to achieve in math or science able to do so. Their job was to help them get to high achievement, not discourage them.
https://umbc.edu/stories/umbc-graduates ... s-college/
The irony here is UMBC does actually separate. Their record of most black students going on to earn advanced degrees is due in singular part to their Meyerhoff's scholars program.
https://meyerhoff.umbc.edu/
It's an extremely selective merit scholarship program with research advisory resources - hardly open to all graduates of UMBC.
Students today are more prepared due to ample test prep and tutoring resources. But has that translated to significant increases in raw intelligence over time? When I interview students first hand, the answer is no. Especially when they lose said resources in college.
Not more selective than the most selective schools, including Hop and yet look at their success rate. They compete for the same kids any selective school would like to attract. Note their graduation rates across the board and the overall #'s are substantially superior to similar profile schools in terms of admittance scores.
But sure, Meyerhoff is indeed selective, but the same courses are open to all the students. And they do perform. Different attitude, lots of team learning, and lots of real world practical learning make the courses less theoretical and more "real". Career paths are emphasized.
Back to Hop, Harvard, Stanford, etc what you seem to be ignoring, (maybe you weren't a data scientist or social scientist?) is the impact of some raw statistics. You're correct that the most intelligent kids aren't more intelligent than in years past, it's just that there are so many more of them across the globe and thus the percentage accepted is at a higher and higher bar, given the relative slow growth in # of slots at those selective colleges.
The pool has grown dramatically due to population growth, geographic reach, and financial aid/demographics.
Trying to equate standard UMBC as Meyerhoff is laughable. Meyerhoff scholars have dedicated research advisors and research opportunities not available to other students:
"Program staff use an extensive network of contacts to arrange summer science and engineering internships, opportunities at UMBC and such partner institutions as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health. Many internship hosts become continuing mentor to students."
https://meyerhoff.umbc.edu/scholar-expe ... -research/
These are resources that not every student at the top privates would have at their disposal either.
Indeed, similar programs exist at ivies that enroll dramatically smaller student bodies than UMBC:
https://vagelosmls.sas.upenn.edu/
As for statistics, I definitely was not a social scientist but I suspect I'm better than some who have arrived at conclusions citing outdated GPAs on here. You'll have to show me how the numerator quality for Harvard has improved when they have again always been admitting top of the class students with similar test scores.
Sure, the denominator has increased but that alone does not mean the numerator is of higher quality than years past to justify this level of obscene inflation.
I'm not sure what your point is about the Meyerhoff program. Yes, it's a fantastic program, difficult to be selected into, and provides excellent support in various ways. And quite a few other top schools, including some public universities, like UNC and UVA, have special programs to attract elite students and have special support programs.
No argument from me on this. The point is that they achieve tremendous results in a population set that many previously assumed was not capable of such excellence. But you're incorrect about the opportunities for other UMBC students, including in math, sciences, computer sciences etc. They're quite strong, with lots of field work and team work being a keystone of those programs. They've been smart about selecting a few areas where there's corporate and governmental support for career development in the Baltimore-Washington metro area, like cyber security.
I have no affiliation with UMBC, just offering it as a nearby institution which chose a very different path in how they approach their responsibility to teach and encourage rather than separate and discourage. I have much more affinity for Hopkins where I serve on a board. I know a bit about Harvard as my son recently went there and my wife went to HBS, so we spent sometime on that campus in different eras. I also know a bit about Dartmouth, where my wife and I went undergrad.
I have not in any way been citing GPA's or SAT's or any other numerical scoring, so not sure why you're pushing on that, at least with me. I'm simply pointing out that say, Harvard and other Ivies, 50 (my era)-100 years ago had their pick of wealthy, predominantly Northeastern, white students. Today there are many more such people from that region PLUS all demographics from all over the world. Tremendous growth in the pool. They accept a much smaller % of such applicants from the pool that even imagines they have a chance of acceptance. So, those they do accept and admit undeniably are a more selective set than decades ago. This affords them, and places like my alma mater, Dartmouth, the latitude to turn away large numbers of "perfect" SAT applicants (if that's a sound measure) to accept instead those applicants at the very top 2% of academic excellence who demonstrate some additional exceptional quality that differentiates them from others...at least in the view of the admissions committee. Of course, they also accept many such 'perfect' SATs and near perfect SAT's, but they don't consider such numerical scores as the singularly most important attributes predictive of future success at their school and beyond.
If you polled Ivy (and likely Hop) graduates of 50 years ago, a significant % would be skeptical of the likelihood that their academic performance in HS would be admitted today, especially absent some other special attribute (like say, lax prowess!). "Well-rounded" doesn't cut it as legacy admit benefits decline or are eliminated and the pool of exceptional has grown so much.
Indeed, I recall many older Dartmouth alums in my era complaining rather bitterly that the College would be impossible for them to be admitted to, their sons being turned away...the 'blame' was on the advent of coeducation which undeniably increased the pool of qualified applicants (plus population growth, geographic reach, and beginnings of better financial aid). My future wife and I were in the 4th class of coeducation with women just 25% of that class. The women were flat out rockstars. By the time we graduated the classes were almost even with women to men. (BTW, the women's D1 sports teams were rather terrific too!)
I'm simply saying that as the pool has grown way, way faster than the number of admission slots, the selectivity has gone up in kind.
None of that is to say that college students are actually any more mature or wise than they were 50 years ago, etc; they're just as impatient and sophomoric in their maturity than as at any prior time. But at the most selective schools, the selectivity is indeed much higher.
Their credentials just blow mine away. I’m amazed by all the incredible things young kids do today.