How would you compare Wash U vs. Cornell vs. Penn vs. Rice vs. Tufts vs. Emory as far as academic pressure (intensity of atmosphere) is concerned? I’ve heard some schools grade on a curve and give out a limited number of A’s, some don’t. Some require you take 4 classes per term, some require you take 5 classes per term. I don’t know if any of these things contribute to academic pressure, but just wanted to hear thoughts.
@hardworking99 : I would never really listen to vague student opinions on this. I would always check the work or course websites if possible, because many schools have students that complain a lot and the complaints are unwarranted vs. the level of courses and at a peer school. Some students at a tough peer school may actually complain less because a) they expected it was tough or b) are more likely to prefer a run for the money if the teaching is great. Students at the former school may be much more sensitive to how academic rigor cuts into their social lives (perhaps the school they attend is known for very vibrant social atmospheres and it is the primary reason they attended. If you attend a JHU, Tufts, Emory, or WUSTL, their social atmospheres are pretty nice, but often not what sold most students who ended up attending, so these places tend to have a greater share of either I “got over” the academic challenge or “I actually find the challenging instructor’s tests fun”…much more cool nerd and quirky types at these places.)
As for curve vs. no curve. Hardly no schools have a school enforced curved except UG business schools. If you are in an arts and letters unit, it is purely professor dependent and if you see certain patterns in one dept. and not others it is because of the departmental culture at that particular school (like maybe certain recommendations were well established in terms of grading and assessment type).
Also, how a curve usually works in college. Usually it isn’t applied for courses of medium or normal difficulty (as in a course whose grades meet the norms for the department or university). Usually it is applied by an instructor who gives more challenging assessments and assignments that cause the mean course average to drop below a “normal” level. Then they adjust grades upward. There are technically no real limits on A grades in such cases as those already meeting some promised threshold before adjustment will naturally make an A. It is simply that many more below that threshold will be lifted into a higher range, and that amount depends on the professor and/or whether they abide by departmental norms and/or historical perspective (so yes, often a curve involves a lot of arbitrariness that can be discomforting to a student at its mercy). Like if an instructor gave an exam that they thought was maybe easier than previous years and then students performed at a lower level overall, then the curve may set lower (like if it was a B, 3.0, in previous years with the harder exam, they may curve closer to B-, 2.7 that year). Point is instructors generally have lots of autonomy and if faculty get together and say a course is “aiming” for a certain course average, say 2.8, they typically are already aware and accounting for the fact that some instructors/sections are easier (3.0-3.2), some harder (maybe 2.5-2.8), and some right on the money(2.7-2.9). For STEM at Emory, usually the latter 2 are always the best teachers. The others are not that good and just water down their course to gain favor with students and get good evaluations.
Atmosphere: Collaborative, but can be tough depending on your major and whether or not you want the best instruction. If you are less interested in quality and just need/want grades, then most of these schools can be maneuvered such that you can choose instructors that lead a more cake-walkish experience than others. For me to explain more, I’d really need to have an idea of your academic interest, because at most schools, grading is either fair or inflated in certain departments (usually the same ones at every school). Some disciplines have traditionally had lower grades/more academic challenge at all schools and until I know which discipline you are interested in, I cannot really tell you the grading and academic culture of each. I personally have looked a great deal into STEM at these types of schools so can easily discuss some differences there.
@bernie12 I just happened across your reply to this post, and I noticed you said that typically there isn’t a limit on how many As can be given out. However, although this is the only place I’ve seen something like this in ECAS, I noticed that for econ foundation courses there is a recommended curve, with A/A- s not to exceed 35%. I was only curious about this because I just enrolled in my first foundation course (Intro to Macro), but I heard the intro econ classes weren’t super challenging. Do you know what to maybe expect for these classes then?
