<p>Sgiovinc:</p>
<p>Your S and you may be interested in this article from today's Boston Globe.</p>
<p>I wouldn't blame MIT for the arrogant behavior of a few recent college graduates. You can pop into any of the "top" schools listed on this board and see people (from high school to recent college graduates) acting that way. It is true, though, that there is a general attitude of disdain toward Harvard amongst a lot of MIT students. If that is going to present a real problem, there are other top flight CS grad programs to consider, including UC Berkeley, Stanford and probably Caltech.</p>
<p>It's true that 50% of MIT male UG students live in "independent living groups," some of which are fraternities. Some of them are traditional frats, some aren't. (My son, who lives in a dorm on campus, notes that this means that the dorms have more women than men, and he likes that environment. To quote: "do the math, mom, do the math.")</p>
<p>At freshman picnic in 1972 when I attended, we WERE told "look to the left, look to the right--one of the three of you won't graduate." That had already begun to change, mostly as a result of the Vietnam war--no one was going to flunk out a student if it was a death sentence.</p>
<p>As for underemployed MIT grads, this high school substitute teacher has no complaints, even though my mother (who died two years ago) was horrified that I "wasted my MIT degree" when I decided to teach high school. (I will note that I got my master's degree in one year at UMass, taking 9 courses in one semester (2x a full load)---and it was a LOT easier than MIT undergrad.)</p>
<p>um. The most intellectually curious school is of course Berkeley. When I first arrived at Berkeley, I just wanted to have fun, living away from my parents. But being in a school that intellectual, where the campus theme at the time was "Question everything" really made me open my mind up. Its such a great feeling to have this warmth pulsation force your brain to think in ways it never thought before, absolutely amazing!</p>
<p>i don't know how you can judge what school has the most intellectual curiosity.. it just seems like one of those things that varies from person to person.. class to class.. school to school.. you know? i mean, I love meeting new people and discussing things and learning whatever information i can.. knowledge is power.. but then there are the quiet people who don't talk much.. this doesn't mean they dont have intellectual curiosity.. they just choose to display it differently. that's just my two cents on the matter anyway :)</p>
<p>"At freshman picnic in 1972 when I attended, we WERE told "look to the left, look to the right--one of the three of you won't graduate."</p>
<p>What can I say except that they've had to "dumb down" (LOL!) the place sufficiently that more than 9 out of 10 now graduate - in other words, if you can get in, you don't have to worry much about getting out? (and I'd bet that most of the remaining 9% leave for family-related reasons - after all, there is only 2% attrition in the first year.)</p>
<p>Ah hah! I was right! Freshmen students at MIT were told that to the left and to the right there would be empty seats!!!! HA! I'm NOT delusional after all!!! Thanks for the confirmation of my supposed sanity.</p>
<p>At Reed freshman were reminded that while they may have been in the top% of their class in high school, now some of them would be the bottom 20%
That is pretty much the same for most competitive colleges though if you think about it.</p>
<p>Emerald: I know they say that at most competitive colleges. They said that at parents weekend at PENN. But that's alot different than saying seats will be empty!!!! And by the way, they didn't say that at Harvard. Different atmosphere....much more able to stroke the undergrads into having them live up to their expectations..not so many intimidation tactics used although they jumped all over the undergrads for cheating and plagiarism. THAT they took a firm stand on and there seemed to be one in every class that was as my S said: "Thrown out!" I suppose used him as an example to others who might even contemplate cheating.</p>
<p>Sorry Sgiovinc1-- no longer part of the spiel at MIT. My son has been there 3 years and knows only one person who has taken time off... and that was due to a parent's medical condition. He is hoping to return next semester if the family no longer needs him to drive and supervise the younger children. Unless of course, 2 out of 3 Freshman at MIT do drop out and somehow there's an elaborate cover-up by the administration so the kids don't realize that all their friends have mysteriously disappeared under cover of darkness....:)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>And by the way, they didn't say that at Harvard. Different atmosphere....much more able to stroke the undergrads into having them live up to their expectations..</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Pretty easy to make students feel good about themselves and live up to expectations. Just give them all As!</p>
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<p>look left, look right, one of the three of you will not be there in four years.</p>
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<p>I also heard a similar thing as a freshman engineer at Cornell in the late 70s ... however, that did not mean that 1/3 of the kids would flunk/drop out of Cornell ... in essence, it meant about 1/3 of the engineering students would change majors. Some of those were because of academics issues trying to stay in the program ... however, from my experiece, the vast majority were because kids discovered they preferred majors other than engineering and they moved on to another major at Cornell. If I had to guess the MIT story of old has a similar flavor if investigated.</p>
