In my opinion, the admissions race at the Ivies is so tough now that the vast majority of students there have these traits, too. Harvard takes kids with top grades and scores who are also top achievers in other areas, usually multiple other areas. That’s why I don’t think grade inflation at Harvard is a big deal. If grades are designed to measure master of the material, as opposed to sorting students into performance tiers, then I suspect that the high percentage of high grades at Harvard is quite appropriate. That’s part of the problem here–trying to generalize from Harvard and the limited number of schools with a similar student body is not very helpful in trying to address problems with the educational system overall.</p>
<p>Very valid points, tax guy. I should clarify that I support the inclusion of AP (because I like the curriculum, which is aptly advanced), particularly if it is taught in a socratic way in a school district that appropriately funds its inclusion. I also wholly support the notion that its delivery is teacher-specific. However, in this particular case, the magnet school to which I was referring was part of a severely underfunded urban district. In offering the APs (in order to keep or attract students that might be lost to the much wealthier and larger suburban magnet schools) the school drastically reduced its available resources to continue offering the other (non AP) courses and began the pervasive dismantling of the one thing that actually worked – the interdisciplinary humanities curriculum for which the school was renowned. Had the district chosen to adequately fund the school instead of sacrificing the PTR, instead of decreasing the music and arts offerings (in order to afford the scheduling of AP at a very small school) and instead of overloading the teachers so that there was not sufficient prep time to deliver AP in the way it was necessarily intended, then all would have been well, to my mind. But once you’ve created a situation where ALL students have to take AP American History, for example, whether or not they’re sufficiently proficient at essay writing (a very real phenom) to manage the course, or where ALL students have to take AP Calc, but did not receive sufficient precalc training, then the net result is great gaps in their respective knowledge bases OR the reality of having to slow down the material coverage in order to re-instruct the students, which then make the AP offering of lesser quality than intended, and more importantly, insufficiently preparatory for university level work. In this situation, one would be better to let a qualified university professor introduce him or her to the finer points of the study of advanced literature, and to have instead spent a little time in high school honing one’s writing skills. I guess that’s what I was driving at. And I guess what concerns me most about the apparent grade inflation is the old saying about standards: “If you bend, they’ll bend you.”</p>
<p>I have met and interviewed many graduates who have earned top honors and who have failed to demonstrate to me a wellspring of innovative, integrative analytical skills. Yet I have met others who possess and demonstrate extraordinary innate capabilities. My wish is that I could meet more in the middle : )</p>
<p>And when I went to college, everyone took the same courses and received the same degree. You either made it or you didn’t. There were no Honors Colleges or Programs. Now, as some friends who are professors have told me, the kids who would have gone to college BITD now are in honors programs, and many who would never have gone before are now in regular college courses. So a degree seems to have been watered down. BTW, I know that most of the kids on this site fit into the Honors College profile, but we have moved to everyone going to college, and I believe that this has watered down the degree. And, quite frankly, although there was some cheating, it was never to the extent that it is now. Sadly, this generation overall (not all) believes cheating is OK, according to recent studies, and in my experience in the classroom.</p>
<p>Sorry for chopping off the rest of the quote, but it was that morsel that most resonated with me, as well as what followed. Form is a lot more important, academically, than it’s given credit for – maligned as it seems to be in modern communications. Form is the basis for argumentation, for development of a thought, for conclusion in a laboratory experiment write-up, for assessing the applicability of scientific studies, for logic in debate, and is the fuel for critically evaluating a written passage. </p>
<p>I was drenched in form, and it has paid off, professionally and personally. I try to teach it to my students now, and it’s as if they’re meeting it for the first time. I love young people (have a couple of my own! ), but large numbers of young people – I have no way of guessing percentages (perhaps most?) trivialize form, or in many cases do not understand its signficance, never having been educated in it.</p>
