@Nrdsb4 I don’t disagree with you, but specific to the medical school enrollment stats you posted, as @Pizzagirl would tell you, they mean little unless you know how many from each college applied and how many or what percentage got in. Even then there’d still be questions… Personally I am “torn” in how to interprets these stats.
But SAY has read The Price of Admission! And maybe The Gatekeepers too! SAY is an expert!
(Guess what? We’ve all read them too. And I read The Price of Admission almost 10 years ago, not much useful about it anymore. Or the Gatekeepers (2003!) or the Michelle Hernandez books or whatever other out of date books you’ve suggested we educate ourselves by reading. )
I have to say you’d do a lot better in this thread, indeed in every thread I’ve seen you post in, if you prefaced your opinions with “I think…” instead of “the fact is…”
Plenty of smarter people than I have written about the flaws in twin studies (tiny sample sizes, impossibility of pulling apart other influences, etc.). The following is from Francis Fukuyama:
Perhaps more importantly, your mention of g elides the major controversies surrounding its very existence–it’s simply inaccurate to treat it as a fact of scientific consensus. You may find [this[/url] interesting–it includes links to some failures, of course, but also to some excellent scholarship and very well reasoned positions, especially the critique of g as unfalsifiable and tautological, as demonstrated in work by Horn & McCardle, which I find compelling and which is definitely scholarly enough to put the lie to claims of g’s conclusiveness.
[url=http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/02/who-owns-intelligence/377435/]Here’s an interesting pop-sci article](g factor (psychometrics) - Wikipedia) about these matters as well.
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
* Albert Einstein
@granny2, I like the quote, though it’s apparently probably William Bruce Cameron, not Einstein: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/26/everything-counts-einstein/
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” Albert Einstein
I would imagine that if people like this exist, they’re pretty rare. Considering that Calc 101 involves a significant amount of algebraic manipulation, I don’t see how someone who can’t do arithmetic to save their life could do very well in that class, or even pass it. If you can’t pass Calc I, you can’t be a Math major, and if you can’t be a Math major, you can’t go to grad school for Math.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible, but I’m sure it’s extremely rare. The only way I can see it happening, is if someone is really bad at algebra, and the plug and chug type classes, but has a knack for the theorem-proof type Math. But like I said, that person will still have to get through Calc I to be a Math major. So unless they have someone bending the rules for them, I think their chances are very slim. If you can’t save your life with your algebra skills, you’re not likely to get through Calc I with a passing grade.
Some people also just like to downplay their skills-the top chef that can’t boil an egg, the race car driver that can’t drive around town in a basic car, the mathematician who claims they can’t balance a checkbook. And engineers and doctors who can’t change a light bulb for the life of them.
It’s a bit more subtle than that. It’s more like when I tell my wife that I “don’t know how” to use the vacuum cleaner or when she tells me that she’s “unable” to pump her own gas. The incompetence is feigned and willful - to avoid a tedious task that we don’t like.
It’s not that they can’t do basic algebra or calculus; it’s that they can’t be bothered to a lot of the time. I’m sure they pretty much all got A’s in the high school math classes that they took 
I, personally, think being good at arithmetic and being good at math are two very different things. 50 years ago, you probably had to be good at arithmetic to get to the point where you could start learning math. That’s not really the case anymore. I had one kid who was great at arithmetic, but lacked the math skills to be able to get past Calc I. The other one is awful at arithmetic. (She missed NMSF at least in part because of really silly addition and subtraction errors on the PSAT.) But she enjoyed and did well in the calc and statistics courses she’s taken in high school and college. And she’s talking about taking linear algebra next year “for fun.”
There’s also the possibility they muddled through well enough in the lower-level math classes and then found they excelled at the more advanced ones.
One case I knew of was an engineering PhD student at a respectable engineering department who admitted to me he hated math and was a mediocre B/C student in it until he took Calc I in college. Once he did…he excelled in calc and subsequent math courses to the point he graduated with high honors from engineering for undergrad and was accepted to his engineering PhD program. He’s currently working in an engineering tech firm somewhere in the Boston area.
