<p>Alex:</p>
<p>fwiw, I ran Cal’s SAT numbers (CR+M): actual matriculant mean = 1326; calculated mean of 25%-75% = 1350, for a difference of 24 points. (sources: UC Statfinder and Common Data Set)</p>
<p>^^–^^</p>
<p>And a similar exercise for a more selective school than Can could yield a similar difference in the other direction. The resulting difference of 50 points renders any “analysis” of the SAT scores meaningless, especially when the scale is so narrow.</p>
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Just like taking some minor anecdotal data and extrapolating it into vast differences between institutions IS also misleading.</p>
<p>I’m still waiting on that TA info, xiggi.</p>
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</p>
<p>If you think I have done this in the past, I should then apologize. Do not hesitate to point me in the direction of a post or a thread where I engaged in faulty logic. With more than 20,000 posts over my years on CC, I may have committed my share of mistakes. </p>
<p>As far as the TA part, I must have missed the post with a question about TA information. I am not sure what information might make any of us change our opinions about the reliance of TAs in our universities. I have no doubt that many people have had positive interactions with TA. I have no doubt that some of them might be brilliant. On the other hand, I do not believe for a second that the stories of TAs being thrusted in front of students without much of training or cultural adaption (and shortly after debarking from a foreign country) mythical and fantastic accounts.</p>
<p>^ xiggi, you claimed some schools put inexperienced, foreign TAs in front of undergrads with little training…show me the policies for the schools that only put “experienced TAs*” in front of their undergrads. </p>
<p>*How do inexperienced TAs become experienced?</p>
<p>My claim is that all top research universities use TAs in the exact same manner. You claim otherwise…show me the evidence.</p>
<p>The mean will be lower than the median for most top schools, since there’s a longer tail going down. This is just a function of being at the top of the distribution, plus there are athletes, legacies, hooks, URMs etc. How meaningful that is isn’t very clear - probably the strength of the average student matters more for your learning experience than whether there are some weak outliers. Some might argue that the strength of the strongest students actually matters more, since most engagement and discussion will be done by them.</p>
<p>That’s right xiggi, we foreigners are so ignorant! Among those ignorant people are members of my family who studied at Columbia (mother and her cousin), Cornell (sister and I), Georgetown (father and sister), Michigan (3 cousins and myself), MIT (uncle) and Wharton (uncle). Most of us have lived over 10 years in the States. But despite our collective experience, we truly have no clue about US universities and US culture.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, can you please share the source of your Cal average. I once read (back in 2009) 1333 (according to UC Finder). For 2009, the mid 50% range was 1210-1470, with a median score of 1340. If my math is correct, the difference between the mean and the median is 8, not 24. Am I missing something? As you formulate your response, remember that UC Finder’s most recent data was for the admissions cycle 2008-2009. As such, Cal’s SAT median was 1340. The 1350 median was for the 2009-2010 admissions cycle.</p>
<p>[University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu/statfinder/drawtable.aspx?track=1]University”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu/statfinder/drawtable.aspx?track=1)</p>
<p><a href=“http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2008-09.pdf[/url]”>http://cds.berkeley.edu/pdfs/PDF%20wBOOKMARKS%2008-09.pdf</a></p>
<p>Alex, your education is reflected in your respectful manner and your posts. Sometimes I am just too mean to “mean” people. Well, it is understandable since I did not graduate from high school. :)</p>
<p>Alex:</p>
<p>I used the most recent versions of both statfinder and CDS (since it was easier). Yes, they might be a year off, but admissions to the Big Unis doesn’t change that much.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>Playing with tables and presenting “selected” data can be fun, but IS always misleading.</p>
<p>Those selected data were used to prove the points of my arguments. I used for now and other statements to indicate that Table 3 (for example) was not finalized. My reply to JohnAdams in post #248 said it all. As mentioned before, even though there is no perfect method in Quality of Student assessment, we still can learn something from the imperfect data. I hope and suggest that some more data we might need or should be available in the future. Where did I mislead you?</p>
<p>However, trying to draw conclusions from such futile exercise is pure non-sense.</p>
<p>Before saying that, you must show me your data and analysis to prove that you have better approaches.</p>
<p>The massaged information presented in this thread is one of the most egregious examples one could read on CC, although many have come close.</p>
<p>I thought you are better than this. </p>
<p>And that is as charitable as I can be.</p>
<p>Now I know your limits.</p>
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</p></li>
<li><p>What difference does that make? It does not make the schools that use UG and Masters candidates as TA any better.</p></li>
<li><p>They can get experience by graduating and starting an academic career. Gaining experience on the job should not be at the expense and detriment of other students. Fwiw, unless such students have previous teaching credentials, none of them would be allowed to teach at a public middle school or high school. Why do we think they should be allowed to teach at the college level? </p></li>
<li><p>Not worth my time as long as it remains so easy to show that UG and masters’ candidates are offered teaching assistantships. Are you saying that it does not happen at Cal or Michigan?</p></li>
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<p>Would this impressive group of people claim to never have heard from Emory or Georgetown? Did you happen to miss this gem of a statement “In foreign countries where people don’t look at at us news rankings, these public schools are are ranked very highly while nobody has ever heard of Emory or Georgetown.”? Would they associate themselves with such a group?</p>
