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<p>I don’t think this can be emphasized enough. A gut Econ class at Harvard could easily be more competitive than upper-level concentration courses, because every Econ major at Harvard is going to be in them. Wrap your head around that one.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Harvard, but at Yale the real gut classes are typically not in the sequence of classes for majors in that department. It’s typically Physics for Poets (or Rocks for Jocks, or Moons for Goons, or Gods for Clods). At Yale they are a bit sneaky–every couple of years the well-known gut is de-guttified.</p>
<p>Note: at Yale, at least, everybody needs a gut once in a while to balance out a tough schedule or to meet a distributional requirement. Mine was Logic (apparently no longer a gut). My son took Moons for Goons, but apparently the first year it was no longer a gut-- he stayed in and enjoyed it, but there was an exodus when the new requirements were explained. My kids both took something called “Issues Approach to Biology” to meet the science requirement. They both said it was a good and interesting class–but still a gut.</p>
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<p>And perhaps the same could have been said about how mathletes and ESL students fare in their first REAL English Composition or Rhetoric classes. Are such students … dumb? </p>
<p>Is this the right time to dig out the arcanes of CC one of those threads about ghostwriters writing a thesis for a student at an elite school? A student who might have problems asking how to grab a taxi in New York in English? </p>
<p>Fwiw, I once took an “easy course” at the “easy school on campus” and it turned out to be one of my hardest classes. Those dumb hippies knew how to craft solid arguments! </p>
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<p>I actually took a similar gut math course geared for econ majors at H one summer which was filled with a critical mass of them. </p>
<p>Still can’t figure out why so many of them…including those taking it to make room for more advanced courses were clamoring to complain to the dean because “the class was too hard” and they were worried about failing. </p>
<p>Managed to do exceedingly well in it despite working 40 hours/week and having a Prof who chose to use the Socratic method to teach the material. Ended up being quite interesting and even fun at times. An assessment most of those classmates…including Econ majors would strongly dispute*. </p>
<p>Then again, the material covered and pacing even in a regular fall/spring term would have made this course “too fluffy” to be offered at my STEM-centered public magnet. Too bad as many HS classmates who were in the middle-bottom of the class would have jumped at the chance to take such courses to boost their stalling/anemic GPAs. </p>
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<li>A few of those Econ majors felt I was “nuts” and “insane” for feeling that way.<br></li>
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<p>I don’t think I really know what is meant by a “gut” class. I assumed it meant core courses, the ones all students must choose from among. Back in my day at my college, that meant Soc 101, or Psych 1, or Micro Econ, etc., all of which were intro courses but also required for the students majoring in those subjects. I did take one math class for non-math majors, called the math of finance, or something like that. I do know that my Ds did take a math course for non-majors, but they also took intro courses that were populated by students pursuing that major. They were not easy, by any means.</p>
<p>Certainly, one man’s gut can be another man’s difficult course. In my day, though, there were a few courses that had to be gutty for just about everybody. That Logic class, for example. I took it to satisfy my math requirement, and I was pretty non-mathy.</p>
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<p>I recalled there was a documented case of an international MBA student with supposed high English proficiency who ended up being disenrolled on the first day after the Prof of a class found he couldn’t speak a word of English and had a paid translator in class. </p>
<p>Believe this took place sometime in the early ‘80s and was cited as one of the cases motivating colleges/grad/professional schools to become much more strict about how they evaluated international students’ English proficiency and if found to be lacking, sent to enroll in ESL courses so they can demonstrate sufficient proficiency BEFORE taking actual college/grad/professional classes. </p>
<p>There’s a whole subgroup of international students at area colleges…including Columbia and NYU who are just taking ESL classes for this very reason or sometimes, as an excuse to live a student lifestyle in NYC without having to take more rigorous courses*. </p>
<p>On the flipside, I also met international classmates whose English was fully fluent due to having spend their early educational years in English speaking countries and yet, their companies assumed they needed ESL classes. One such summer classmate sneakily managed to use the company provided funding to take German and Mandarin Chinese instead as he spent his middle/HS years attending boarding schools in the UK so the ESL classes would have been a complete waste of his time. </p>
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<li>This was an accusation leveled against a son of an East Asian political leader and from having friends in that grad student community, most of them believed those accusations considering the long length of time he was enrolled and students in the same classes not seeing him in class for weeks at a time.<br></li>
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<p>Hunt
A study of admission preferences at elite universities by Thomas Espenshade from Princeton found that the SAT admission bonus for recruited athletes was worth 200 SAT points while the bonus for legacy candidates was worth 160 points. This suggests that both recruited athletes and legacies would have similar academic performance at elite colleges.</p>
<p>I assume that “bonus” was an average. Because of the way the Academic Index works, the bonus for some recruited athletes could be much, much more. I suppose that’s possible too for legacy students, but not as likely.</p>
