Public Vs. Private

College Search & Selection
141

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>herein lies your problem. i would say majority of people would choose stanford or harvard over berkeley. but for someone who doesn't get into stanford or harvard, berkeley, michigan, uva arn't "steps down" even though they're easier to get into. you can get a top caliber education, minus the ultra selectivity at the top publics. Also, just for example, at UVa there are only 2 majors I can think of that are "impacted," biomedical engineering, and i guess you have to apply to be in the commerce school--and they have something like a 70% admit rate. </p>

<p>So still--whats the problem? so you go to a public school and have to work hard in order to do what you want as opposed to going to a private school and being able to coast through whatever you want? is that really an advantage? I guess so, but it seems like a silly argument to make FOR privates. "come here and as long as you did well in high school, you can coast through this $45,000/yr college."</p>

<p>also like i said, i don't know whats impacted at berkeley, but if "everything" is impacted, then they can't be that hard to get into.</p>

142

<p>


</p>

<p>So you proposal could potentially to penalize a promising student for attending a weak school (or which he or she presumably has no control) or a stellar student who happens to have a teacher who hands out "A's" like candy. Do you also propose gathering this information about every applicant's school and each of their teachers each year? While you were at it, would also provide for gathering a detailed social/economic profile of each applicant to see if you can determine what factors in their background (other than academic or extracurricular involvement) might contribute to a potential lack of success? </p>

<p>It appears to me that most schools do a reasonable job determining which students have demonstrated the qualifications and ability to succeed. Personnally, I would find it a little scary if colleges were also trying to determine which applicants, though otherwise qualified, would not ultimately graduate.</p>

143

<p>Siserune:</p>

<p>I still don't get $80,000. The Harvard site says that nearly 70% receive some form of financial aid - I don't see anything specifying the connection between this income level and 70%.</p>

144

<p>I don't know when Economics became a science, but just because it is impacted doesn't mean it is hard to get in. The average GPA of those admitted is 3.4 and you basically just need a 3.0. Given that the average GPA at Berkeley is somewhere around 3.1 and that includes engineering and science, which tend to be more deflated, well over half get in. And actually that's a way of being slightly more selective, which you tout so much, so I don't really see the objection. None of those people would have even gotten into a top private, and they can still take the classes while taking a related major.</p>

145

<p><a href="DocT:">quote</a>
I still don't get $80,000. The Harvard site says that nearly 70% receive some form of financial aid - I don't see anything specifying the connection between this income level and 70%.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The article said that 24 percent are eligible for the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (defined as annual family income below $80000). Eligibility for financial aid in general, not the new initiative which is aimed at "poor" (by Harvard standards) students, stops at about double that figure. There is no hard cutoff but the aid tends to reach zero around $170K annual income from what I have heard in previous years. So, if 70% are receiving some form of aid, the breakdown is approximately:</p>

<p>24 percent below 80K/year
46 percent 80 - 170K/year (or higher income with exceptional circumstances)
30 percent no financial aid, income generally above $170K</p>

146

<p>
[quote]
That is serious, but as has been stated before, you need to establish what the failure-to-graduate rate is before you can identify which schools have serious problems. The "graduation rate" that we've been going by doesn't actually tell you how many people end up in the position of having no college degree.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sure, I've been using graduation rate as a proxy, because I don't have the actual relevent metric (nobody does). However, the use of proxies is an accepted statistical technique. When you can't measure one thing precisely, you can use something else that approximates it. For example, even to this day, nobody knows exactly why smoking causes smoking, in the sense that nobody can actually show the actual biomechanical steps that lead from nicotine consumption to cancer. But we don't need to know that to establish a link of some kind between smoking and cancer.</p>

<p>So then the relevent question is then how linked is graduation rate to non-getting-a-degree rate? I would argue that they are quite correlated. Not perfectly correlated, obviously. But correlated enough that grad rate becomes a reasonable proxy. </p>

<p>Besides, even if you are rate and then are uncorrelated, that just points to a different problem - that people are coming to flagship universities and just leaving without a degree. If that is happening, then why is it being allowed to happen? Even if these students leave in good academic standing, that just means that they are taking away seats from others who would have graduated, but couldn't get admitted in the first place. You talk about the missions of public schools. Well, I'm quite sure that the missions of these schools includes actually having people graduate. No matter how the mission of a school changes, I would highly doubt that it would change so much such that the school no longer cares about graduating its students. </p>

