<p>I don’t think the Caltech experience is hazing at all–there really is that much to learn. There is a major difference in what a student can do in grad school after that type of STEM education, for those who are going that route. I doubt that the late hours result from working on the problem sets after video gaming, generally speaking.</p>
<p>I would personally not be pleased to find that my freshman students were staying up til 3- 4 am every single night because that’s what it took just to keep one’s head above water. I get it occasionally and I get it during finals weeks and so forth, but enough is enough. You need to have downtime and social activities too. That would be a very unappealing campus culture. We all tend towards the serious side in our family, so we <em>need</em> a college campus to encourage us to do things other than study - we do that naturally by ourselves.</p>
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<p>The next big courses after organic are Biochemistry and/or Physical Chemistry (P-chem). Both can be hard depending on your natural apititude and how hard you work. But P-chem is more widely viewed as a killer.</p>
<p>As someone whose chemistry education ended in 11th grade and who only took science-for-non-science people in college, what is it about organic chemistry and physical chemistry that make them such weed-out courses? Is it the material, memorization, concepts, pace?</p>
<p>I suspect there is a memory / understanding schism that occurs for some students seen by "Dr. Octopus. " An ability to memorize prodigious quantities of information can take you very far in high school, but that does not necessarily equate with the ability to synthesize the information meaningfully once you arrive at college. Those who can do both are the truly gifted.</p>
<p>pizzagirl: Some kids WANT to be doing problem sets till 3-4 am every single night. That is their fun. It is the campus culture they are seeking out. People are different. I don’t think it’s a great idea to go without regular sleep, but I have long since decided that I am not smart enough to judge that. I continue to be amazed how little sleep young adults need to function at a very high level.</p>
<p>coureur - thanks. P-chem is the one I was not remembering.</p>
<p>The thing about Caltech is that it’s small–under 1000 undergrads, total. There are actually mentally normal people who are so committed to math and science that they like doing this sort of thing. There is some downtime, of course–sports and general fitness activities and conversations (from what I’ve heard–friends went there, and I did not). But there is a lot of extremely intense focus on math and science, and more hours than most people consider reasonable. The effort does pay commensurate returns, in understanding.</p>
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<p>It’s different for those two courses. </p>
<p>Organic combines a lot of memorization of structures and reactions and the ability to apply them in new ways that were never presented in class or the book - a skill that many college students have never had to use before. </p>
<p>P-chem, as its name implies, is all about the physics of chemical reactions. It’s very heavy on the math and represents a sort of bridge course between the sciences of Physics and Chemistry.</p>
<p>Both Biology and Chemistry majors have to take organic chem and biochem, but only Chemistry majors have to take P-chem. It’s considered macho chemistry.</p>
<p>Agreeing about the Caltech culture being one that the students there crave. My Caltech alum coworker mentioned upthread said she was accepted to and toured the usual suspects, but that the atmosphere at Caltech spoke to her. That’s not the type of fit that most college students want. Ditto for service academies, or for women’s colleges. My D’s aren’t interested in places like Caltech, the Naval Academy or Bryn Mawr, but I wouldn’t dismiss them all as having an unappealing campus culture.</p>
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<p>I don’t think you can necessarily equate math and science magnet school grads with the run of the mill AP course grad. In other words, I think you guys are trying to compare apples and oranges (or maybe broccoli and marshmallows). </p>
<p>Too many AP courses teach to the test - they are, after all, primarily intended to prepare students to pass a test. That’s very different from teaching in a way that expects students to deeply understand the material, which is what the better magnet schools do.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that some very good math and science magnet schools don’t teach AP courses - they do, but I suspect they go well beyond the standard AP curriculum and that they teach the material in innovative ways.</p>
<p>At least one of the reasons for the use of AP course designations at the best schools is the College Board’s marketing of the AP moniker. One of the chem professors at my D’s school made a presentation to a professional organization on how our school teaches science, emphasizing that they don’t do AP and explaining why. Afterwards, the principal of one of the other most prestigious math and science magnets pulled him aside and told him he’d love to emulate the practice - but would be crucified if he so much as suggested it.</p>
<p>Oxtoby = Octopus
When Spell-Checkers Go Bad</p>
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<p>I prefer “octopus.”</p>
<p>I failed to provide the link to the article quoting Dr. Oxtoby. The title was The Incredibles. </p>
<p>[The</a> Incredibles - New York Times](<a href=“The Incredibles - The New York Times”>The Incredibles - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Collegealum and I did not address the same issues, at least as far I could tell.</p>
<p>"As someone whose chemistry education ended in 11th grade and who only took science-for-non-science people in college, what is it about organic chemistry and physical chemistry that make them such weed-out courses? Is it the material, memorization, concepts, pace? </p>
<p>How about “none-of-the-above”, and the simple need to “weed out”? When I went to #1 LAC, it was freshman biology. They had 125 would-be premeds (plus me!). They could only handle 30-35. Another 50-60 would have be very fine doctors today had they attended second-tier public universities. (So which was the better school for them? #1 LAC, or Podunk U.? To my way of thinking, there is no question it would have been Podunk U., and they were given a raw deal.) </p>
