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<p>Did I tell anyone here that they are wrong? I just put forward reason to refute people comments. I don’t judge right or wrong.</p>
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Really? Over 50%? Even the most sporty, smallest LAC schools I know of–e.g. Haverford or Bowdoin–are only around 45-50% varsity athlete. Of course, some–e.g. Haverford or Carleton–have an extremely high % of students who play any sport, including club and intramural, aroud 70-80%.</p>
<p>The trouble here is that you have separated out football and basketball players from athletes as a group, and have used these particular athletes as a proxy for athletes in general. As has been stated, these student-athletes are probably the most significantly different from the average student. I’m sure the numbers would be higher if you added the athletes who participate in non-revenue sports. And football and basketball players represent about 1.5% of the entire undergraduate population at Stanford, and so I don’t see how factoring out these particular athletes would really skew the middle 50 percentile significantly.</p>
<p>Now, your assumption about athletes at state schools,
is simply an assumption. And since you focus on football and basketball players, the <em>Atlanta Journal Constitution</em> states the following about University of Georgia football and basketball players:</p>
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<p>It’s really not that much news that average student-athlete in football and basketball have weaker ‘stats’ than the average non athlete at many D1 universities.</p>
<p>As usual ,POIH has posted statistics that are misleading and statistically flawed in an effort to prove that the conclusions or opinions he has reached are based on fact- in this case he neglected to mention that he cherry picked the stats for his post about Stanford athletes from 2 different sources- one source he used quoted average Stanford Football player SATs from 1997- which is 14 years ago!!!
[url=<a href=“http://stanford.scout.com/3/1997_SAT_Analysis.html]Scout.com[/url”>http://stanford.scout.com/3/1997_SAT_Analysis.html]Scout.com[/url</a>]
and the other used the AVERAGE Stanford Basketball players stats from the late 1990’s to the early 2000’s- as quoted from the 2008 source he sited-
“During the Cardinal’s top-10 run in the late-1990s and early-2000s,”
"According to figures released by the NCAA for players who were in college in the late-90s thru mid-00s here are the admissions figures for Duke and Stanford men’s basketball recruits:</p>
<p>Duke average GPA: 3.13
Stanford average GPA: 3.46</p>
<p>Duke average SAT: 968
Stanford average SAT: 1123</p>
<p>As anyone who knows anything at all about Stanford- the admissions standards for all Athletes were raised considerably in 2003- 8 years ago![ much to the displeasure of many alumni and coaches] and the current much higher stats for athletes are not reflected in those older figures. Those higher admissions standards were the main reason Mike Montgomery, the Men’s Varsity Basketball coach with the best win/ loss record , left Stanford in 2004 - because he could no longer get the talented , but academically weak players he wanted past admissions.</p>
<p>In addition, POIH has selected stats for only 2 teams - men’s football and men’s basketball. There are many more teams with many more athletes, and their academic abilities need to be averaged in as well. Sorry POIH, no proof yet. But keep trying!</p>
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I would have serious reservations about the quality of education received by person unable to distinguish between the value of firsthand, direct experience and secondhand reports. Especially when at least one of the sources you reference is a transfer student, who by definition was dissatisfied with the previous environment. </p>
<p>I don’t even know how to respond to your statement beyond that, except maybe to reference Rumsfeld’s reference to “unknown unknown’s”.</p>
<p>One of the more interesting conversations I had over the years was with a woman who had attended my daughter’s school in the late 80’s, but was unhappy and transferred to a large midwestern state U – boy did she give me an earful about everything wrong with my d’s elite college! She spoke the truth, some of which I already knew to be true from my daughter, some of which was news to me, seen through the eyes of someone with a different perspective. </p>
<p>Both you and POIH may think that you are making a case for an elite education, but at least to me you are simply reinforcing stereotypes that I wish I could discard – the impression of ivory tower elitism from people who have chosen to isolate themselves from the real world. (POIH’s comment about “always being right” being a prime example) People who know what they think they know but don’t have the first clue about what they don’t know. (Like the kids referenced in another thread who don’t understand the concept of affixing postage to an envelope).</p>
<p>^Don’t be silly and start making character attacks, please. I know the objective difference between firsthand and secondhand, obviously, but I am asserting that in this situation, elicited (as opposed to overheard) and observed secondhand reports are not significantly less useful than firsthand accounts. Even a firsthand account is hardly unbiased, and I fail to see why firsthand is automatically better than secondhand when the given context is anecdotes about college experiences.</p>
<p>I referenced ONE transfer student because you specifically brought up UCSC, which was his first school. I don’t discount the stories of people who transfer from Swarthmore (yes, they exist); I assume they aren’t lying, and account for unique personal traits that constitute “fit” as well as objective reports of what happened (e.g. not being able to get into Class X). Ironically, you just cited a transfer student who reported negative things about Barnard–and I agree, they’re probably true (about Barnard, about Swarthmore, about College X or University Y). Most things told by honest people are true. Not all things are true for all people.</p>
<p>In any case, if you wish to discount transfer students entirely, that does not discount the rest (and majority) of my discussion, which refers to my experiences visiting and my conversations with many friends and HS classmates at my local state flagship.</p>