<p>
[quote]
herein lies your problem. i would say majority of people would choose stanford or harvard over berkeley. but for someone who doesn't get into stanford or harvard, berkeley, michigan, uva arn't "steps down" even though they're easier to get into. you can get a top caliber education, minus the ultra selectivity at the top publics.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Can you really get that same top-caliber education? Again, tell that to the guy who went to Berkeley hoping to major in EECS and who can't get into the major. He would quite reasonably think that he would be better off at Stanford, where he can declare any major he wants at any time, and switch anytime he wants. </p>

<p>Besides, you also say that those other schools aren't 'steps down'. Well, since you conceded yourself that people would tend to prefer those private schools, then how are those public schools not a 'step down'? Wouldn't they be steps down simply by definition? Why exactly would people prefer A to B if B is not a step down? </p>

<p>
[quote]
So still--whats the problem? so you go to a public school and have to work hard in order to do what you want as opposed to going to a private school and being able to coast through whatever you want? is that really an advantage? I guess so, but it seems like a silly argument to make FOR privates. "come here and as long as you did well in high school, you can coast through this $45,000/yr college

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Silly argument? Again, tell that to the guys who went to the public schools...and flunked out. I know for a fact that they don't consider it to be silly in the least. If they had gone to a private school, they probably would have graduated and gotten their degrees. As it turns out, they have nothing. </p>

<p>It's easy to say that worrying about hunger is silly, when you yourself are well-fed. It's not so funny anymore when you're the one who's faced with starvation. These guys who are flunking out - you think they're having fun? You think they enjoy being expelled? Can't we all agree that they would have been better off if they had never gone to that school in the first place? </p>

<p>
[quote]
also like i said, i don't know whats impacted at berkeley, but if "everything" is impacted, then they can't be that hard to get into.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not everything is impacted at Berkeley, but enough things (particularly ALL of the engineering disciplines) to make the school a less desirable place.</p>

<p>Besides, I would turn the question around. If there aren't that many majors impacted at Berkeley (or any other school), then it should be easier for the school to un-impact them. After all, if something is not a big problem, then it should be easy to fix, right? So why not fix it?</p>

147

<p>Whoa - sakky - waaaaaay too much caffeine! Let's take a short break for a reality check and see what we're talking about, since sakky keeps moving the goalposts hither and yon. First, graduation rates. Grabbing a handful of schools from the USN top 25 who publish their CDS numbers (with USN ranking in parentheses), here are the reported 6 year graduation rates:
(5) Caltech 89%
(12) Cornell 92%
(19) Vanderbilt 89%
(21) UC Berkeley 89%
(22) Carnegie Mellon 86%
(25) UCLA 88%
The two UC's, of course, are the only public school there, but I don't see any glaring correlation between public and private graduation rates. So much of what seems to be fueling the "argument" appears to be... nonexistent. The difference between the top and bottom scoring schools by this metric is insignificant. There are so many other bizarre assertions floating around that it's too hard to even know where to start, but how about this one:
[quote]
Yet why doesn't this seem to happen at the top private schools. Don't students at Harvard also want to save money by living at home, change programs that Harvard doesn't have, have girlfriends at home that they want to be with, and so forth?

[/quote]
You actually need to know why that's a particularly inapt comment to even start to try to address the subject matter of this thread in a meaningful manner.</p>

148

<p>
[quote]
Yes, you have certainly tried to make this point. However, as you continue to demonstrate, you conveniently ignore the fact that many, perhaps most, private schools don't do such a great job in this area.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, I have never said that all or even most private schools are perfect. But that's not the point. I have always been talking about the top schools (public or private). After all, that is what this thread was concentrating on. The top private schools do indeed do a better job than the top public schools do. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Actually, I think I understand your argument now (though I don't agree with it). Once condensed down, your position appears to be that, "given the primacy of the degree in this day and age", a private school with a higher graduation rate is preferable to a public school with a lower graduation rate, because the private school is more likely to graduate a student whether he or she deserves it or not. Is that about it?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Very good. All of the rest is just supporting cast. </p>

