Malcolm Gladwell makes this exact argument in one of his books. I thought his story had a few holes, though. Here’s one: In his example, the girl, who went to Brown, had a really hard time with organic chemistry, and eventually decided that despite her lifelong obsession with insects (don’t ask), she was going to major in a humanities field. He makes the case that she would have been better off at the University of Maryland. One of my many problems with the story is the implication that the organic chemistry taught at University of Maryland would have been so much easier for this girl than the same class at Brown. I mean, it’s the same chemistry, right? People from the University of Maryland become doctors and pharmacists, right? Anyhow, I feel like what you’re saying has some truth to it (hardest to become an A student in engineering at MIT) but I think it’s a bit overblown since STEM is quite objective.
I don’t understand – are you saying that the information Princeton’s math department shares with prospective majors is false?
Often it is not the same chemistry. Courses taught at different universities with the same name are often not the same.
I have no idea what pressure they are under to say what they have to say from the administration. You should talk to a student to see if you can start at 103 and do anything approaching a reasonable math undergrad.
Being admitted test optional does not mean the student is unprepared for a math or other major. There are many ways to evaluate student preparation besides just SAT/ACT score, and I expect highly selective colleges do review preparedness for prospective major, regardless of score policy.
That said, the highly selective private colleges that are focused on in this forum often go out of their way to insure that students who come from less rigorous HSs that may offer fewer high level math courses have the opportunity catch up, and ultimately pursue math heavy majors. It is rarely toss in the deep end and see who sinks and who swims.
As an example, prior to becoming test optional Harvard required that all incoming freshman take a math placement exam to help better understand HS math background and help decide what math starting point is most appropriate. Based on placement exam score, HS course background, AP scores, personal goals, planned major, feedback from placement officer, and other factors; the student decides on which math course to choose. Harvard offers any of the following intro math starting points and sequence options – Math Ma,b; 1a,b; 19a,b; 20; 21a,b; 23a,b; 25a,b; and 55a,b. The lowest level (MA) is a half normal speed calc/pre-calc type class , while Harvard’s website describes math 55 as “probably the most difficult undergraduate math class in the country”.
There is no restriction that Harvard students need to start at higher math level course to become a math major, or other math heavy major. Harvard has had students who started at the lowest Ma math level, yet still became math PhDs.
Or maybe it’s Princeton’s Math department that is telling the truth. Absent evidence to the contrary, I’m inclined to go with their version over yours.
So the administration may be pressuring the department to lie to prospective students? Fascinating.
My guess is that if the student one talks to had a privileged high school education where they had the opportunity to study differential calculus, linear algebra, and beyond prior to Princeton, they will tell you that is definitely the way to go to accomplish “anything approaching a reasonable math undergrad.”
However, if you talked to a talented kid from a less privileged school who never even had the opportunity to take Calc AB, they might have a different experience and opinion.That’s why relying on the department for the information on the various tracks might make the most sense.
So why would med schools require us to take organic chemistry as a prerequisite in undergrad if we are not all assumed to have learned roughly the same thing? At any given med school there are Ivy students right next to state school students. Ask me how I know.
Hmmm… Now I’m curious how many of them there are in Harvard’s entire history…
Enough about Princeton’s math department. Back to the topic please.
What inevitably happens is the usual posters insist that somehow magically over the summer colleges can makeup for years of insufficient math rigor by offering a delightful remedial course or 2, possibly extending into the fall. Or at the very least the basic sequence will suffice. Then those of us with kids actually in Princeton’s math department currently ( or closely allied fields like physics) explain that our kids assure us there is no one in the major who began any lower than Math 215, and that even those 25 kids have serious trouble keeping up there. It may not be fair or transparent, but that is the way it is. It is a small department and everyone knows each other and their backgrounds. Caveat emptor.
I don’t know why med schools do whatever it is they do.
You should gently enquire which courses a university and department are willing to accept from elsewhere as acceptable transfer courses. For example, if you do a Physics course elsewhere, there are probably less than 10 schools globally that Princeton would accept transfers from for credit into a Physics major.
