Is a prestigious undergraduate degree worth it?

[CU123]

@MWolf

@CU123

@MWolf

@warblersrule

@jzducol

UW has an average GPA

Would a student who was admitted to Chicago be an average student at Wisconsin?

There are 31,000 undergraduates in 200+ majors at U Wisconsin. The term “average student at Wisconsin” is a meaningless term. I mean, you can calculate the average for any variable you want, but it will provide no meaningful information whatsoever.

Interestingly the schools themselves put out a lot of “averages” so it means something to the school (ACT averages, GPA, etc.).

There is a HUGE difference between talking about the average of any variable in a population, and talking about an “average individual” in a population.

I suspect that you have never met the “average American Family” which has 1.93 kids. Well, that is exactly the same as the "average UW student, and just as ridiculous to talk about.

Population averages tell you very little about any individual one happens to meet from that population. However, because people think that they do, it is possible to flimflam them with statistics. That is what is meant by “lies, damn lies, and statistics”.

No one is talking about a single individual who is “average” at a University, that is absurd. I am talking about the average student as determined by objective measures, much in the same way an adcom looks at an admitted class. Don’t know how you could misinterpret that.