Well, maybe. By that logic, MIT should be pretty easy for the kids who manage to get in. But that’s not what I hear.
Harvard Math 55a-55b is the third level honors course for what is nominally sophomore-level (of course, it is likely that the students in that course are mostly highly advanced frosh) math (the regular level is 21a-21b, and the first and second level honors courses are 23a-23b and 25a-25b). So it is truly for the students with the highest ability and motivation in math at Harvard, as opposed to just being a “typical honors math course” similar to those at other schools.
Of course, Harvard offers other math courses that frosh take, including a normal frosh calculus course Math 1a-1b, and a slow paced one Math Ma-Mb (both semesters = Math 1a, so sort of like high school calculus AB), since it has to cater to a range of interests and abilities in math for incoming frosh.
Different level of admission selectivity likely has considerable correlation to what levels of courses are offered, though. For example, open admission community colleges in California generally have the equivalents of Harvard’s normal frosh/soph math courses (Math 1a-1b, 21a-21b), but not any of the honors courses. They do have much greater offerings at lower levels like elementary algebra (= high school algebra 1), geometry (= high school geometry), intermediate algebra (= high school algebra 2), and precalculus.
It may be the non-academic weaknesses that kept them out of Harvard and MIT. Or they may not have had the money to pay for Harvard or MIT (e.g. wealthy parents who won’t pay). Or they did not fit “institutional needs” among the hordes of high-stat applicants.
When I was in college, there were some very brilliant in math students (math majors) whom I encountered. However, based on their social mannerisms, there was no way that they would get a favorable or even neutral interview report (yes, interviews are said to mean little, but a bad report probably hurts much more than a good report helps).
PG, you love to paint yourself as above it all, so unconcerned, so “live and let live.” Yet you go after other posters with a personal vengeance that belies your feigned nonchalance. Why do you care enough about what I do, say or think to be so antagonistic? Walk your own talk.
This is a COLLEGE forum. I, like others, spend time on here because we are interested in learning about and discussing COLLEGES. I still have one more child for whom I need to find a good fit. Maybe you recall that she is a special education student? When I speak with others about their children’s college experiences, I pay close attention to what they say about the rigor and workload in the hopes it would help me gauge at what local institution my D, who is also likely to fail the high school proficiency test, might be able to experience success. So it would be a little silly to look down on parents with kids who are not strong students, believing myself superior, wouldn’t it? Still, not for one second could I ever successfully persuade myself that Kean or Kutztown are not so very different from Harvard or Haverford.
@TheGFG
I do apologize for the tone of my earlier post. I was rather snarky.
@Hunt, as I’d mentioned before, certain programs, including most at MIT/Caltech & Northwestern’s ISP (and CS@CMU, etc.), are at a different level than even regular elite school programs.
But are CS courses at Yale more rigorous or faster-paced than CS courses at UC-Davis? I’d have to look at syllabi, but I’d be surprised if they are.
Thank you, and apology accepted Mom2aphysicsgeek.
I thought you were looking at Bryn Mawr for your daughter? In any case best of luck with your search for her.
I didn’t lose my mind - “Bryn Mawr is at the top of her list! Looked at Dickinson, Wesleyan, F&M, and Haverford too. Plan to visit Connecticut College. Brown, Holy Cross, Fordham, Johns Hopkins, Rutgers, Seton Hall are all under consideration as well, but are bigger and/or a little farther away than she’d like to go.”
I wouldn’t think a special education student would be looking at BM, Haverford, Brown, JHU - Something doesn’t add up here.
OK, I can’t find a sample UC Davis OS finals online, but the UMD OS final is about the same in difficulty as the Yale OS final.
In general, when it comes to STEM subjects, you can expect the schools that aspire to (and do) send a decent number of kids on to grad school (either per capita or in absolute numbers, so including certain LACs as well as good departments in flagship-level publics) to have a decent amount of rigor.
University of Tokyo? SIngapore U.?
Re: some of the discussion upstream.
If your child has special education needs, and wants accommodations…there are several things you need to do in terms of your college choices.
- Make sure your kiddo has a recent evaluation documenting the special education needs as well as need for accommodations.
- Find a school with a good disabilities office. This is the place that your kid will go to to set up the accommodations he or she will have available in college. Some disabilities offices also have tutorial services.
- Reme,bet that college isn't high school. The student will need to be an excellent self advocate. They will need to advocate with the professors for their accommodations. They will need to seek out tutorial services, if needed. There will not be a special education case manager chasing them down to make sure these things happen, that they attend classes, and that they turn in assignments on time.