I think incoming undergrads would well be served if they enquired for themselves what the expectations are in any particular school in any particular major given their own knowledge about their level of preparation rather than fully believing what is written on some website. Talking to some existing students would be a good idea. This is for their own benefit so that there aren’t any unpleasant surprises later on.
Fair enough. A lot of us do, having gone to them and worked for them. Princeton may not take a transfer physics class from University of SomeState but med schools are happy to take students with all of their coursework from University of MostStates. I hope that doesn’t scare you next time you go to the doctor. I’m perfectly happy flying in airplanes designed by engineers and physicists from University of LearnedItWellEnough. 
If you have an issue with my posts, take it up with the moderator. Otherwise, kindly refrain from telling me what I can and cannot post about, especially given that you immediately then go on to discuss the issue you tell me I can’t discuss.
As for the rest, I’ll continue to trust the Department more than I trust the parents of a few students from privileged backgrounds. Given the opportunity, less well trained kids who get math will not only be able to catch up, they may eventually fly by kids with extensive high school training in college level topics. If Princeton doesn’t give these kids that opportunity, that is Princeton’s loss.
I copied the Northeastern numbers from Northeastern’s website, which reports scores of admitted rather than matriculating. See Application Information | Undergraduate Admissions (2022) and Application Information | Undergraduate Admissions (2021)
And by your own arguments made here on this thread, you must also be looking at where she went to undergrad…? Because as often as not, the Harvard, UCSF, SloanK trained specialist went to University of Maryland for college. Where she learned organic chemistry. The same chem I learned at an Ivy.
It’s worse that that. @neela and other posters seem to be insisting that undergrads ought show up at college already having mastered courses like Advanced Vector Calculus and Advanced Linear Algebra, so you better be looking at where they went to high school.
I will likely not look at the undergrad, because she would had another 10 years of education beyond that point, with additional 3 rounds of validation.
But if I am looking to hire someone into a job, and they have 4, 4+2 or 4+4 years of education post high school, I will certainly look at the undergrad, ask them what courses they did, and ask them foundational questions about whatever they think they are good at. Where they went to school is a factor. Either they’ve had a strong foundation, or they haven’t. It’s not hard to figure out.
The math departments call it “mathematical maturity”. They would like to see you have this before you enter the department; Otherwise you may have a difficult time. It is not me asking this or that.
Just like a classics department likes to see you be fluent in Latin, and passable in Greek. Those are the table stakes.
Or the music department …
That’s because Harvard doesn’t require much rigor for granting a degree. However, many employers do care, and will inspect the specific courses a student takes to verify they actually know something before granting an interview.
Medical schools generally don’t care where you fulfilled your undergraduate premed requirements. They just focus on GPA and MCAT scores.
However, what is learned in the premed courses has very little overlap with what is taught in the standard medical school curriculum. That’s probably why medical school AOs don’t care where you earned your premed credits. IMO, the premed curriculum’s purpose is largely to function as a roadblock to weed out the majority of premeds who want to become physicians. IMO, a lot of what is taught in medical school (especially the first 2 years) is also largely irrelevant to the practice of clinical medicine. It’s during your residency and fellowship where the essential training occurs.
Medical schools rarely take transfer students from other medical schools.
If all courses with similar sounding names are basically the same anywhere, why are some colleges and/or some majors harder to get into? Why do we even need a site like CC?
Interesting. Not my lived experience, though this is likely a function of my specialty. I do find myself tracing a patient finding all the way back to some fundamental concept or categorization from years 1 and 2 (perhaps a function of how my memory works: I can visualize the notes in the page). It happens most often when I’m needing to explain something to someone in basic terms, or needing to explain a physiologic mechanism. I can see how in other areas of medicine there’s enough “base” from later training, eclipsing the classroom curricula. Of course we are now way off topic from Columbia and SATs. Maybe I can bring it back around by agreeing with you that much of what is tested on the MCAT is only tangentially relevant to medicine, in the same way that what is on the SAT is only tangentially relevant to undergrad. They are both shortcuts to assess preparation, but they are also both flawed in their own ways.