<p>Almost every new generation brings its own fresh insight and/or approach to its elders, which is a good thing. In this current generation, the skill to utilize and merge many communication tools (including electronic) creatively has the potential to provide valuable perspective, and surely some of this is already apparent. However, without care to form, the message can become obliterated.</p>
<p>While most competitive private high schools in my region continue to insist on frequent writing assignments, the quality of that writing is measurably better when students have practiced since elementary school. The pattern here is that very little writing is introduced and expected until Grade 9. It is hardly ‘second-nature’ at that time, and teachers usually encounter enormous resistance, not to mention struggle, with the concept of logical thought, the precise expression of that, and the embrace of patience.</p>
<p>Like the poster, I see the fruits of this both on and off CC. It is of little benefit to call yourself a scientist if you cannot understand the value (or conversely, the limits) of a study. (Statistics or “findings” without context.) It brings little to political argument if you have no critical understanding of the implications (and limits) of “rights.” It brings little to public policy discussions if you have minimal ability to assess historical cause and effect, or understand the history of social institutions. Almost no writing is assigned in most public high school history classes in my area; memorize names, dates, events, and be done with it. Almost all of my own history classes as a student required writing as the main activity. In addition, in my private high school (and in a very few in my area), we took a separate course in Logic, which should be required, at the least, of all high school students.</p>
<p>Hunt notes,“in my opinion, the admissions race at the Ivies is so tough now that the vast majority of students there have these traits, too. Harvard takes kids with top grades and scores who are also top achievers in other areas, usually multiple other areas. That’s why I don’t think grade inflation at Harvard is a big deal.”</p>
<p>Response: Sorry, I don’t agree. Having tough admission standards based on GPA and SATs scores shouldn’t provide an automatic B+ to most kids throughout the four years of school. These factors are only a few of the major factors that make up a top notch student. Moreover, every school, even Harvard, has its student body performance that can be measured using a bell curve. Not everyone there is an A- college student. They may have been that way for high school,but not necessarily in college. Too many other factors control academic performance. </p>
<p>In fact, I have met a number of national merit scholars and finalists. Their academic performance also can be shown to fit into a bell curve. They are not all as successful as one would think and certainly aren’t 91% fabulous! If truth be known, they perform, overall, a bit better than most college students but not as well as their scores would lead many folks to believe.In fact, of the three NMF that my daughter knew in college, not one got over a 3.5 overall in their GPA at a state school. This may not be a valid statistical sample,but it does give an indication that there is MUCH more to college performance than high SATS and high school GPA regardless of how tough the admission standards are.</p>
<p>Frankly, I agree with what Princeton did, which was to limit the amount of A’s in each class to no more than 35%. I think all the top schools should follow suit. In fact, I think all schools should adopt a form of bell curve to its grading standards: 10% A’s, 20% B’s, 40% C’s and rest D’s and below. I do understand that money is king and, thus, schools want retention, especially for rankings. Thus, they can have fewer D’s and F’s. However, 91% A’s and B’s is unacceptable to me anywhere, even Harvard.</p>
My point was that Harvard *doesn’t *have admission standards based on GPA and SAT scores. For Harvard, and several other top schools, excellent grades and scores are simply a minimum requirement for acceptance, and most students have shown a record of achievement that shows that they are highly accomplished, competitive individuals. Sure, some of them will not live up to that in college, but the majority of them will. These aren’t just high school A students–these are the very top students from their high schools.</p>
<p>Personally, I think rationing As and insisting on a predetermined bell curve is absurd and unfair. It makes grades into a competition rather than a measurement of mastery of the material.</p>
<p>My dad was a college professor (now retired) and his rule was always to hand out grades based upon mastery of the material. He had one memorable semester where he taught two sections of the same class. In one section no one did better than a B- (with lots of D’s and Fs) and in the other, no one did worse than a B. He dug around and figured out that the “good section” students were all in an honors seminar which conflicted with his “bad section” time slot. Essentially the distribution of students (and thus the grade distribution) across the two sections was determined by the course schedule maker.</p>