<p>If they didn’t want to “weed out”, it would be easy enough to provide the necessary instructional resources (tutors, extra study sessions, make-up exams, etc.) to make it so they didn’t. But they don’t.</p>
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<p>I’ll give a couple of examples from my own experience at a magnet school to illustrate this point:
Before doing derivatives, they give you a sequence of numbers (perhaps, the squares). You are asked to find the difference between each successive number to create a new sequence. Then you are asked to take the difference between each successive number in the second sequence. Eventually, the numbers in the sequence in the same. Each of these steps is like taking a derivative.</p>
<p>When studying F = ma, they don’t give you the equation. They first explain to you that many relationships in science are governed by simple equations, linear, quadratic, or exponential. Then they tell you you can find what the relationship is by plotting the log of one variable and the other variable, which will result in a straight line (due to the nature of a log, the exponents become coefficients in y= mx + b form.) Then they go in the lab and do an experiment to figure out what the relationship is. </p>
<p>The primary goal is to get a feeling for how science is done, to get a real intuitive understanding, and to develop critical thinking skills.</p>
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<p>I read the article, and it looks like many of the magnet school students found college to be easier. I wonder who Dr. Oxtoby is talking about, or how much experience he/she has with these students. Most schools do not have post-AP classes, and the rare schools that do tend to have very successful students.</p>
<p>"I don’t think the Caltech experience is hazing at all–there really is that much to learn. "
Agreed. CalTech does not hide its intensity from applicants. The phrase- “like trying to drink water from a fire hose” is a very apt description of the UG classes there. Some kids thrive on that! More power to them.</p>
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<p>It might be opportune to add a few articles about Oxtoby, Pomona, and the Claremont Consortium to ascertain the lack of “his or her” experience on the subject. A good start would be to map the top twenty test scores of our most competitive universities AND colleges. Perhaps, just perhaps, it might give you an idea where those “incredible” end up.</p>
<p>Oxtoby’s opinions that these students are not academically mature seems to be at odds with the rest of the article. Again, I’m not sure how many schools out there that offer post-AP classes. I thought it was quite small. Perhaps there are some schools out there that don’t do it well. TJ isn’t one of them, though. </p>
<p>Also, just a guess, I am familiar with Pomona and how good it is, but I think it is probably more popular for Californians than those on the East Coast and Midwest. I knew one guy who went to Pomona; presumably he did very well academically, because he ended up at a top law school…</p>
<p>The article of the “incredibles” is both inspiring and depressing. For some kids who truly view learning as recreation, this hyper advanced education sounds terrific. Brilliant kids should not be held back or their talents wasted if they have the passion for growing their brains like athletes strive to improve their bodies. Those genes are not in my family. but I admire the abilities of those who possess intellectual brilliance much as I admire gifted athletes, musicians, etc.</p>
<p>However, for those pushing so hard to keep pace in an academic arms race to get into HYP, Caltech, or MIT, it sounds mind-numbing and soul crushing. It also seems a bit pointless if it makes college “easy” and a time to kick back relative to high school. </p>
<p>The prep schools / magnet schools sound far more intense now than they were 30+ years ago. I remember the prep school kids being way ahead of me when I went to college. Some stayed way ahead, but I was motivated by being the presence of extraordinarily bright and educated people, and by junior year I had caught up to or passed many who were burned out when they arrived. I enjoyed the work in college after having lived a fairly normal high school life focused more on sports than academics. The concept of burn out was completely foreign to me. </p>
<p>Advanced knowledge does not always equal advanced comprehension. History seems like the type of subject where understanding could lag the acquisition of knowledge, and I suspect that similar things can happen in chemistry, etc. I did not enjoy history in either high school or college because it never seemed relevant to me at that time. However, in the last couple of decades, I have developed a fascination with history and politics, and have almost completely switched over from reading fiction to become a dedicated autodidact consuming books about different aspects of American history. Because I now have a considerably broader understanding of the world and life, history has become far more interesting to me than it was in my teens. I suspect that I while I probably know fewer facts than a recent post - A.P. U.S. history graduate of a top high school because I don’t study books for tests, there is a fair probability that I have more depth of understanding regarding the significance of historical events in part because I have lived a little, and in part because I am truly interested and not simply trying to build an academic resume. The same is true of literature. Memorizing Shakespeare is not understanding it.</p>
<p>Can many students in high school learning the historical events and dates really understand the significance and nuances of historical facts at ages 15, 16, etc, and understand the battles over what is fact versus interpretation and over the validity of various historical interpretations? I suspect some savants can, but that many of the “incredibles” absorb historical detail for the sake matriculation in college, rather than for the sake of nuanced knowledge.</p>
<p>On the the other hand, the sheer volume of material absorbed is stunning. The article describes a phenomenon that almost seems like an intellectual hot dog eating contest - simultaneously impressive and repulsive in its excess, but with a big prize to the winners.</p>