Caltech Named World's Top University in New Times Higher Education Global Ranking

Parents Forum
541

<p>annasdad: If anyone at Yale ever got a F for turning in a paper late, there would probably never be another late paper. Incompletes are not seen as necessarily undesirable at many elite schools. Students frequently use their breaks to do a more in-depth paper than would be possible during term. Sometimes these papers are so good they are used for the basis of a senior thesis or master’s thesis. Occasionally they are good enough to publish. Getting your work done on time is important. But understanding the parameters in which you are working is also important. Saying a Yale student took extra time for a paper may mean something very different than you are imagining.</p>

<p>At this point I am becoming worried I’m writing something you already know because I can’t believe you really believe what you are posting??</p>

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<p>Hey, if Yale students don’t have to turn their papers in on time, why did I pull all those all-nighters? I’ve been robbed!!!</p>

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<p>varies by class??
:)</p>

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<p>annasdad, in post #516 you say: "
“An alternative explanation might be that the high-level teaching that occurs causes those who cannot or will not respond to it to leave, voluntarily or otherwise. Which is one feasible explanation as to why the graduation rates at these places are not very high.”</p>

<p>You complain in post #523 that I misconstrued your argument to mean you were saying that high-level teaching produces low graduation rates. What did you mean by the above quote. then? Given the side taken in your arguments from earlier posts, and since the Ivies and other elite schools don’t have low graduation rates, I assumed the schools you were talking about were the less-prestigious ones.
I assumed you were talking about high-levle teac</p>

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<p>Here’s another Deresiewicz wrote, this time in 2011–it’s interesting to compare the two:
[Faulty</a> Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation](<a href=“http://www.thenation.com/article/160410/faulty-towers-crisis-higher-education]Faulty”>http://www.thenation.com/article/160410/faulty-towers-crisis-higher-education)</p>

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<p>annasdad,
Do you realize that Hunt is a Yale alum and this his son is currently at Yale?
She is not some mindless boola boola booster, either. If you do a search, you will find that she (I think) contributes many thoughtful posts to CC.
What direct experience do you have with HYP and co?
Of note: the posters in this thread forum have show you much respect and taken you very much at your word about your D’s specialized HS.</p>

<p>Please be aware that, while D has some good points, he is not a completely reliable source. His real goal is self-serving- he “needs” to bash Yale because he did not get tenure there. And he has some interpersonal issues, some have reported. He is clearly very bright, writes well, etc. (check out the Book Review he wrote for this Sun NYT, on a book about Brown grads- does he have an obsession with Ivies?!)</p>

<p>You are also generalizing too much about the NON-presigious schools, so your argument loses some of its oomph there, too.</p>

<p>I might say, based on personal experience (but why bother going into it since I am “just an anonymous poster on the internet”), that Yale DOES challenge its students, but that the teaching quality and the luxury of homogeneity, general preparedness and eagerness in its student body does work to educate close to the full 100% of its students so that they reach graduation and can go onto other relatively challenging activities. They are not “giving this away”, despite some mercies like extensions (which I also tend to disrespect, there you have it).</p>

<p>I hate to call this “coddling.” I like to think of it as a noble goal.
You have a bias toward the weed-out mentality, methinks. Remember that is just one approach.</p>

<p>Do not get me wrong- I do understand that it is a paradox that the most prestigious and supposedly challenging colleges have the highest graduation rates.
I say it is because of the quality of the teaching and the amazing student bodies at these schools.</p>

<p>And please do not have a chip on your shoulder about money and prestige- it does not become you or anyone to carry this around. There is much good about the education one can get at so many of the colleges out there, the opportunities to learn, other offerings such as networking, connections, etc. Prestige may not be your thing- got it.</p>

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<p>annasdad: I am trying to think how to say something. I hope this makes at least a little sense. It seems to me you are trying to quantify an elite education by thinking about requirements, passing, failing, grade inflation. I don’t think that is really a very good way to try and judge the experience. Because it is the opportunity for some, who are capable, to go way beyond any consideration of any of those ideas. </p>

<p>I suspect you understand this much better than I do :)</p>

<p>That is not to say there aren’t problems with elite education just not, imho, what you are focusing on.</p>

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<p>Apparently that’s one difference; I doubt many lazy and entitled kids graduate from Cleveland State because of it.</p>

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<h1>545 Hunt: In post 448, I pointed that article out to annasdad but he didn’t respond.</h1>

<p>I am becoming pretty interested in this guy and looking for his Austen book.</p>

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<p>@TheGFG, if you can’t see the difference between what I said (higher level teaching is the norm at less-selective schools) and what you said I said “lower graduation rates at less prestigious schools are due to higher-level teaching than what occurs at HYP”), all the explanation in the world isn’t going to help.</p>

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<p>I know that’s what s/he claims, and it may well be true. But the phenomenon of CC posters who consider their alma maters (or their kids alma maters) to be without flaw is not an unknown one.</p>

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<p>Ah yes, when you can’t refute the points, attack the point-maker. You apparently have a pipeline into his brain.</p>

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<p>I have no such chip. I do have a thing about people making unsupported assertions and presenting them as unassailable facts.</p>

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<p>Here’s another interesting article: [College</a> students ‘get away with’ poor preparation - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-11-10-nsse_students_N.htm]College”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-11-10-nsse_students_N.htm)
Maybe the Ivies skewed the results?