<p>I should point out that there was little or no possibility of cheating. Dad really disliked cheating and did everything he could to make it impossible - including having multiple versions of every test so that no more than 4 students would have the same test. Made grading more work but he was willing to do it.</p>
<p>I don’t know if there is less ‘rigor’ in my kids’ education than there was with mine. Perhaps.</p>
<p>But there is at least the impression out there that parents are way more involved in the lives of their children now than a generation ago.</p>
<p>As much as we like to blame TV, video games, the loss of the canon, etc., we also should look at different parenting styles.</p>
<p>I know parents who would go over their kid’s homework in elementary school before it was handed in. So, on third grade math problems involving multiplication and division, the child would do the homework and then the parent would check it over before it was handed in, pointing to mistakes and having the child correct it. Of course, this kind of involvement sounds fantastic, as the parent is involved with helping the child learn his or her math.</p>
<p>But notice that it was done before the grade was given out. Rarely did I ever hear of a parent going over the homework after it was graded and then sitting down with the child to point out mistakes and then talking about how to correct them.</p>
<p>A lot of this had to do with making sure that the kid got the top grades. I am sure the parent wanted the child to learn the concept, but a big part has to do with the grade.</p>
<p>If we can’t stand to see our kids get a dreaded B (much less a C or F) on a third grade multiplication assignment, then we also can’t stand to see our kids get a B in high school or even college, when the material is more complex and we, as parents, have less control over how to ‘fix’ it for them. </p>
<p>Add to this the notion that hard work should earn the results you are looking for, and our consumeristic ideology about education (education is a product, I am a customer (or client), I need to be satisfied since I am the customer/client) then we can see how we get grade inflation and lack of rigor.</p>
<p>Rarely did the teachers hand back homework and tests so you could do this (cheating avoidance?). One of D’s best HS teachers actually handed back a test, and I was able to go over it to help D do better next time (more complete answers, etc.)</p>
<p>a large number of people seem happy enough to jump on bandwagon and bash the skills of the youngsters. but shouldn’t y’all be usin’ them critical thinking skills that your superior old fashioned educations gave you (the one without the tvs and the mtv and whatnot), to actually look at the statistics used to back up the blatantly inflammatory claims made by the writer. one annotated example, don’t want too much non-fiction or them kids’ll fall right to sleep reading this, from the article:
“Todays college students are generally dumber than their predecessors [blatantly inflammatory claim]. An article in the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 30, 1997) reported that a bachelor of Arts degree in 1997 may not be the equal of a graduation certificate from an academic high school in 1947. [as mentioned by previous poster, potentially goes the relative supply of each degree in the two different populations, drastic changes in the social structure of the country dilute the comparison (on gender and racial issues) The American Council on Education found that only 15 percent of universities require tests for general knowledge; only 17 percent for critical thinking; and only 19 percent for minimum competency. [and if we aren’t testing, they can’t be competent, right? and how many tests were they doing in the 40’s anyway?]”
the author appears to be making a lot of noise to make some noise/make a buck, its his job, he’s gotta move product, but i wouldn’t call this an academic contribution for the sake of greater knowledge and the intrinsic value of learning, and whatever else used to be so important but has been tossed to the wayside by the paris hilton worshipping generation of incompetent idiots racking up departmental honors at harvard.</p>
<p>I agree with Hunt…a big part of the reason HYPetc. value ECs so highly is that, in combination with academic performance, they demonstrate the student’s capability to manage time, ignore distractions, follow through on a project, deal with stress, etc. This is just as important as the fact that the student may bring excellence in a particular EC to campus. If you can ace five AP courses on top of being soccer captain, lead soprano, and waitressing 15 hours a week, you’ve got the discipline to be successful in college.</p>
<p>I remember cheating my way through Spanish class in high school…lol…but in college, I was too darn scared to cheat, which is good. It taught me to study and work hard.</p>
), but large numbers of young people – I have no way of guessing percentages (perhaps most?) trivialize form, or in many cases do not understand its signficance, never having been educated in it.</p>