<p>
[quote]
So you proposal could potentially to penalize a promising student for attending a weak school (or which he or she presumably has no control) or a stellar student who happens to have a teacher who hands out "A's" like candy.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What exactly is wrong with the issue that these things are out of your control? LOTS of things are outside your control. For example, some people are just naturally smarter than others. That's outside your control. Some people are just born with great athletic talent which allows them to excel at sports and perhaps land an athletic scholarship. That's outside your control. Some people are just born handsome/beautiful, which gives them a great edge when they're running for leadership positions (i.e. Class President) or just getting people to do what you want them to do. All of these things are outside your control. I'm quite certain that if I was 6'5" tall and looked like Matthew Mcconaughey, my life would be very different from what it is now. That's life. You have to accept things that are outside your control.</p>

<p>Besides, think about what is happening right now. You have to contrast my proposals not to some perfect straw man, but the reality of what is happening right now. For example, back in my high school, I remember students would cherry-pick classes that would get them the easiest A's they could find. I distinctly remember one particular teacher of AP Bio, who was known for easy grading, always had oversubscribed classes, including plenty of students who didn't care about the subject at all, but were just there solely to get an easy A. On the other hand, those teachers, i.e. the AP Physics teacher, who were known to be harsh graders were avoided like the plague. Some students who intended to major in EE or ME in college and hence might be expected to take the AP Physics class instead decided they'd rather take AP Bio instead. Why? The easy A. In fact, some of them ended up self-studying for and taking the actual AP Physics exam itself without having actually taken the class itself, because they wanted to avoid the possibility of getting a bad grade that might ruin their chances of getting into the college they want. That's the reality of what is happening right now. Is that a good situation? Do you think all this strategizing is optimal for society? My proposals would reduce this strategizing because those easy A's would no longer be as valuable as they used to be. </p>

<p>One of my central tenets of this thread is that we ought to come up with a proposal that, while obviously not perfect, is at least better than the status quo. * Let's be honest - the status quo ain't that good . There is a lot of suboptimal behavior that is happening *right now. I'm not saying that my proposals would make everything perfect, but at least they would make things better than they are right now. Let's not kid ourselves into thinking that the present situation, with college adcoms judging high school grades at face value is a perfect situation. Far from it. </p>

<p>
[quote]
While you were at it, would also provide for gathering a detailed social/economic profile of each applicant to see if you can determine what factors in their background (other than academic or extracurricular involvement) might contribute to a potential lack of success?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If that were permissible, I don't see any reason why not. Again, let's keep in mind what the goal is - to avoid having people not graduating. If we're talking about the poor, then it is especially important to avoid this outcome, because if anybody needs degrees most of all in order to faciliate upward mobility, it would be the poor. If a rich guy doesn't graduate, it's not a serious tragedy, as he'll do fine anyway. But a poor guy needs that degree. </p>

<p>
[quote]
It appears to me that most schools do a reasonable job determining which students have demonstrated the qualifications and ability to succeed. Personnally, I would find it a little scary if colleges were also trying to determine which applicants, though otherwise qualified, would not ultimately graduate.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, well, what do you mean by the term 'otherwise qualified'? That is itself an arbitrary concept, when you're talking about the top flagships. Like I've said, the majority of applicants, including plenty of people who would have graduated, nonetheless get rejected by Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Virginia, UNC, etc. Many of those people could be deemed to be 'qualified'. </p>

<p>So again, I repeat, we have to look at the status quo. Right now, plenty of "qualified" people are getting rejected by these flagships. Do you find that "scary"? Like I pointed out previously, I know a personl who got into several Ivies and was wait-listed at MIT, but didn't get into Berkeley. Does that make you "scared"? </p>

<p>Guys, let's not romanticize the status quo. The status quo ain't that great. Let's stop pretending that it is. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I don't know when Economics became a science,

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You can debate it until the cows come home, but certainly, economists would say that they are social scientists. </p>

