Ivy League... be prepared

Parents Forum
21

“The same thing happened to me when I went to UT-Austin.”

I definitely agree that this issue is not limited to Ivy League schools. For many students university is going to be a significantly step up from high school. Some come in well prepared and/or find they can handle it, many have a bit of a struggle until they get used to the pace. I only recall a very small number when I was in university who couldn’t handle it and needed to drop out.

I definitely needed to step up my effort quite a bit way back when I started university.

My youngest just finished her freshman year at a very good small university, but definitely not Ivy League. One of her classes was into to biology for biology majors. The class average on the first mid-term was 50%. I don’t think that this is all that unusual.

This may be a good time to remind next year’s college freshmen to expect college/university to require a step up from the pace that they are used to, regardless of where they will be starting in September.

22

Agree that it just isn’t the Ivy’s. Even when I was in school, valedictorian, 98 avg just like MaineLonghorn my first engineering course ate my lunch! The professor was awful and the average on all his tests was about a 30. I had him for about 5 classes over my four years and he was my advisor! I remember taking my last final three days before my wedding and not understanding one single thing on it. I looked at him and said “Don’t even show up at my wedding if you fail me!” I got a C. The average on the final was a 20! To me that is not teaching. I can understand a 60 average but to me a 20 average means the prof is doing something wrong!

Now my son, not an Ivy but taking tough pre-med classes, adapted quickly. He told me he learned that studying past tests was the best way he found to do well. That and watching videos that really went into the understanding of the concepts. He had the highest grade on his Physics final! (And he HATES physics).

Students do have to adapt and what made you successful in HS won’t necessarily make you successful in college.

23

@PurpleTitan I’m not sure you read my post through. I’m not talking about or comparing it to a grading system where 90% are getting As +(which btw wasn’t my kid’s environment or experience in the least although I am aware it happens in some places nor did my kids have issues in college with failing exams but they only took a few math/science courses as well.). Plus, we aren’t talking admissions or the UK in this thread. We’re talking about more than half the class flunking exams at elite institutions. Still not understanding where “virtue” comes into play.

24

Actually, we’re not. And at least in my example, I was restricting it to STEM classes. As the final letter grade is not assigned until the end of the semester, we’re talking about half the class getting below X%. So yes, this is another adjustment that many students must make - a 50% on the exam does not mean an F. If they never learned it in HS, they will become masters of mean, median, mode, and standard deviation in college.

25

By using the term ‘highly selective university’, I assume it it not an Ivy. If not, why the title of this thread?

But in fact they are not “failing”. The median could be a C+/B- (or higher).

26

Maybe you are taking “institute of learning” the wrong way by assuming it’s all about the undergraduates doing the learning? The goal of a research university is also to advance the frontiers of knowledge (viz “learned professor”). To do that you need to find the best students who are capable of pushing forward those frontiers (AMC is an excellent test for precisely that reason). A test on which everyone gets a great score is not going to help with that objective. Though if the students all get a bad score because the teaching is poor, that’s a different matter.

27

Out of curiousity, what were daughter’s SAT/ACT’’s score in math and her SAT 2 Math score?

28

Are you talking about final grades on individual exam grades? It’s common for college exams to be graded on a different scale from high school where average exam grade might be 70%. However, C’s as a final grade are uncommon at most highly selective private colleges. D’s and F’s are almost unheard of. This often leads to most students having final GPAs in the A range. For example, a few years average cumulative GPA in the Harvard senior survey was 3.65. I’m sure it would be higher today.

You can check out some example reported grade distribution for Stanford classes at https://edusalsa.com . Intro math and sciences classes are typically the classes that have the largest portion of C or lower grades reported, often ~15% C or lower and 2% D or lower in intro math; and often ~10% C or lower and 1% D or lower in intro physics. Most of the upperclassmen courses I checked had nearly all reported grades in the A or B range. The average overall grade distribution as reported at https://thelittledataset.com/2015/07/31/eduanalytics-101-an-investigation-into-the-stanford-education-space-using-edusalsa-data/ was

~65% A
~30% B
~5% C
~Under 1% D or F

29

Her ACT scores if I remember correctly were math 34 science 34. She did not take sat II.

30

I remember taking an accounting class undergrad at Wharton and we had a harsh professor. I got my exam back and I got a 12…yes a 12. I was shocked. Then he wrote the curve on the board…the highest score was a 13. Brutal class…but I learned a lot.