I think this is a good point, and explains some of the frustration I have with this conversation–places like Yale provide tremendous opportunities for kids who are self-directed and ambitious, and many of them take great advantage of it. There are others who just get a really good education. I don’t think there are very many at all who sleaze their way through, but really, I don’t care about that, anyway. I wasn’t one of them, and neither is my son–he’s had opportunities that he wouldn’t have had at some of the other schools on his application list. That makes it worth it, for me.
But this discussion might be helpful for some people in figuring out what kind of school is best for their kids. If your kid is brilliant, but a little bit of a slacker, where should he go? Maybe an LAC with more personal attention would be better than a bigger university where it might be easier to hide. But maybe Caltech might not be the best choice.</p>

<p>And annasdad can assail my facts all he wants. But I will point out that I don’t really have any interest in telling you that students at Yale aren’t slackers, while Deresiewicz has a clear interest in the points he’s making. Heck, I should be saying that all Ivies and selective schools are rotten, and nobody should apply to any of them. After all, my daughter is a senior in high school this year.</p>

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<p>Deresiewicz is making unsupported assertions.</p>

<p>How can you judge the truth of his assertions without first hand knowledge?</p>

<p>I am not a debater, just want to know if there is a way to do this?</p>

554

<p>annasdad, you noted this quote</p>

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<p>Let’s look back at the original article and look at the anecdote that immediately follows that quote. </p>

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<p>We of course don’t know the entire story here. The “A” might have been based on some small amount of work early in the course, the paper might have been awful, the friend might have tanked on the final or on the subsequent course assignments. After all, if you “have a thing about people making unsupported assertions and presenting them as unassailable facts” then you might be a tad suspicious about what caused the grade to drop. </p>

<p>Or we can assume, as Deresiewicz intends for us to assume, that the friend was indeed a hard-working intelligent student who’d been doing exemplary work. Surely this student was also responsible and resourceful, and thought that she’d have enough time to get from her job to campus to drop off the paper. But sadly, things didn’t work out. Maybe a bus was late, or traffic was heavy, or her boss asked her to stay late. She was an hour late. The professor said sorry, as my syllabus said (and the syllabus better have laid this out as a policy in advance) I will not accept papers past the assigned time. You fail this assignment, which is so heavily weighted (again, laid out in the syllabus) that even though you otherwise are doing “A” work, you won’t even be able to receive a “C” in the course because of this one paper.</p>

<p>If nothing else, the friend sounds somewhat irresponsible. If I knew that so much was riding on one paper, I’d turn the bleeding thing in early rather than risk losing all credit because I was running late on the day that it was due.</p>

<p>Deresiewicz uses this anecdote to show us how Yale students get second chances, implying that second chances are a bad thing. annasdad seems to think that if students get them, they’re lazy and entitled. Maybe so, but I’d bet that 1) Deresiewicz has never put a “no credit for late work” clause on any syllabus, and 2) that if an “A” student was an hour late on a deadline because they were late coming of a waitressing shift, then Deresiewicz would accept the paper with some smaller penalty.</p>

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<p>Where did we get the notion that people at highly selective schools get to ignore deadlines? In my experience at Harvard and Bryn Mawr, professors and TAs would often grant extensions for papers if they were requested ahead of time, but this wasn’t true of every course/assignment, or of last-minute requests even from lenient teachers. Extensions for problem sets or exams were rare, and unexcused lateness on anything usually caused a severe grade penalty (like one letter grade per day). The only extension I sought was for a psychology term paper following my grandmother’s death, and I had to provide an obituary to the professor in order to get it. I thought the accountability level was pretty similar to the work world in that sense. </p>

<p>I did know people who were chronically late and graduated eventually, but it usually took them more than 4 years, and judging from where they ended up for grad school, their grades suffered. So I agree that they get a lot of second chances, but they pay a price too.</p>

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<p>I can’t. But I can assign them a great deal of credibility, because of his experience. And they are supported by additional evidence: that virtually no one ever flunks out, which aligns perfectly with his assertion - that it’s almost impossible to get thrown out.</p>

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<p>Not exactly. What annasdad actually thinks is that when the culture of a place is that an unlimited number of second chances are available, that says a great deal about the rigor of the education.</p>

<p>Unless, of course, you are prepared to argue that mundane things like getting work done on time should not figure into a student’s grades.</p>

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<h1>556</h1>

<p>Several of us have posted that we question his credibility precisely because of his experience. </p>

<p>It is almost impossible to get thrown out of Yale. I don’t see that necessarily means the students are lazy and entitled. It may mean they are all too smart and hardworking to get thrown out??? (Probably they aren’t all too smart and hard working ;)) </p>

<p>I never studied logic but A doesn’t seem to necessarily equal B to me here.</p>

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<p>And you are basing the idea that an unlimited number of second chances are available at elite schools on what, exactly? Because I have this thing about people making unsupported assertions and presenting them as unassailable facts.</p>

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<p>Let’s rotate this argument:
Do you think it is COMMENDABLE that students get thrown out?</p>

<p>There are different philosophies: weed em out if they cannot cut it vs. if you teach very well, they all can learn-- at opposite spectrums.</p>

<p>And then, there are different admissions bars/criteria and processes resulting in different student bodies.</p>

<p>In conclusion:
Do you think that a percentage of those who graduate from elites like HYP do not deserve the degree? And should have flunked out?</p>

<p>The weeding out occurred during HS and during college admissions. The resulting classes are made up of those who ready to roll!</p>

<p>I realize that at CalTech and in STEM majors, the weeding out continues at most schools, even the elites. A good part of this thread debates and parses why this is so. There are some interesting theories here. But no one is saying that the quality of the education depends on it, unless I missed that…</p>