So…yes, for students who have had IEPs (special education students) or 504 accommodation plans…it is important to look at how good that disabilities office is.
Some schools are actually well designed to assist LD kids…places like Mitchell College for example. There are many others.
@PurpleTitan I will say up front that I am 100% ignorant about physics. Where my ds gets it from is beyond me. But based on our experience when visiting a wide range of schools (select to avg public) it seemed to me that foundational physic course textbooks must not have changed much in decades. Listening to the conversations between my ds and the deans, my impression is that it isn’t until you start talking about modern physics that much is different. Some of the deans who talked to ds about what textbooks he had used in his courses would pull a much older edition off their shelf that dated back to their college days. Same book just different publication date. These deans had a wide variety of undergrad backgrounds, but the books seemed to me to be discussed in terms of just a few golden standard choices.
Every dean he talked to basically said that if he had mastered the content of those texts, he was getting what they covered in their classes. (The only exception was one school where we met with an undergrad advisor who went totally nutso and started ranting that it was impossible for ds to have learned what he said he had and that top students cried in his classroom bc they didn’t know how to think…lets just say we backed out the door slowly and scratched that dept off the list feeling like we had had a narrow escape. Totally bizarre.)
So unless I totally misunderstood those conversations (which is possible since I can only follow them on a superficial level), it seemed to me that undergrad physics is pretty standard.
Even if we accept as a given that the material and the pace is the same in foundational STEM courses at highly selective and much less selective colleges, what is the difference in the experience of being in those classes? Personally, I would much rather be in a class in which a majority of the students will be able to do very well in the subject, as opposed to one in which a substantial number of them will be weeded out from the major.
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You’re changing the subject, @Hunt. The educational experience may be very different, but that wasn’t what was being discussed. The rigor at a number of schools with widely different student bodies (at least in STEM departments) are often times roughly the same. The experience at a giant public that takes in kids of many different levels will be very different from the experience at a super-selective private anyway. But when Google is looking to hire, they care most about what skills you have, not how much you enjoyed college.
Mind you, there’s not no difference anywhere. MIT’s OS final seems slightly harder and has more problems than Yale’s or UMD’s (and MIT students tend to do quite well on it). Meanwhile, Wichita St.'s OS final does not compare in difficulty to those of any of the schools listed above.
You didn’t lose your mind, PG, you are simply choosing to put your mind selectively to work trying to undermine my credibility on this forum. Why didn’t you choose to also copy my post lamenting the fact that lower tier schools don’t tend to even have classics departments, and many don’t offer Latin as a major? Or my comment that this will be a problem for D, because I don’t think she can get in any of those schools? What about my statements I was focusing mostly on test-optional institutions, due to D’s struggles with math and math tests? I certainly don’t owe nasty people any explanations, but students with Asperger’s tendencies typically have some nice strengths (hers are Latin and history), but also some very significant weaknesses (hers are math and science and all things spatial) that we will have to somehow navigate in order to get her admitted.
- Students can get as good of an education or even better at a lower ranked school, but students do not, on average.
- When the schools are in the same range within the rankings, the differences are not very significant. Rankings are not the be all and end all of school choice in any way, but they should be are a factor. Especially, when the difference is large.
- Telling students and parents who are not very informed about colleges that rankings are irrelevant, and therefore, they should choose the place that is the most "fun" is hurting the most vulnerable. It is clear that, on average, the higher ranked schools present more challenges and opportunities than the lower ranked schools. Especially when the difference in rankings is significant.
@TheGFG. Explore LACs. Possible test-optional ones.
I think there are 2 parallel conversations going on here. As for students with special needs, you probably already know this, TheGFG, since you have been very keyed into your youngest’s academic needs, but for students with special needs, such as spectrum issues, the key issue will be what support services, both academic and non academic, they can provide to the student. Students on the spectrum can have a myriad of ancillary social support needs, and their success in school may be largely influenced by the support services available to them that they use (another key issue). I am currently working with a family of a student on the spectrum. He is very bright but has been in a very supportive environment for the past several years. We are working to identify the schools that the student will feel comfortable in that also can provide these support services. Services range from modest, only basic services, to very comprehensive, full service programs. This is very important to consider when evaluating schools for these students. Getting into school is one thing- staying in, succeeding and thriving is another.
OK, off my soapbox.