<p>Oh, so now lower graduation rates at less prestigious schools are due to higher-level teaching than what occurs at HYP? Gee, if the teaching level is higher, as per annasdad, but far better in quality, as per mini, then the students must simply be LAZY and entitled if they drop out. Or else stupid.</p>
<p>Here’s another point to consider. Most HYP students graduate high school with two years or so of college courses under their belt, either through AP’s, online classes, or CC. So even if they only work hard in half of their classes, or two years worth, their degree still means they got a good college education. Consider their counterparts who are only admitted to less-prestigious schools. While the pre-Ivy kids were killing themselves junior and senior year in classes like Calc BC, AP Bio, AP English Comp, AP Spanish Lit., APUSH, AP Art History/Porfolio, these kids were cruising through with business math, topics in science, sports literature, Spanish 3, military history, and pottery. Therefore, they have to spend their first 2 years of college merely catching up to the educational level of their Ivy peers. Let’s assume they too only work hard in half of their classes, which is a generous assumption since they tend to be a less motivated bunch than the elite school crowd. At graduation, they will only have one year of real college learning to their credit.</p>
Sure, they succeed. But they simply don’t get the same kind of education they would have received in a classroom full of accomplished students with a professor up front who can teach at a high level all the time. Maybe some of them would have done very well at any school in the land, despite the grades and scores that limited their options. But haven’t you known a kid who had “honors” and “regular” classes in high school, and how those classes compared? When I was in high school, because of scheduling I couldn’t take World History, and ended up taking the non-honors alternative, World Geography, a year later. Most of the kids in the class had previously failed World Geography and were taking it again. The teacher was really unable to teach me anything. He had his hands full trying to convey some knowledge to kids with a lot of problems. I (and the other kid in the class in the same situation) went to the library most of the time. We learned some geography by reading the book and doing some reports, but not from the teacher. That’s an extreme case, but it sure showed me that you can’t teach all classes the same way.</p>
<p>A sure sign that one has no answer to an argument that was made is when one starts making up arguments that were never made and then expertly skewering those.</p>
<p>But what would be the “right” graduation rate for Yale if it was really requiring hard work and rigor? Do you think some percentage of Yale students should be flunking out or transferring because they can’t do the work? It seems to me that Yale’s admission process pretty much guarantees that all of its admittees can do the work (although perhaps they can’t all do all majors), and that the ultra-competitive nature of the admissions process today pretty much insures that the vast majority of them will be willing to do the work as well. How many singers should wash out of Juilliard?</p>
<p>I don’t really like to think of it as arguments. A discussion about what the real advantages and disadvantages of different colleges and universities seems to me possibly useful to many on CC, although I can imagine that soon the expense of an elite education will be pretty much regarded as an unjustifiable luxury for most of us. I do believe there are other valid reasons to question elite education. Deresiewicz touches on some of them in his article. Is anyone ever seriously disadvantaged by an HYP education?</p>
We are, I believe, talking about students who go from high schools to colleges. There is not some magic restart button that puts all those high school graduates on an equal footing as they go off to college. They are the same people they were before they graduated. So it’s not surprising that some of them will perform in college in a similar fashion to how they performed in high school. How many kids do you think failed the Honors World History class in my high school, as opposed to how many failed the World Geography class? And if there was a difference, do you think it was likely due to leniency in grading in the World History class?</p>
<p>mini - Based on the way adcoms present the teaching methodology at Oxford, I am under the impression they meet in very small groups to go through the subject. Isn’t that considered good teaching?</p>
<p>Correct. Highly-selective schools clearly sort kids on the way in. That way they are confident they have a pretty smart, motivated, and talented bunch of students right from the start. With rare exceptions, all can do the work.</p>
<p>Schools with low or no admissions selectivity can’t be nearly so certain about what they’ve got. Thus, they tend more to sort kids on the way through. Not all can do the work, and the ones who can’t fall by the wayside. With the selective schools those kids fell by the wayside during the admissions process instead of in class.</p>
