<p>Apologies, but this thread has really gone off track. The overanalyzing of any one poster, their posting style and such seems a bit creepy. Perhaps that could be taken back channel to a PM discussion?</p>
<p>I have no idea what you’re talking about, canuckguy, to be honest. I don’t know what you’re accusing me of, and I don’t know what a math major is “supposed” to behave like. As for siserune’s hypothesis as to how elite-college students are chosen - we all KNOW how they’re chosen - it’s been documented a bazillion times before in books, magazine articles and first-hand reports - so he hasn’t added anything to anyone’s knowledge basis, and the assumptions that URM’s/legacies/athletes/etc. couldn’t have been “meritorious” suggests the linear and unimaginative mind of someone who thinks that merit is defined solely on some objective criteria such as test scores.</p>
<p>I want to go back to the article describing NU’s “gut” course on North American geography, with the understanding that what I’m talking about here likely applies equally with any elite college.</p>
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<p>I have no reason to believe he wouldn’t say the same thing if he were teaching at Dartmouth, or Duke, or Harvard, or Georgetown, or what-have-you.</p>
<p>Hear that, annasdad? Smart kids who pay attention and learn the material. Why – that just breaks your anecdote trail, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>Canuckguy, post 240 - can’t agree.</p>
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<p>No, I’m a realist. Top schools get 30K applications for 2K spots (or whatever). They are private institutions, they don’t need to serve any masters other than themselves, and if they want to define “merit” as “helps us get the most interesting, diverse class”, and if they want to define interesting and diverse as including geographical and racial diversity, including athletic prowess, artistic ability, other measures other than strict how-did-you-do-on-your-SAT’s – guess what? They get to do that. And if you don’t like it, too bad so sad. It’s only problematic for those people who are so limited and shallow that they think that there are a handful of schools that are worth attending and so it’s just awful that Harvard admitted X number of URM’s or whatever. </p>
<p>Look - there is no real problem in this country of smart kids not getting into good schools where they will get good educations. There is a made-up problem that they don’t all get into the Ivy League.</p>
<p>PG says it.
And, ya know, many people can move from a relativist position to one that’s more specific or analytical, as part of the wealth of a conversation. I think it’s one of the skills one can hone in colleges that offer more than the hs-type learning experience. It’s also, I think, one of the bennies in a well-taught gut class, assuming the student engages. At the very least, you are, as so many are saying, exposed to more than your normal learning track.</p>
<p>ps. sorry, I know I’m not popular on his thread- but IMO the creepy started when the fingers pointed at OP took the form of attack. We can all be cautious.</p>
<p>honestly, who even cares if grading is lax in a class as long as learning is taking place.</p>
<p>Tests are there to show the teacher if the TEACHER is doing his/her job and if the material is getting through to the student. I hate that tests have become some other thing. All they should do is assess whether or not the learning is taking place.</p>
<p>If someone is going to become an expert in their field, it’s not going to be because of a test, but because they publish original work, anyway. And, nobody can teach original thinking, though a relaxed and more eploratory class might promote it more than a lock step brutal testing regime.</p>
<p>carry on.</p>
<p>I love your post, poetgrl.</p>
<p>The best professors, imho, think it’s their job to give students the opportunity to learn and don’t think they are doing that job adequately if students aren’t all earning an A or B. Or rarely, a C, if someone is fascinated by the subject but really can’t perform at the required level. If students don’t have the ability to do the work, they are encouraged to withdraw before it negatively impacts their academic record. They are also encouraged to withdraw if they don’t make it to class often enough to stay up to speed. However, this is only possible at the sort of school where “grade inflation” is allowed. I guess a school where all the students are of above average ability, the majority of the faculty teach to the top of the class, and almost everyone graduates could be called a diploma mill. A rather high class diploma mill? :)</p>
<p>I don’t understand the idea that rigor = difficult grading; I’m not sure I understand what rigor means at all. Does it equal challenging? Something that encourages the student stretch to the extent of their intellectual abilities? I don’t see how you measure that with grades. Once someone told me grades only measure how good a student is at anticipating and correctly judging what the exam will be. While I don’t entirely agree with that, it was sort of an interesting point of view to me.</p>
<p>To use the examples haystack and JHS mentioned, their “gut” courses inspired them to develop an interest in areas that they might not have ordinarily been interested in – in both cases, influencing their future career trajectories. I can’t see anything bad in that, at all. </p>