31

@Data10
I am talking about final grades in the class. As an example the intro chem class average was a C for the final grade. None of the classes she took had A’s and/B’s distributed at 65%.

32

This isn’t a common grading system at Ivy League colleges. For example, back when Princeton had grade deflation, Princeton had a reputation for having the harshest grading among the Ivy League. Just before the grade deflation ended in 2014, ~90% of grades were in the A/B range and only ~10% of final grades were C or worse, as reported at https://www.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/documents/2017/05/PU_Grading_Policy_Report_2014_Aug.pdf . Today P still has harsher grading than HYS, but there aren’t many C’s. For example, in 2016, the grade distribution at Princeton as listed at https://odoc.princeton.edu/sites/odoc/files/1.%202017%20Grading%20Memo.pdf was as follows.

~55% A
~40% B
~5% C or worse

33

Same thing happened to my son, while he is not at an Ivy his school is hard and my son was straight A’s in high school. He is a CS Major in college and he just finished junior year…He had alot of issues freshman year with school in general, but next 2 years he worked so hard and is getting mostly C’s. At this point we are happy to see C’s and above. The CS major in his school requires upper level Math which is very difficult.

At this point I know this GPA is not going to get him into grad school so when he graduates he will work for a while before trying for grad school.

Tell your child to hang on. The lesson we learned was college is a whole different ball game than High School. Each kid handles pressure differently.

34

“However, C’s as a final grade are uncommon at most highly selective private colleges.”

Not reality. The average freshman engineering GPA where my daughter attends is a 2.9. C is a common experience for “C is complete”, and yes it can happen for even if a student took the class in HS and received a 5 on the AP exam. Students migrate to a different major where they can excel.

Courses are often taught from a more theoretical basis than a project based engineering curriculum; put the book aside (it’s the starting point for the course) and go to lecture, recitation and watch videos online. Departments often weed out freshman year. Each institution is known for a particular department and at an institution with a large pre-med population, it is not surprise that the Chem department is the biggest weeder. Physics was the weeder in my day.

STEM degrees are designed to be collaborative with dorm common spaces and study rooms designed with glass or whiteboard walls. We want collaborative graduates; only a genuine savant gets through the program independently. With multiple exams before the final, students have a couple of chances to determine if they are on track. Yes, its all about the mean, average and standard deviation. The real world is filled with difficult problems that very few can solve, that’s really the point.

35

What college did your daughter attend? The grade distribution often is closely correlated with the percentage of students doing high quality work. You find a larger portion of those students at highly selective colleges, so they tend to have more A grades, particularly at privates. Some example average GPAs for highly selective private colleges are below. These are based on the numbers listed on gradeinflation.com, extrapolated to the current year unless otherwise noted. I’ve also listed ripplematch’s 2017 calculated GPA based on analyzing profiles in parenthesis. Note that the average GPA is generally in the A- range, suggesting A is by far the most common grade and few C’s.

Brown – 3.67 (3.74)
Harvard – 3.67 (3.62)
Stanford – 3.64 (3.68)
Yale – ~3.64* (3.63)
Duke – 3.54 (3.58)
–All other Ivy leagues and most similarly selective private colleges for which data is available except Princeton, some of which are above Duke–
Princeton – 3.45** (3.48)

Based on YDN + GPA for honors cutoff
*Based on Princeton 2016-17 grading report linked above

However, this doesn’t mean all less selective colleges have high GPAs. Grade Inflation.com reports quite a few less selective publics, with average GPA below 3.0

36

For many kids in highly selective schools, this may be the first time they don’t get straight A’s. College should be harder as the work is generally deeper and requires actual knowledge vs. memorization AND (this is a big differentiator) the kids have to figure out a study schedule that works well with all the other opportunities in front of them. S came home from first yr. I asked him for his biggest takeaway and he replied along the lines of being disciplined and sticking to your schedule when your hall mates are saying things like “hey let’s go play hoop, or let’s go do this or that and you don’t want to miss out on the fun”. He is very self disciplined, always has been but even he said there were so many times he planned to do X and decided to do Y with his friends (which meant doing X later which isn’t always good).

37

@skieurope

“Actually, we’re not. And at least in my example, I was restricting it to STEM classes. As the final letter grade is not assigned until the end of the semester, we’re talking about half the class getting below X%.”

@bluebayou
“But in fact they are not “failing”. The median could be a C+/B- (or higher).”