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The difference is clarity. Showing some written evidence of policy concerning TAs would add merit to your claims that some universities only use experienced TAs to lead discussion sections, etc.</p>
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Starting an academic career where? Who do these graduate students start teaching if only “experienced TAs” can teach undergrads?</p>
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Show me where it says that for Cal and UMich and where it’s different at other national research universities.</p>
<p>**"1. What difference does that make? </p>
<p>The difference is clarity. Showing some written evidence of policy concerning TAs would add merit to your claims that some universities only use experienced TAs to lead discussion sections, etc. "**</p>
<p>As I wrote earlier, “It does not make the schools that use UG and Masters candidates as TA any better.” At this stage, I am not discussing if some schools have better or worse TAs. I am simply stating that using inexperienced and untrained “personnel” is … wrong. If a school does it a little bit better does not change anything to my point that it is wrong to use students I described as unworthy to teach or lead sections at the college level. </p>
<p>**"Quote:
2. They can get experience by graduating and starting an academic career. </p>
<p>Starting an academic career where? Who do these graduate students start teaching if only “experienced TAs” can teach undergrads?"**</p>
<p>Again, that is not relevant to my point. Schools should ONLY use qualified staff, faculty, and instructors with PREVIOUS experience and earned qualifications. Obviously, this is about UG and Master’s candidates. PhD candidates who aspire to a career in education represent a different group as they are being groomed to work in an academic setting, and will receive appropriate training as they progress in their program. </p>
<p>**‘Quote:
3. Not worth my time as long as it remains so easy to show that UG and masters’ candidates are offered teaching assistantships. Are you saying that it does not happen at Cal or Michigan? </p>
<p>Show me where it says that for Cal and UMich and where it’s different at other national research universities."**</p>
<p>Again, a different point from mine. It DOES happen at Cal and Michigan. The fact that it might happen at other universities does not make less negative.</p>
<p>xiggi, I can not say too much about other schools but Wisconsin. To my knowledge, almost never the school gives TAs to undergraduate students, maybe the “graders” assignments where the duty is to correct the homework for lower level classes. Most of the professors in engineering school have certain funding to afford a few UG to do research and to correct homework. I never heard a class was taught by a UG. The TAs are usually given to Ph.D. students, not MS students, especially those foreign graduate students who have enough trouble expressing themselves. Most foreign graduate students really chase the RAs and most TAs are awarded to those Ph.D. students whose advisers do not have enough funding. </p>
<p>Like everything else, there are good and bad TAs, in general not a good idea to have TA teaching a class. But, most of professors suck also when it comes to teaching as they are so busy doing research, especially those non-tenure ones.</p>
<p>There is no class taught by graduate students at Stanford. The lowest level instructors are PostDocs.</p>
<p>I was one of those foreign TAs, briefly.</p>
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</p>
<p>Ewho, I am not certain how to interpret your post. </p>
<p>Were you trying to offer an exhibit to the points I raised in my posts regarding TAs in this thread?</p>
<p>By the way, is your comment about Stanford based on one of those definitions of “teaching” and “taught” that are long on semantics and short on reality? Were you one of those foreign TAs at Stanford? Or were you teaching at Wisconsin?</p>
<p>I was a TA briefly when I was a graduate student at Wisconsin. Some of the graduate students taught classes along with professors.</p>
<p>“I used the most recent versions of both statfinder and CDS (since it was easier). Yes, they might be a year off, but admissions to the Big Unis doesn’t change that much.” </p>
<p>bluebayou, although admissions statistics at most universities (larger or small, not only large) do not change that much from year to year, they do change. At Cal, the median shifted upwards by approximately 10 points from 2008-2009 to 2009-2010. As a result, I am sure its mean also shifted upwards, although UC Statfinder does not yet have data for 2009-2010. </p>
<p>That is why it is important to compare the mean and the median for the same year. For the 2008-2009 admissions cycle, the mean SAT at Cal was 1333 (not 1326) and the median SAT at Cal was 1340 (not 1350). End result, the difference between the mean and the median is 8 (not 24).</p>
<p>Like I said, when considering a large student population (over 1,000 students per class), the median and mean will naturally gravitate toward each other.</p>
<p>“Would this impressive group of people claim to never have heard from Emory or Georgetown? Did you happen to miss this gem of a statement “In foreign countries where people don’t look at at us news rankings, these public schools are are ranked very highly while nobody has ever heard of Emory or Georgetown.”? Would they associate themselves with such a group?”</p>
<p>Why pick on foreigners xiggi? You have people who lack knowledge about universities in the US and abroad. No, my family members who studied in the US obviously know about Georgetown (since two of them actually decided to study there), though not all are familiar with Emory, although I would guess that they all heard of it.</p>
<p>Alexandre, I did not “pick” on foreigners not did I go out of my way to address “foreigners.” Again, go back to the original post I already quoted and the comments about NOT having heard about Emory or Georgetown. Is “not having heard of” or not knowing not a form of … ignorance? Isn’t ignorance not defined as “a lack of knowledge, learning, or information”? </p>
<p>Again, here was reply in full. Don’t I specifically write that it is “It is understandable that applicants from foreign countries have to rely on hearsay, imperfect information, and a poor perception of … blah, blah, blah”? </p>
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<p>And, yes, isnamuch as people are indeed entitled to having erroneous opinions, others also entitled to judge them as based on … ignorance.</p>