<p>Joemama, I agree to an extent. But that is precisely the reason why harsher grading is needed. Even Harvard students are subjected to the same temptations as normal students. While I don't believe someone can simply blame their undergrad institution for their lack of motivation during their college years, the undergraduate institution does deserve some blame for not doing more to foster learning. From what I've seen, college students are not quite as mature as adults. They still need boundaries and rules. That is what grading provides.</p>
<p>Well said, Joemama.</p>
<p>Agree. Mediocre or poor work should not be rewarded, especially with a B+.</p>
<p>But there is another issue here, and that is: how do you measure performance in the Humanities and Soft Sciences? It's all so damn subjective.</p>
<p>As I commented on the Parents Forum, not quite in these terms, how do we know that any of these problems are unique to Harvard? I went to a much less illustrious school that had plenty of students with the characteristics decried in the article excerpts Carolyn kindly posted. Is the point to avoid Harvard? Or is the point to enter Harvard, or MIT, or State U., or wherever, as a student who genuinely seeks a thorough education?</p>
<p>On the subject of poor choices:
There are many factors that go into making course selections: graduation requirements, advice from profs, recommendations by friends, and of course, schedule.
It is important for students applying to colleges to consider the graduation requirements of each school they are interested in, and the implication of these requirements.
It is indeed possible to graduate from Harvard (or many other schools with distribution requirements) without the kind of broad based knowledge many posters think is the hallmark of a well-educated person. It is also possible to graduate from such schools with that kind of knowledge. The key is whether it is up to the student to choose or not. Those who think that all students should be exposed to a narrow set of courses from which to choose should consider Columbia and Chicago. I personally like the idea of all students taking the same courses and being able to engage in well-informed discussions about the same set of readings, whether they be biology majors or art history majors.<br>
My S, however, came to a different conclusion based on his own needs and some impressions he gained while visiting colleges. He thought the Chicago core might get in the way of his taking more advanced classes in his major; when visiting Brown, he met students who enthused about the joys of being in classes with other students whose sole reason for taking those classes was interest in the subject matter, not a graduation requirement. These two considerations led him to put Harvard, Princeton and Yale, all of which have "loose cores" above Chicago and Columbia. So, now, he will have to make the choices--with advice, to be sure-- that will ensure that he comes out of college a well-educated person. I hope that he makes better choices than the author of the article, who sounds as if he expected Harvard to save him from himself and is resentful that it did not.</p>
<p>"This allows students to meet Core requirements by "indulging" in extremely narrow slices of history or literature or art without being required to understand the big picture at all."</p>
<p>Due to the large numbers of Harvard students who enter having taken AP survey type courses like World History, English Literature, etc., I believe that the majority of Harvard students arrive at college with a broad enough knowledge base to focus more narrowly in college.</p>
<p>Grade inflation and easy "Bs" are to students, as "crack" is to drug addicts. </p>
<p>And it doesn't take long for everyone (parents and administration included) to be in denial.</p>