<p>BTW - I would guess if any "tough" undergraduate major was investigated that having 1/3 of the kids move out of that major from their freshman year to graduation is probably not all that unusual (engineering, pre-med, architecture, obscure languages, etc).</p>
<p>They used to say the same thing in the social science graduate schools at UChicago, too. Wasn't true there either. </p>
<p>Where this is true is at the satellite state u.'s where family situations and lack of income cause students to leave. "Look around you - the student on your left or your right is going to leave, because her mother is going to have a stroke, she has no health care coverage, she is about to be evicted, and there are four other kids at home. Sorry, but the student on your left doesn't deserve to be here." But, if you are into little experiments, take the top 50 LACs and private u.'s - and use the entitlement index. Then find the 6-year graduation rates. Lo and behold - an "entitlement premium". Big surprise.</p>
<p>Pray tell...you keep harping on the "entitlement" index....could you please elaborate. I am very naive when it comes to the "entitlement" thing. I guess I never believed any of US were entitled??? Oh.. and by the by....to "Interestedad" ...I'm not sure I concur with the "give them all A's" accusation you made about H professors. My S was placed on academic probation his upper frosh semester for failing a high level math class. He neglected to take the prerequisite upon coaxing from a friend who ultimately dropped out about 2 years later. He did, however, derive some hard fought "A'" in his East Asian Studies classes...learning to speak/read/write and understand Japanese in four years. We used to visit him about once a year and he couldn't spend any time with us to speak of because he was studying for a Japanese oral or written exam. In addtion, for fun and as an elective, he took the history of the Japanese Sho-guns....all in Japanese I might add and did secure an A- in that. We never saw him at all that semester. I'm not quite so sure you should be speaking about something you have little first hand knowledge about, sir.</p>
<p>Mini, since you've already done the leg work, after you explain entitlement index, would you please explain the link to graduation rates? </p>
<p>Some of your stuff is a bit off the beaten track but I think you could collect a number of your so-called Mini-essays :) into a small book.</p>
<p>Simple algorithm - Take the percentage of attending students who receive no need-based financial aid, add the percentage of students from private schools, and subtract the percentage of Pell Grant recipients. </p>
<p>Top 10 LACs: Davidson, Washington & Lee, Trinity, Middlebury, Kenyon, Williams, Colby, Conn, University of the South</p>
<p>Top 10 Private U.s - Notre Dame, Georgetown, Yale, Vanderbilt, Princeton, Tufts, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Brown, Duke</p>
<p>The relationship might actually be closer to the % of Pell Grant recipients, though I haven't actually analyzed the data.</p>
<p>Basically, all it says is that having money (or, at least, your family not lacking money), all other things being equal, makes it more likely that you will stay in school. Duh! (and by this algorithm, it is entirely predictable that MIT will have lower graduation rates than Harvard, having nothing else to do with these institutions or the quality of their students whatsoever.)</p>
<p>While Reed doesnt have as high of a graduation rate, most of the students in my daughters freshman dorm are on track to graduate this year.
Because of the small size, some students change schools that have their major, others take time off to save money, take an academic break, take an emotional break, but many come back.
She is planning to return 2005, and will be in her same major biology, which by requiring organic chemistry for all biomajors is equivalent to other schools premed programs.( Reed has few As though, I think the average GPA is 2.7)</p>
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<p>I'm not quite so sure you should be speaking about something you have little first hand knowledge about, sir.</p>
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<p>hmm ... Harvard's rampant grade inflation is pretty well known ... and there is lots of information in the public press about this (one that comes to mind is the incredible percentage of students who graduate with honors) ... I assume a google search will find a bunch of relevant info. That said individual majors, professors, or courses could very well take a much more tradtional approach to grades.</p>
<p>Harvard, is far from alone with the grade inflation situation. For example, Stanford, has pretty severe grade inflation also. Stanford and Harvard are both FANTASTIC schools and I would be thrilled if any of my kids were lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend ... but for me, one of the "cons" of both schools, is the grade inflation.</p>
<p>Reed's "higher" dropout rate is highly predictable, given their entitlement index, and independent of any other characteristics of the school. Only 44% of students do not receive needbased aid, and only 34% attended private schools. (For an uncorrected index score of 78. I don't have their Pell Grant numbers.) To provide a comparison, Williams has an uncorrected index score of 104.</p>
<p>OT so Mini, do you think we will have a governor by xmas?
@@ I say we just elect Ron Sims and be done with it!</p>