<p>I refuse to respond to your personal attacks, so the stereotype accusation will have to go unanswered and speak for itself.</p>
<p>calmom, I haven’t read all of what POIH or Keilexandra wrote, but from what I have read you seem to be the one ceaselessly attacking their posts while Keilexandra presents her reasoning with qualifications :o. As someone who personally chose the “elite education” over the alternative, I have a lot of pride in my own school and would not hesitate to argue for its merits and advantages. But you see, because I’ll be arguing in favor of the elite school you will tend to see it as “ivory tower elitism from people who have chosen to isolate themselves from the real world” that springs from the preconceived stereotype, whereas if I were to argue for Public U it would’ve been an acceptable expression of school pride. </p>
<p>(And whenever heated discussions rise up in the college admissions board it’s always about affirmative action, and whenever it’s in the parents’ forum it’s always this tension between “elite education” and “public U”----I think I’m seeing a pattern here.)</p>
<p>/digression</p>
<p>The point I was going to make, before POIH distracted me, is that even if Stanford were to lower its academic standards in a substantial way for a few football and basketball players, that wouldn’t explain the presence of the easy class list at the advising center. The football and basketball coaches probably already have a copy. The reason why the advising center would have a list like that front and center is because they have hundreds of athletes - swimmers, runners, gymnasts, etc. - coming into the center in a panic because they are signed up for 2 or 3 really hard classes and know that if they sign up for another one they will crash and burn in all their classes because of the demands of their sport. You can’t graduate from Stanford by only taking the classes in that book, but you can fill in your schedule with them during your sport’s season and keep your GPA at a reasonable level. </p>
<p>I think that you’re actually more likely to see what notanengineer is describing - an athlete population with significantly lower GPA/SAT than the general population - at a selective public university such as Cal or UCLA, where admissions is much more numbers-based but exceptions can be made for athletes. Stanford makes exceptions for athletes but also makes exceptions for all kinds of other reasons - legacy/development, URM, special talents, circumstances, or achievements - so there is more than one “exceptional” demographic. 5-year graduation rates suggest, moreover, that Stanford generally doesn’t accept a student - athlete or not - that Admissions doesn’t think is going to be able to do the work. I’ve known a couple of very disappointed athletes in this area who were recruited by Stanford coaches but nixed by Admissions. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for the coaches.</p>
<p>You continually bash everyone who happens to attend a school that doesn’t show up on the US news top 10 list, with one false stereotype after another, all with the general tenor of saying that students who attend public u’s are just too stupid to have any ideas or thoughts of value, and smart students are better off if they don’t have to associate with any such people…</p>
<p>and then you accuse me of a “character attack?” </p>
<p>If you don’t want to be seen as a snob, then stop acting like one. The world is full of smart and capable people, most of whom never set foot as students into an elite college. The fact that you choose not to meet with them or talk to them doesn’t mean that they aren’t there. </p>
<p>The OP was concerned that their child might be bored at a college where their “stats” put them in the top 25%. I think that the bigger danger, especially at a large university, is that the kid might discover that he’s not as smart as he thinks he is – and that human intellect isn’t defined by SAT scores or high school GPAs. And that learning isn’t limited to what happens inside a classroom.</p>
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<p>Once again, “student athlete” is not limited to football and basketball, even though those are the two highest profile sports (and the two that generally produce revenue at Division I Football Bowl Subdivision schools, at least partially subsidizing the costs of all of the other sports).</p>
<p>That those two sports are the highest profile and are important for the athletic department’s finances means that there is considerably more pressure to bend the admissions standards for athletes in those sports than in other sports.</p>
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<p>Of course, without the “list of easy courses”, the athletes can just come to the school specific forums here and ask “what are some easy courses I can add?” (just like the pre-meds, pre-laws, and others who want to avoid a challenge) and likely get answers. :)</p>
<p>As far as GPA goes, Stanford is notorious for grade inflation, with a [3.55</a> average GPA in 2005](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/Stanford.html]3.55”>Stanford).</p>
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…Excuse me? Please present direct quotes and links to when I have said anything of the sort.</p>
<p>My post history is public and permanent. That is all. I will no longer be monitoring this thread; if anyone wishes to challenge or follow up with me on a particular point that I’ve made, feel free to send a PM.</p>
<p>“As far as GPA goes, Stanford is notorious for grade inflation”" ’
as are / were HYP in 2005. … How about a comparison of GPA’s to SAT scores at Stanford vrs HYP for the same years? I think you’ll find that as the selectivity of the students at all 4 U’s has risen, so have the SAT scores and GPA’s. And I distinctly remember that P recently had to mandate that only a certain % of stuidents in each class would receive A’s, because the grading standards were so liberal there that, on average, 70 % of all students in each class received A’s.</p>
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<p>I posted the comment that though my daughter attended Barnard, she could have attended UC Santa Cruz – that one of her first Barnard profs was a UCSC graduate and that her friends who went to UCSC have done well. I also wrote about my own UC undergrad experience in that post. </p>