I’m familiar with engineering, rather than professors. Among many engineering fields, I’d expect most who have been out of college for several years couldn’t do even basic calculus. Some would struggle with algebra as well. This relates to forgetting the bulk of material covered in HS/college classes, rather than not being capable. Many engineering positions do not regularly use calculus or algebra, so things can be forgotten quickly. Engineers that do actively use this type of math often rely on computer programs, such as Matlab, to do relevant calculations for them, rather than doing calculations by hand. However, the post that sparked this discussion claimed that the 50% of the population with IQs of under 100 struggles with basic algebra, which obviously isn’t the case among persons who took the class recently.
I agree with that. My comment was probably over-focusing on the words “world class”.
Based on what was posted here on CC, Harvard’s 75%tile range for the SAT(M+CR)for 2010-2011 was 1590, with CalTech, Yale and Princeton tied for second at 1580. This tells me Harvard was probably winning a lot of cross-admit battles with the others for the absolute best.
What is of more interest to me is that Harvard’s 25%tile range was only 1390 (CalTech, in comparison, was 1470). My suspicion is that the weakness here is the lack of world class quant skills that I was talking about. It also goes a long way in dispelling the notion that STEM folks are weak verbally.
Btw, I think the Wikipedia link of post 662 is excellent and needs to be read in its entirety. While there is no absolute consensus (you will never find it in the social sciences anyway), the weight of the evidence is strongly in favour of a “g” in some shape or form.
Harvard accepts hooked applicants in large quantities while CalTech does not so no surprise that bottom 25% looks very different. You cannot make any conclusions about quant skills from this stat. Isn’t Caltech basketball team on a 40+ match loosing streak?
Oh, it’s so awful! Only a 1390! How do people who score so low manage to tie their own shoes in the morning?
Clue: it doesn’t MATTER. You don’t remotely need “world class” quant skills to be successful in this world, and in life. Most people who aren’t engineers or scientists aren’t ever going to use much more than everyday algebra in life.
Cal Tech has the purest admissions process in the country. They don’t care about legacy, or whether you’re an Olympic swimmer, or if they have too many Asians. They simply want the smartest kids they can admit. That doesn’t mean that SAT/ACT is the only measure of worthiness. But I appreciate that at least one school doesn’t hide behind a holistic process in order to admit legacies or super rich kids or create a desired racial mix or prefer students whose skills have nothing to do with academics, i.e., athletes.
But, well, as one of my Ds doesn’t test well, we’re glad there a number of good LACs with test-optional admissions…
Even Caltech though is not above caring about athletics. My older son got a stock letter from their basketball coach years ago . They “ran some numbers” and his name came up - they were looking for kids with the numbers they wanted who also had actually played basketball before! The letter was pretty funny. Not sure if they are still doing this anymore . They probably do have difficulty finding kids with high math, science type numbers that are also athletic.
Not sure what you mean by “purest”, but Caltech does consider a number of subjectively graded criteria in admissions, and does consider “relationship with alumnus” (i.e. legacy) and ethnicity, according to http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=706 .
If you want a transparent admissions process without the use of subjectively graded criteria in the admissions office, perhaps San Jose State University is more ideal, since it is by rank order of a formula of GPA and (SAT or ACT), and the thresholds are published afterward. See http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ .
Yep, and Caltech’s “prestige” is concentrated among math and science nerds. It doesn’t sound very appealing, to be honest.
According to what ucbalumnus posted, Caltech does consider extracurriculars important as well. Athletics (along with other things) would fit there.
@Pizzagirl, When my son got the letter from a Caltech coach, I told him right away it was very likely not a good fit for him at all . He had expressed no interest in schools like Caltech or MIT. He is social and athletic and wanted a big school. Caltech is very prestigious but definitely not for everyone.