@Oliea98 Yes, I clump that with UG b-school…they likely started it to help the b-school sort and to curb grade inflation some in the dept (it is atypical for econ. depts to have the level of grade inflation they had before. They had to start turning down students meeting set qualifications for honors thesis because of it). I think they typically just write “normal” exams for social sciences which have averages in the solid B range, like 83-86 (I personally consider this as “high”, but Social Science students consider it okay…guess many do not expect to be challenged in such courses from the get go. Also, there is the problem of using high school as the norm and often such tests were easy because the level of thinking required was low). That grading distribution would yield an average of about 3.0-3.3. If exams average 83-86, the distribution will likely be met. If they decide to write exams with higher averages, then unfortunately they will move the cutoffs upward to fit it (but will likely award maximum amount, 35%). Ideally, the means are lower (maybe low 80s or high 70s) because then students have more room for error (they’ll have to curve up to achieve distribution). You may want to look up your teacher. If they have an ultra easy reputation, avoid because it will be more competitive. Super easy is fine if there is no curve because they’ll give you what you earn, but in a distribution, you can have an A on a normal scale, but so can everyone else, so you get bumped to A- or B+ (basically it gets random due to saturation at the top. Small differences are magnified). A “normal” is good, because it is still fairly easy to do well and your standing is clearer. A harder section, again, if taught well, can be worth it because you don’t have to be as consistent as the “normal” section. Separations are clearer, but since there is a wider distribution, you are more likely to be rewarded if you say, screw up exam 1, and then do well on others (doing relatively well guarantees an A grade and you don’t have to score 93 everytime).
@bernie12 Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything on my professor…One section was being taught by staff (which made me kind of hesitant to enroll in) and the other didn’t fit my schedule. I’m hoping since I’m taking econ out of interest rather than as a business school pre-req, I may take it more seriously than others and be more competitive in class (that’s just a guess though). Thanks for warning me about this super easy classes with curves… I wouldn’t have thought about that. Not that I wanted to take unchallenging classes before, but now I’ll also feel more confident in taking a class that pushes me.
@Oliea98 : It’s just statistics haha. In the case of an easy course on a curve, you get artificial deflation by making differences significant when they wouldn’t otherwise be when distribution of grades were wider. If you know a course’s instructors tend to either curve, scale, or apply a pre-set distribution, then always aim for medium or hard if you can get enough info. about the course.
Aside from this reiteration, I must warn that there can be exceptions. For example, I’ve seen selection biases develop in STEM courses where section offerings (as in professors teaching in multi-section courses) have become so stable that “tracks” have developed. You have the weaker students who still want to protect their GPA so typically aim for the low caliber instructor. You have those who really don’t care for the subject that much but are not willing to tolerate a bad teacher, so they usually end up in classes of medium difficulty (these usually do not get a curve and what often happens is that middle performers in medium difficulty classes would have gotten higher grades in the more difficult instructors’ sections where there is a) a bigger curve or b) more extra credit. Harder teachers have their ways of rewarding the average student bold enough to try with full effort). Then you have a surprisingly sizable share of what would be considered weird students at other schools (even some peers) that will run to top, but difficult teachers in droves (the most challenging exam writers and/or people with high workloads are surprisingly popular at Emory as I’ve stated many times on here).
Needless to say, this system can be easy to cheat, especially if your are attentive to your “competition”. The student who is soft in terms of effort they want to expend on academics, but who is indeed very smart and desperate to keep their GPA perfect (basically, academically lazy, but smart OR likes to put on a facade of perfection. I’ve seen both) will go to the section with the weak students and instructors because they know their competition in such sections is so weak that there will likely be a curve despite the course being far easier than other sections already. Most of all, they know they’ll be at the top. However, econ. dept and other social sciences are so unstable (and generally don’t even have subtly competitive atmospheres) that I don’t believe any such trends have developed. There is a lot more “get what is available” (in the case that the course is offered by many noobs or “staff”, AKA unknowns) or “this professor is so superior to the others, that going to any other section is borderline stupid or a defeat if it was non-voluntary”(basically, the teacher has usually achieved a sweet spot of difficulty, grading scheme, and quality that none of the others come close to. The others may in fact, flop in all categories or be atrocious in one or two). With STEM, multi-section courses seem to have a much broader spectrum and the students exploit. For better or worse, you don’t get this as much with econ. which has very high enrollments and too little faculty to manage it.