<p>We have travel teams here that started recruiting when the children were in about 2nd grade. Families who could pay joined; those who couldn’t stayed with the rec league. It didn’t take too many years for the rec league to virtually dry up. Instead of having a handful of teams/grade, they now have several grades on one team. Older kids whose families can’t pay for travel eventually drop out of rec because they don’t want to play/compete with smaller kids. Parents who want their kids to have a chance at making the high school team (and an opportunity for a college scholarship) pay. If you can’t pay, your kid isn’t going to make the HS teams unless s/he is a natural athlete because they’re up against kids who have been training 10-12 mos/year for 7 or 8 years. </p>
<p>The travel teams go all year long. Those who want to play on their high school team have to work around the travel team or join a team that agrees to just do special tournaments until the HS season is over. The attendance rules are strict and even if your team allows the kids to take a break from regular travel play during the HS season, the families still have to pay or they lose their spot. We’re fortunate because, as home schoolers, we aren’t allowed to play on the high school teams so the choice was an easy one for us. It hasn’t been so easy for other families.</p>
<p>“A friend’s daughter was #2 in her class. She was admitted to some top schools and attends one. I find her to be the most boring 18 year old there is to talk to. No sports, no hobbies, no leadership positions, not many friends……”</p>
<p>I thought students like this were weeded out during the “holistic” admissions process at “top” schools??? You know all that other good stuff that comes out in their essays, letters of recommendation and EC list? Perhaps you didn’t know her as well as you think you did???</p>
<p>By the way, at Yale, at least, a “gut” class just means an easy class. They don’t tend to be required for any particular major, and some of them are crafted to be intro courses for non-majors.</p>
<p>I’ve known her since she was 9 months old. Spent a lot of time with her when she was younger, but now it is just for dinners or a special occasion. I tried to get her to talk about her first year of college. All she did was complain that it was hard, that people always want to work on projects at night and she can’t because of a medical condition, that all she did was study and sleep. Okay then. That’s not what my kids were looking for in a college experience. I’m sure not everyone at the elite schools is like her, but I’m also sure she’s not the only one who looks down on us for not picking an ‘elite, tier one’ school and then doesn’t fully participate in student life. A school is only as active as its students want it to be.</p>
<p>I have no idea what her recommendations said. She can write a nice essay. She’s very intelligent, but I wouldn’t want a school full of kids like her. I’ll take the dumb jocks- who aren’t so dumb. Holistic? I still think numbers drive the show.</p>
<p>My daughter was in a NYC-wide chorus that rehearsed 3x/week, 2+ hours/rehearsal. And students from all over the city schlepped on the subway to get there from school and then home. The season ran from September through June, with some stuff during the summer of choristers were around. As a result she was unable to participate in other activities at schools. It’s not just athletes that have to be disciplined to get their work done.</p>
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<p>I wonder where the adjective “gut” in this context came from. When I think “gut,” I think “stomach,” which makes me think of “core” exercises, which is why I always assumed “gut” classes were core requirements.</p>
<p>Why do all sports threads end in recruited athlete bashing? How “dumb” elite school athletes are seems to be directly proportional to how athletically talented they are. HYPS are not going to bend admissions standards much unless the kid is a real superstar. On D’s college team, the vast majority of the kids were really smart and intellectually indistinguishable from the rest of the student body. They majored in fields like CS, engineering, human biology, and econ. The few that seemed of more average intelligence tended to be some of the best athletes whose career goal was to go pro., and these were the ones taking gut classes and majoring in communications. This is not a problem at all when you consider the stated institutional goals of these schools to produce graduates who are nationally influential a wide variety of endeavors. </p>
<p>At Rutgers in the early 80’s a “gut” was an easy class.</p>
<p>“I assume that “bonus” was an average. Because of the way the Academic Index works, the bonus for some recruited athletes could be much, much more. I suppose that’s possible too for legacy students, but not as likely.”</p>
<p>Hunt based on this statement you appear to have limited knowledge of the way the Academic Index works for Ivy league athletic recruits. For recruited athletes there is a floor or minimum AI number which each athlete must exceed. Therefore your claim that the SAT bonus for some recruited athletes is much, much more is false. No such floor exist for legacies.</p>
<p>Bottom line- the academic performance during high school for Ivy League legacies and Ivy league athletic recruits are nearly identical. Or in other words Ivy league administrations values both groups equally and therefore changes the admission standards for both groups equally. One would expect that the academic performance during college would be similar for both groups. </p>
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<p>My comments were meant to illustrate how negative stereotyping of Div I athletes at elite colleges extends even to some of the Professoriate at the most senior levels due to their own experiences having seen many athlete students who did fit those stereotypes in their 20+ year academic career at those institutions. </p>
<p>swimkidsdad: How recent was that study done? In the last five or so years, very few unqualified legacies are being accepted at the Ivies and other elite schools. Just read CC in April and see all the double legacy 1500+ SAT 4.0 GPA students who have been rejected from (name your top school) suggests that times have changed. </p>