Actually, I think my comment was accurate to your statement as I said half the students flunking an exam, not a class. The classes we are discussing here are STEM classes in this post given the original post. Although, some students do have trouble adjusting to more writing based classes as well at the college level, but that’s not what I was discussing. @skieurope’s original comment on the subject stated “It’s a bit of an eye-opener when the first mid-term grades come back and the median is in the 60’s.” which is what I was addressing. So, a median in the 60s means that at least half the class failed that particular exam, absent curves of course but if a prof needs to curve so heavily, again I ask what can be changed either in the test or the teaching to get more students to a higher level of mastery and learning. Final grades might be higher but learning should be about subject mastery IMO and less about grades anyway. Just kind of question whether tests where so many bomb are really helping the cause of learning and mastery of material. Unless, of course, the sole purpose of that grading and test scheme is to weed out and winnow down the field by having students drop out. And that has little to do with learning/teaching.

“Maybe you are taking “institute of learning” the wrong way by assuming it’s all about the undergraduates doing the learning?”

I’d argue that any institution offering undergraduate degrees is in the business of teaching undergrads whether that means it is doing it well or not and whether or not that is their sole reason for existence. But, then again, I’m a fan of small LACs. :slight_smile:

I do realize that many HS students are used to getting straight As and that isn’t ideal either. My kids went to a HS where very, very few students got the equivalent of straight As and it was a high ability, cherry-picked group to begin with. However and despite that, I also can’t think of instances where an exam average was a 60 or lower at their high school either even without any grading on a curve.

As far as high schools focusing on memorization vs knowledge, gosh I hope that isn’t the norm but I don’t know as it wasn’t the case in my own HS experience or my kids but we didn’t attend publics. As a result, we were all well prepared for college.

I guess I don’t see why year after year a professor would give an exam where the median is a 60 unless they are attempting to weed out students. Otherwise, adjust your teaching or adjust the material so students are mastering it. If the majority are flunking an exam, perhaps the prof should consider what they are doing wrong.

38

I agree with this part, in spite of my earlier posts. Getting B’s for the first time can be difficult for students at highly selective colleges. When I was at a freshman at Stanford, mental health counselors were sent to our dorm after first quarter midterms as a preventive measure because it was common for students to struggle with getting their first ever B grades. Different students handle this in different ways. Some do change to easier/slower course sequences or change planned majors, sticking to areas where they can more consistently get A’s, like KLSD noted. Some start getting help from TAs, attend office hours, seek tutoring, and other types of things they didn’t require in HS. Some become more disciplined about their academics and balancing with social or athletic activities, like rickle1 noted. It was my experience, that students generally make an effort to help out other students who find academics challenging, being more of a collaborative atmosphere than a competitive one, although this likely differs by college and field of study.

39

So why would a professor give an exam out of 100 points that results in many students earning fewer than 50% of the points? Well, first, it is incorrect to assert that a score under 50% is an F and it is an uninformed insult to assert that the professor must be doing something wrong. First, about letter grades associated with exam percentages: the letter grade is based on the cutoffs established by the professor. Second and more importantly, exams are about more than just assessing learning. Exams themselves are learning experiences. Particularly (but not exclusively) in STEM courses, exams give the student an opportunity to confront challenging new questions and work through them, under some time pressure. This is part of the learning process. While it is similar to problem sets completed outside of class, it is not the same thing. Third, this sort of creative, independent problem-solving is also being assessed during the exam. As a result, the resulting scores will not all be clustered together but instead, there will be a very wide distribution. Accepting low percentage scores and learning to work through challenging problems in exam conditions are both skills that students can develop and ones that have broader applicability. Seriously.

On the issue of taking some STEM courses in the summer at a local university (not the student’s fulltime school) - if the content and/or testing will be different, then this might make sense if the subject will not be studied at a higher level at the home institution. But if the student will want to take a followup course at the home institution, then it might be make more sense to take the first course at the same school.

40

No, it does not…

…bcos the course IS curved.

You can’t just consider individual tests in solitary. They are part of the term’s point total. For example, one of the first tests my D’s organic class had a median of ~93. (An 80 was a de facto fail since the standard deviation was so tight.)

But the Prof made clear that his next test would be a whole lot “more difficult” so it would all balance out by the end of the term. (The next test had a median of 66, if I recall. A 80 in this case was top 10%, or an A.

Bcos it doesn’t matter. If the Prof’s median is a C+, then a 60 average is a C+. If a different Prof’s median is a 85, then that’s what the C+ level is.