<p>It seems to me that all those hard-working achievers who allegedly make up the student bodies at the Ivies (and the other so-called “top” colleges) would be seeking out the most rigorous and challenging courses - you know, to take full advantage of the superior educational opportunities that the boosters of these schools so ardently claim exist. But no, it appears that the reality is that they flock to the courses with the reputations of being easiest. And then when the course turns out to be not so easy after all to resort to cheating to get through it. </p>
<p>You wouldn’t think that the reason many of them are there is to get a piece of paper with a prestigious name on it, would you now, rather than to get the most rigorous education possible? </p>
<p>All this aligns so perfectly with Deresciewicz’s claim that elite colleges have become profoundly anti-intellectual places. And it may well explain why 30 years of research have failed to identify any educational advantage from attending an elite college.</p>
In my later years in college - when I started having well-defined academic interests - I preferred to take two hard and two easy classes each term. Two classes I sincerely cared about and was willing to put 20 hours of effort in per week per class, and 2 classes where I could get by with a minimum of effort. How would someone handle a schedule of the 4 hardest classes offered at an Ivy institution? That’s just insane.</p>
<p>Seeking out some low-intensity classes does not mean shunning all work or challenges. It shows an ability to prioritize. I think it’s called ‘common sense’? You should give it a try sometime.</p>
<p>Students at rigorous schools have very challenging courseloads, and if they want to take a class that meets a requirement that happens to be less demanding and strenuous, good for them. They are not busy filling their schedule with remedial classes Its unbelievably arrogant, obnoxious and offensive to assert that these stiudents arre “flocking” to easier classes or are anti-intellectual. I’d match up the schedule of a Harvard student to that of a third tier school student any day and see whose has greator “rigor”.</p>
<p>The bottom line here is a massive case of sour grapes. We all know it.</p>
<p>B@r!um and PG, you should have issued beverage alerts. I almost spat my morning coffee all over my newly-restored laptop, which has only recently recovered from a red wine incident! :D</p>
Sorry, but you can’t sell me based on the article linked in the OP. The snippet above is a remarkable attempt to use a single incident to uphold your entire (also remarkable) philosophy of higher education in the United States. It’s unfair and unbalanced, as are all the sneers you direct toward these truly extraordinary institutions. And I say that as a parent whose children never considered Ivies because we couldn’t afford to send them to need-only schools.</p>
<p>Really, the sheer spleen in your anti-Ivy dogma can’t be good for you.</p>
<p>College isn’t about a contest to cram as many highest-possible-difficulty classes into one’s schedule for bragging rights. I see nothing wrong in general with the idea of having one class each semester which is “lighter.”</p>
<p>Right - let’s go ahead and assume the ivies (and northwestern with its substandard science department) are anti-intellectual diploma mills that offer no educational advantage over any other school. The Emperor has no clothes and so on…</p>
<p>What colleges do offer the rigor and intellectual experience you are seeking for your own children? After the ivies and northwestern - are colleges all pretty much the same except for COA? Is there a way you distinguish? How do you evaluate science departments to determine they are more rigorous and intellectually challenging than Northwestern?</p>
<p>Is Truman State’s science department more rigorous than Northwestern’s? If so, how did you come to that conclusion?</p>
<p>Yes, remarkable indeed, in that it’s supported by 30 years of juried, replicated, unrefuted scholarly research. I would definitely call that remarkable.</p>
<p>My son, who will attend Harvard (next year - taking a gap year now), would have zero interest in a gut course - nothing would bore him more. I imagine there are a few like minded students there. </p>
<p>Someone a while back mentioned that the class may be a general ed course, and I wonder if having a core curriculum if part of the problem. Actually, not so much a core, but a relatively minimal core such as at Harvard, where it is not taken seriously enough, and that attitude becomes part of the culture. My daughter is a junior at Brown (where there is no core), and she’s never taken a class she was not really interested in taking. BTW, the only pass/fail courses she has taken are mandatory s/nc - writing courses and such (just circumventing a dig about Brown and lack of rigor).</p>
<p>ad, you’ve often told us that your philosophy is supported by years of research. But your sneering posts in this thread are not proven by the article you link - you draw sweeping conclusions about an entire class of schools, and how many thousands of students, based upon one incident. Doesn’t really look all that scholarly. But you certainly seem to enjoy the schadenfreude.</p>
<p>alh,
You are brave and patient for continuing to ask a reasonable questions when its pretty predicatable that you will not get a reasonable answer, especially when it seems that the poster has no personal experience with the more rigorous schools and merely wants to incite and offend. </p>
<p>There are many other threads on this topic (the cheating scandal at Harvard). Those conversations are civil and reasonable. They are not being used as a pathetic opportunity to slam and offend.</p>
<p>Nearly all of us here have seen our own kids progress from nervous freshman to nearly-formed or formed young adults. That doesn’t happen at orientation or even in first year. As we say to 9th graders who obsess, come back in two years and try us again. After your own kid has experienced college, made some course choices, won some and lost some- and you can see- or not- her intellectual growth. It’s fine to ask, not so good to proclaim (even if you do have a guy or two who wrote a commentarty piece or has a position to promote.)</p>
<p>If science or humanities kids want to take a govt elective, bless 'em. If, for any consideration I can imagine, they want an easy elective, I hope they still put in honest effort. I dont judge based on one course choice or a handful- but on the overall challenges, the growth and the results.</p>
<p>OP hasn’t walked that proverbial mile, yet.</p>
<p>AD: still just repeating yourself. * Pascarella and Terenzini* is all just kind of blah, blah, blah for parents helping a kid make a college list after buying into your arguments against the elites.</p>
<p>WHAT schools do you recommend? </p>
<p>HOW do you judge rigor of science departments? How did YOU evaluate the science department of your daughter’s college to determine it is intellectually challenging and rigorous enough?</p>
<p>How, specifically, is it superior to Northwestern in science education?</p>
<p>I hesitate to ever write much about any college since I don’t want to take the chance of insulting a parent whose child attends, or any students attending. However, I’m pretty sure we are way beyond that with you. You have insulted many here, and continue to do so.</p>
<p>If your child’s school is better than an ivy - tell us specifically how and why.</p>
<p>I have no doubt there are. The research shows that there are such students at almost all colleges, and that such a student can get an essentially equivalent education at almost any college.</p>
<p>The research also shows that there are students who skate by without learning much at every college. Including the so-called “top” schools. </p>
<p>The variation in the quality of education is much more pronounced within schools than between schools. In other words, what students do when they get to college is much more important than the college to which they go. </p>
<p>(I’m also sure that every parent with a kid headed off to a prestigious college is certain their kid is in the group that will wring the maximum educational advantage from the opportunity. Welcome to Lake Wobegon.)</p>