@bernie12 so would you say the trend with STEM classes applies to the math department too? Even though it falls in the STEM category I’ve heard it’s not nearly as big as the bio/chem departments. I’m planning on taking quite a bit of math classes, though. Not sure if I want to actually major/minor in it yet. As far as the reputation of sections or professors go, is Rate My Professor generally a good gauge of this, or will it just became naturally apparent after I’m on campus for a few semesters? And, you would typically recommend the harder sections then?
@Oliea98 Not really, math courses are so well tiered (as in, you can easily place by your incoming level), most STEM depts aren’t so instead, you get even AP credit folks who retake the intro. course (partially because the natural sciences hosts many more pre-meds than math, and pre-meds claim to want “refreshers” by retaking courses…“refresher” is really just supposed to be “easy A”) and often there aren’t many options to place into a higher level or honors, so instead self-selection happens among sections of the same course (like AP folks and quality sensitive people may take instructors more well-known for teaching and being more rigorous while others with less experience or who are ultra-grade sensitive will sacrifice quality for ease…though usually it doesn’t work out well) so what can ultimately happen is some teachers become a de facto honors course for stronger students because it is so different from other sections. In math, which is more about the level of content, there are many more ways to leverage AP credit (like with BC credit, you can place into multi, diff.eq, lin. alg, and a new honors linear algebra course exclusively for ambitious freshmen) from the get go.
Courses are nicely tiered by content, so teachers need not do it through the level of teaching. And yes, in math there is a correlation between quality and difficulty…however, I don’t think it is as tight as in Sciences. Also, from what friends describe, you have nowhere near as many “runaway” professors (I made up this phrase just now lol. It means, they are FAR beyond other instructors for their course both within and outside of Emory). Most math courses beyond 111 and 112 (most sections are jokes…which is why those with AP credits typically have an advantage in intermediate and advanced courses, the AP and IB classes were flat out better) are fairly normal for an elite school or anywhere else for that matter. You won’t find many sections that make you say “Damn this person is tougher than most of the equivalent at Harvard”(or replace with other super elites). Because of this, self-selection is more so through quality (those in the know, for example, flock to Ono’s foundations or number theory course). RMP can be somewhat useful, but you kind of figure out more things when you hit campus. What you’ll find is that often quality on RMP in some weaker or stressed departments (like math or econ) correlates with ease. There are like a couple of revered instructors who can get good evals despite being challenging, but it isn’t as common as in science. And again, most courses are just on the medium side in those depts anyway (actually in math, the teaching load for some instructors is so high that even many intermediates end up watered down a lot).
If you want more useful classes that balance quality and rigor better, maybe try QTM.
@bernie12 Thanks for all the advice! I’ve already enrolled in Calc 112z for this semester (I only took the AB exam), but my schedule isn’t complete, so I’ll definitely look into QTM classes for either the rest of this semester and/or next! I’m just trying to also take some math courses that econ graduate schools typically look for, but I’m sure QTM would look good on my transcript and perhaps prepare me thoroughly for graduate studies as well.
Okay… so I was looking at a lot of the QTM courses, and I really like the content of the courses, but I’m a little confused as to what exactly QTM is I guess. I mean I get it’s supposed to be more interdisciplinary and not necessarily a traditional major, but would it be most closely compared to statistics? My only concern is, would graduate schools also understand the content of these courses if the course titles don’t always explicitly state the content being taught? For example, I saw that one QTM course covered linear algebra and multivariable calculus, but I never would have guessed simply by looking at the course title. Or is that just because I haven’t been exposed to these kind of studies before?
@Oliea98 : Yes, more like a statistics major. Grad. schools won’t really care about course titles especially introductory level courses (they are not med. schools, they do not care about checklist of courses, they just expect coursework that covers a decent chunk of whatever discipline or area of a discipline you plan to study in grad. school and perhaps a BA or BS in the overarching area although this is not required if you ultimately did research in that field)…and the advanced courses in that field have pretty obvious titles. Grad. schools are biased toward looking at the performance and content of advanced courses you took and of course any research you did (how did you use the knowledge. Like the course you mention is just a foundation course to prime you for the more specialized topics.
@bernie12 Okay, that all makes sense. I saw they also have a new Applied Mathematics and Statistics major through the math and QTM departments which might be worth considering. Thanks for the advice, it’s always so helpful!