<p>Ok, lets say you have 2 colleges that are "ranked" slightly differently. For example, NYU and Yale. Both great schools, but Yale is a little higher up. Ok, so would courses be of the same difficulty, or would the courses are Yale be harder?</p>
<p>It is necessary for teachers to match the level of difficulty to the ability of the students. Textbooks and course content at different schools may often appear similar but the level of difficulty can be considerably different.</p>
<p>i concur with edad...more works may be required at more selective schools...</p>
<p>Well, actually, I'm not sure about that. I think that ranking correlates fairly weakly with difficulty. Much stronger predictors exist.</p>
<p>Let's take the specific case of Stanford engineering. Nobody disputes that Stanford is one of the premier engineering schools in the world. On the other hand, Stanford engineering is notably relaxed and stress-free, at least relative to other engineering programs. In fact, I would argue that Stanford engineering is probably * easier * than many other engineering programs that are ranked lower. In particular, we can use the example of Caltech. Caltech engineering is ranked lower than Stanford engineering, but I think there would be little dispute (even from Stanford people) that Caltech engineering is almost certainly harder. In other words, somebody who flunks out of Caltech engineering could probably have graduated from Stanford engineering. Probably only with mediocre grades, but at least he would have graduated. </p>
<p>Hence, I think if you are really looking for a strong predictor of difficulty, you have to look at the culture of the school. Stanford has built a strong reputation for having a relaxed environment, high quality of life, excellent student satisfaction, and so forth. Caltech, on the other hand, is a meatgrinder. And they're quite explicit about that. You choose Caltech, and not only will you be working like a dog, but you * still * might flunk out.</p>
<p>sakky, I think you make some very important points. I don't know about you Caltech-Stanford comparison, but there are some other well know examples. Harvard has severe grade inflation with almost every student getting A's in almost every course. 90% of Harvard students graduate with honors. Harvard has amazing students so I am sure there is no doubt that the courses are taught at a high level. What about very selective schools like U Chicago or JHU where there has been grade deflation? The students at these schools are close to the level of Harvard students and they are expected to work really hard to get mostly B's and C's. I wonder if these schools cover more material in greater depth or just grade harder.</p>
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Harvard has severe grade inflation with almost every student getting A's in almost every course
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<p>Well, it's not quite THAT extreme. Harvard is certainly grade inflated, but it's not THAT heavy.</p>
<p>"A’s accounted for 23.7 percent of all grades given to undergrads last academic year"</p>
<p>"The most common grade at Harvard since 1989-1990 has been an A-minus. Those almost-stellar marks accounted for 25.0% of all grades last year. "</p>
<p>Hence the percentage of A's or A-'s given out is 48.7%. That's obviously a lot, but not so much that 'almost every student gets A's in almost every course'.</p>
<p>And frankly, I don't find Harvard's grading policies out of line with the rest of the Ivy League. If anything, Harvard is in the middle of the pack. </p>
<p>"Data from the Ivy League schools indicated that 44% to 55% of their students received "A" grades."</p>
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90% of Harvard students graduate with honors.
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<p>Not anymore. What you are referring to is the record year of 2001 where 91% of the class graduated with honors. Harvard honors are now capped at 50-60% of the class. </p>
<p>Personally, I would say that grade inflation is * exactly * what schools should be doing, or put another way, schools should not be deflating their grades. That's why I think difficult schools like Caltech, MIT, Chicago, JHU, etc. are misguided. The truth is, we live in a competitive world where students from different schools are going to be judged by their grades, with little regard for the difference in difficulty of the school. Hence, by enforcing difficult grading standards, you are only hurting your own students in relation to the competition they will have to face from students from other (easier) schools. Hence, your students are going to become relatively less successful, and that is going to reflect badly on the school itself, as they will tend to occupy relatively less powerful positions in the world, and will have relatively less money to donate back to the school. Sad but true. </p>
<p>Of course, the REAL solution would be for thoe other institutions to stop comparing GPA's from different schools in a superficial, myopic manner. Grad school adcoms (especially law and med-school adcoms, who seem to be the deliberately most myopic) should be made to understand that some schools are more difficult than others. Major scholarship committees (i.e. the Rhodes Scholarship), and employers should be made to understand the same. But that's obviously not going to happen. So the next best thing is for the difficult schools to begin inflating their grades. Sad but true.</p>
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I think that ranking correlates fairly weakly with difficulty.
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Your support for this statement is that Stanford does not like to fail students while lower-ranked engineering schools will fail students. I don't think the failure rate is applicable to difficulty.</p>
<p>Engineering is a very un-subjective major and so there is a basic level of difficulty in the coursework and exams. If a #5 and a #50 school gave exams of the same level of difficulty, the bell curve of scores will have a much lower median at the #50 due to the disparity in student quality. However, most courses are curved so I think it's reasonable for the #5 to give fewer F's than the $50.</p>
<p>Focus: 1. Higher ranked schools would generally be harder, especially in curved classes as your competition would be harder. There might be less F's but those A's would also be more difficult to get.</p>
<ol>
<li> Look up the details of the major you're interested in. It's been my experience that the standard curriculum at lower ranked schools teach less material but this will vary by major.</li>
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Your support for this statement is that Stanford does not like to fail students while lower-ranked engineering schools will fail students. I don't think the failure rate is applicable to difficulty.
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<p>You don't think that failure rate is applicable to difficulty? Really? I would say that if anything, they are completely intertwined. After all, can a school really be difficult if it never fails anybody? </p>
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Engineering is a very un-subjective major and so there is a basic level of difficulty in the coursework and exams. If a #5 and a #50 school gave exams of the same level of difficulty, the bell curve of scores will have a much lower median at the #50 due to the disparity in student quality. However, most courses are curved so I think it's reasonable for the #5 to give fewer F's than the $50.
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<p>Then consider the next example. MIT is just as good, and probably a (slightly) better engineering school than Stanford is. Yet MIT is also a very difficult school; one where you are more likely to flunk out than you are at Stanford, and also harder to get A's. </p>
<p>So you have 3 data points consisting of 3 engineering schools - MIT, Stanford, and Caltech, ranked in that order from best to worst. Yet the 2 endpoints are difficult schools. The middle school is the easier one (relatively speaking). What's up with that? Shouldn't only a one-way trend exist? Instead, you end up with some sort of strange parabola. How's that? </p>
<p>Which gets to precisely my point - that school ranking is a weak indicator of difficulty. What is a far stronger indicator is the culture of the school. MIT, Caltech (heck, any school that has the words "Institute of Technology" in its name) is probably quite difficult. Yet a school like Stanford, not so much, even when we're talking about engineering.</p>