<p>Things don’t have to be rigorous to be worthwhile. It’s ok to go running for exercise even if you’re not going to try for a sub 3:00 marathon. It’s ok to play the piano for fun and enjoyment even if you’re not going to get to Carnegie Hall. And it’s ok to just hang out with your friends and have fun as well. Everything in moderation, including excellence. I don’t see why every college class has to be a sweat-soaked, panic-inducing stretch-me-to-my-limit make-my-head-hurt problem-sets-til-4-am experience else it’s not “learning.”</p>
<p>It seems to me that courses can be difficult (or “rigorous”) in different ways. It can be because the material is hard to understand. Calculus and French were “rigorous” for me for this reason. Other courses may simply have a great deal of work–I had English courses in which the material wasn’t hard to understand, but I had to write a number of papers, for example. But I think this is a different question from how a course is graded. Certainly, at an elite college, or in an honors class in a flagship, everybody in the class may be able to master the hard-to-understand material, and they may also be able to produce quality papers in the course with a lot of work. I see no point in grading such people on a curve. It doesn’t really make the course any more rigorous to do so–it just creates an illusion of rigor.</p>
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<p>I ADORE Jean Arthur! She was always one of my favorite actresses of that era. Wonderful voice. :)</p>
<p>There’s also the point of - does something have to be rigorous for you to get something worthwhile out of it? For example, I like to go to lectures given by various political figures when they come to my city. It’s not “rigorous” to sit there and listen, and I’m not being graded - but I walk away having learned something new, something for me to roll around my head, something that challenges what I’ve thought about a given topic. That seems worthwhile to me.</p>
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<p>I think that my kid is quite non-conformist, and he chose Dartmouth. Not every kid who goes there wants to be an I-banker.</p>
<p>My first class in my major was a definite gut. A quiz or two and two papers (the longer the paper, the better the grade- one of those.) Add me to the list of people who got excited- I declared the major at the end of that semester, after that one class. (Actually, I was a 1st-sem junior and changed majors.) It’s unrelated to my career and became a lifelong interest.</p>
<p>Since I truly didn’t know what rigorous means, I looked it up, and it seems the main definitions are “harsh or severe” and also “very strict” - none of which seem a positive to me and entirely different from challenging or difficult. I don’t like the idea of “harsh or severe” in the same sentence with education. Maybe that’s just me. I always assume learning is supposed to be fun, and that sometimes difficulty and challenges are what make it fun. Sometimes students create their own challenges… as in the case of students in “gut” courses who get really excited to discover whole areas of bibliography in a field of which they had previously had absolutely no knowledge. Grades become absolutely meaningless in such a case. again - just my opinion.</p>
<p>Obviously this can happen at both high-class and not-so-high-class diploma mills. You don’t actually need a college to learn something. Finding a good bibliography list is helpful. again, my opinion.</p>
<p>Why can’t we say “rigorous,” in this context, means personally challenging? Sometimes that means the demands of the class or the teacher’s standards, sometimes the material itself. Seems to leave it open to individual reactions.</p>
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<p>It used to be that:</p>
<p>A = outstanding
B = good
C = respectably passing
D = barely passing
F = failure</p>
<p>Now, with grade inflation:</p>
<p>A = good (minimum acceptable for pre-med / pre-law)
B = passing
C = barely passing
D = failure
F = failure</p>
<p>^ ^</p>
<p>Among many who have elite/respectable grad school/professional school or a few niche professions in mind:</p>
<p>A - good (minimum acceptable for pre-med / (top-10-20 depending on LSAT)pre-law)</p>
<p>B+ - respectably passing (Pre-med failure…especially if grade was earned in core pre-med courses like orgo)</p>
<p>B - passing (Minimum cumulative GPA needed to avoid being red-flagged by many employers looking to hire fresh college graduates. Sometimes even if one is a STEM/engineering major as happened to a cousin and some older colleagues). </p>
<p>B- - barely passing</p>
<p>C and below - failure</p>
<p>Regarding law schools, the above may be an overstatement if one has exceedingly high LSAT scores (i.e. I’ve known of a few non-URM folks who recently got into T-10 law schools with gpas around the 3.3 range…but their LSAT scores were well above 173/180).</p>
<p>I think grading on curves is stupid. I mentor my employees and I want them ALL to get to an A level of proficiency.</p>
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<p>You don’t think it possible a good professor teaches in such a way that all interested students master the expected material and earn and deserve ‘A’ for outstanding? Are you saying the ‘A’ can only be meaningful if it is assigned on a limited basis?</p>