<p>Actually, when I was there, it was mostly one-on-one tutorials. Sometimes excellent, sometimes just an excuse for mid-afternoon sherry. When two or more in a tutorial, mostly a matter of verbal one-up-manship. One had to learn to defend oneself. Papers (lots of writing, maybe 10,000 words a week) were never completed, because they didn’t have to be. You gave them (orally) at the weekly tutorial and moved on. On the whole, the teaching was indifferent. Oxford has since moved closer to the American system (though still all determined by end of first year, and then end of 3rd (or 4th) year examinations.</p>
<p>There were other very good things. I’ve written an article called “The Oxford Secret” - if I can find it, perhaps I’ll post.</p>
<p>The number of students who are truly this (lazy, entitled, not academically up to snuff but got in because of daddy’s money) at the elites are so small as to be insignificant in any kind of long run. And besides, if a handful of super-rich kids get in via daddy’s donations the campus gets a new science center, new dorm, is able to fund X number of professorships or X number of scholarships? I say it’s worth it. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.</p>
<p>The above quote is from the D article we’ve been discussing. One wonders what kind of grade D would have given to the student who “couldn’t be bothered” to turn in assignments and make a reasonable effort in his class, or who was clearly more into another class (math, science, etc.) and was just sort of biding his time away in his English class. </p>
<p>And I agree completely with Hunt. “Just couldn’t be bothered” is the sign of a loser.</p>
<p>I think that if the work at Yale was stretching and challenging the students, then some would flunk out or transfer.</p>
<p>If the level of the work and the rigor of the requirements are the same as they are at less-selective colleges, then I would think that very few Yale students are going to fail to complete their degrees.</p>
<p>But if the latter is the case, what is the advantage of going to Yale? Wait - I know the answer: prestige.</p>
<p>I would just like to point out that even the children of the super-rich can be smart and hard-working. My son isn’t super-rich, but he knows some kids who are, and at least one of them was in Directed Studies, which is the opposite of a slacker magnet.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that one of the raps on the elite schools is that they have become more careerist. While this may be true, it’s still true that those schools will allow, and even encourage, students to pursue fields of study where the prospects of gainful employment are extremely slim.</p>
<p>And, finally, these discussions always get back to the suspicion that anybody who wants to go to an Ivy League school is really just a prestige hound. As I’ve said before, an education at a highly selective school is a luxury, not a necessity. Certainly, some people buy BMWs rather than Subarus because of the prestige of owning one, but there are other things about a BMW that a person with the $$$ to buy one might prefer over a Subaru. Colleges are like that, too. And with the generous financial aid given by the most selective schools, quite a few people can obtain that luxury item at a very attractive discount.</p>
<p>pizza girl: I don’t find the article logically coherent. I keep waiting for someone here to explain it to me :)</p>
<p>winners & losers
It seems to me trying to create a profile that gets someone into HYP creates students obsessed with “winning” and those who knowingly opt out of that are interesting to me. Opting out may be a mark of immaturity or perhaps of thinking outside the box in a way I can’t imagine. Some of the smartest people I have known have opted out but this was more common in the 60s, early 70s than today. ymmv They define “winning” differently than most of us. When I try to enter their mindset my head pretty much starts to explode.</p>
<p>edit: children of the super rich generally have many more opportunities to be super well educated and prepared for the elites and have frequently had the sort of enriched upbringing that causes them to value all the educational opportunities the elites have to offer.</p>
<p>There are so many differences between high school and college that I’m surprised I need to spell them out.</p>
<p>Here are three:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The lowest-performing high school students (at the huge majority of U.S. high schools, anyway), never go to college.</p></li>
<li><p>College classes are taught by people with graduate degrees, usually doctorates, which means they have been through at least a semi-rigorous academic process. High school courses are taught by people with bachelor’s degrees, or at most master’s degrees.</p></li>
<li><p>The expectations for high school students are lower than for college students - much lower most places.</p></li>
</ol>
What I’m trying to suggest to you is that the expectations for students at Cleveland State are lower than those for students at Yale or Caltech, most likely in every single class offered there.</p>
<p>Apparently not when it comes to mundane things like turning in papers on time. Which gets us back to the point of discussion several dozen posts ago: laziness and entitlement.</p>
<p>So the big difference between Yale and Cleveland State is that at Cleveland State, kids are required to turn their papers in on time? Otherwise, they are more or less equivalent? Fascinating.</p>