<p>To which you responded with a little story about your friend who transferred from Santa Cruz who had 600 students in his linguistics class (rather amazing, given the fact that the largest [lecture</a> hall](<a href=“http://reg.ucsc.edu/staff/spring11LLchart.htm]lecture”>http://reg.ucsc.edu/staff/spring11LLchart.htm) on campus used for linguistics courses has a capacity of only 300), thought the professor was excellent but was “miserable” because all the other students were so stupid. (“lack of intellectual peers.”) </p>
<p>I considered that to be offensive and insulting – to me, as a UC grad, to my kids who could have gone to UC, to their smart friends who did attend UC campuses. </p>
<p>I’m not under any illusions about the whole of the student body – as JHS pointed out, the state universities serve a broader range of students. But there are a lot of students at Santa Cruz (15,000 undergrads) – and many of them are quite capable. </p>
<p>The vast majority of students opt for a public education for mostly economic reasons, and it’s a smart economic choice for anyone who doesn’t qualify for reams of need based aid. Their brains don’t fall out the day they arrive at their big U. campus.</p>
<p>By saying “lack of intellectual peers” is a far cry from saying “all the other students were so stupid.” Calmom - I think you are putting words in people´s mouth. Keilexandra has presented very valid view of his/her knowledge (first or second hand) without much of character attack on any posters. He/she shows a certain maturity in knowing when not to continue to engage.</p>
<p>As a PhD student at a highly ranked big state U (not UCLA) - I have classmates who range from Ivy League grads to directional state U grads, plus a huge assortment of foreign students. Honestly, I haven’t seen too much of a different between them. So much of succeeding in grad school (and in industry) is not based on test scores and coursework, but on communication skills, problem solving skills, and interpersonal skills. Of course, in my dept, we’re only required to take a handful of courses - so this may not apply to every graduate program. Sure, an Ivy degree may help your written communication skills, but maybe you’re not as good as your neighbor when it comes to getting along with the machine shop technicians (yes, those things matter). I’m not discussing the actual four years of college here, but in the long run, what you choose to get out of college matters more. So maybe your peers aren’t as intellectual, but its just four years - sometimes I feel like college is made out to be the end all-be all of your intellectual career. The decision to be in debt/stay out of debt may last years after graduation.</p>
<p>There was an earlier discussion of grad school being easier than undergrad. I actually do think I’m having an easier time in grad school, not because of rigor of program, but because of the lifestyle. Since I’m paid to be a grad student, I don’t have to hold other jobs, and I can focus solely on my work. Also, just having an office (okay, a desk), makes my day a less stressful because I don’t have to cart everything around. I work really long hours, but I have more flexibility in how I distribute my time. I may work 7 days a week, but I have time for lunch/dinner breaks, + gym, and 8 hours of sleep. As for coursework, the material is harder, but professors are much more flexible if I need an extension or extra help, etc, and they seem to grade much easier too.</p>
<p>P.S. look at where the faculties went to school at Podunk U - you’ll find a ton of top-tier grads. Academic jobs are hard to come by.</p>
<p>^Also in grad school you are generally taking courses only in your best subject and the one you enjoy the most, so even if objectively it’s just as much work it may not feel that way. </p>
<p>That said, architecture grad school was the most work I have ever done in my life, way, way, way harder than Harvard. :)</p>
<p>The bright kids at any school will do well and find challenging coursework and intelligent peers. I would argue that big state Us might even be stronger in certain disciplines (in my state, several of the sciences). That being said, the 50th percentile kid at a highly selective school is going to be far more capable and hard working than the 50th percentile kid at the huge state school. I WISH my child would consider the local U, but too many “slackers” (her word) go there from her HS. I think the kids who have worked very hard in HS see a selective school acceptance as a validation of/reward for their efforts. Perhaps that view is academic snobbery, but I “get it.”<br>
The football superstar from our HS who is now at Stanford was not academically impressive at all. Very middle of the road in a huge public high shool. He got some Cs and Ds senior spring and is now on academic probation at Stanford (not playing). I feel bad for the 10 kids from the HS who did not get in; at least some of them had perfect test scores, stellar GPAs, double digit APs, leadership, etc. Seems wrong to me. I totally understand what it takes to be a DI athlete (I was one many years ago), so I see some flexibility in admissions is reasonable, but the adcoms are turning away brilliant kids to let in kids like the one I describe. I agree that the problem is largely with the high profile sports.</p>
<p>I really don’t get the accusations of elitism in this thread. To me, this is sort of like the decision an athlete might have as to what soccer club team to join. Should he join the one where he will be one of many high-performing athletes, or the one at which he will be a standout? I don’t think there’s anything elitist about it if he chooses the team with better players. Indeed, many people would make that choice for just the reason people choose selective schools–they think they’ll be more challenged in that environment. But I can also understand why somebody might prefer to be the standout on a less competitive team–if he’s very self-directed, he may shine more in that environment.</p>
<p>Of course, if you insist that there’s really no difference in the level of play at the different levels of club teams, it becomes hard to discuss the choices.</p>