<p>
[quote]
but just because it is impacted doesn't mean it is hard to get in. The average GPA of those admitted is 3.4 and you basically just need a 3.0. Given that the average GPA at Berkeley is somewhere around 3.1 and that includes engineering and science, which tend to be more deflated, well over half get in. And actually that's a way of being slightly more selective, which you tout so much, so I don't really see the objection. None of those people would have even gotten into a top private, and they can still take the classes while taking a related major.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Oh, I don't know that none of these people would have even gotten into a top private. I think some of them might have (i.e. the URM's, the athletes, etc.) But the point is, there is the chance that if you come to Berkeley, you won't get the major you want. You can argue about how big or small that chance is, but the chance exists. Why take chances, when you don't have to? Again, this all leads to what I have been saying before - private schools are safer.</p>

149

<p>
[quote]
The two UC's, of course, are the only public school there, but I don't see any glaring correlation between public and private graduation rates. So much of what seems to be fueling the "argument" appears to be... nonexistent. The difference between the top and bottom scoring schools by this metric is insignificant. There are so many other bizarre assertions floating around that it's too hard to even know where to start, but how about this one:

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You want to see glaring? Then why don't you public the graduation figures for HYPSM, and compare them to Berkeley.</p>

<p>Heck, even your listing of the Caltech ranking is instructive. Caltech is infamous for running an extremely difficult program. Sciences and engineering are, in general, extremely difficult programs, and Caltech ramps that difficulty up a hundred-fold, and almost all Caltech students are majoring in science or engineering. And yet Caltech can *still*graduate a higher percentage than Berkeley does? Come on. </p>

<p>Hence, the argument is not nonexistent, it is right there staring you in the face. Of course I am not comparing Berkeley to schools like Carnegie Mellon or Vanderbilt or Cornell. Berkeley is not trying to compare itself to schools like that. Berkeley wants to compete toe-to-toe with schools like HYPSM. As far as PhD programs go, it certainly does so. But on an undergrad level?</p>

<p>Now, if you want to say that Berkeley should just be satisfied with being at the level of Vanderbilt or CMU or Cornell, then that would be the end of the conversation. But be honest, do you think Berkeley is satisfied with that? How many Berkeley people would feel proud to assert that they are the equivalent of CMU? I think Berkeley wants to do a little better than that. Berkeley would like to compare itself to the very best. If you want to compare yourself to the very best, then it is fair to expect you to behave like the very best. </p>

<p>Otherwise, you are in fact reinforcing my central point. Given the choice of attending a top private school (i.e. HYPSM) or Berkeley, right now, the edge clearly goes to HYPSM. That's exactly what I've been saying through this whole thread. If Berkeley wants to eliminate that edge, then changes will have to be made. If Berkeley is satisfied with just being at the level of CMU, then those who are admitted to HYPSM will continue to prefer that to Berkeley. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You actually need to know why that's a particularly inapt comment to even start to try to address the subject matter of this thread in a meaningful manner.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, I think it is you that has just made an 'inapt' (sic) comment.</p>

150

<p>No, my comment was entirely apropos. (Look it up: <a href="http://education.yahoo.com/reference/thesaurus/entry/inapt%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://education.yahoo.com/reference/thesaurus/entry/inapt&lt;/a> ) The thing is, a basic ability to understand the circumstances and motivations of students who are at Harvard as opposed to students at various public schools (and I assume you're going to move the goalposts back to Berkeley at this point) should be obvious to anyone who knows college students, or has at some point in theirs lives. No, a Harvard students is not going to be equally likely to move home "to save money" as is a Berkeley student. Harvard has a far higher percentage of students for whom the cost is not an issue, regardless of aid. For those who do need aid, Harvard has a huge endowment, which allows it to meet the financial need of every student - without a huge portion of loans (as does Stanford.) Berkeley is funded by taxpayers and has an endowment a fraction of the size of any one of the HYPSM group you cite. It can't just print money for students. It doesn't meet 100% of need and it uses a bigger portion of loans in the financial aid package. So yeah, Berkeley students are more likely to leave due to financial need than Harvard students, even if the nominal cost at Berkeley is "only" $22,000 per year instead of $50,000. The other factors are similarly obvious to anyone who actually knows real students, but if you have to ask, you won't understand the answer.</p>

<p>If you'll note: Caltech graduates the same percentage of matriculants as does Berkeley - 89%. Again, I'm not clear on why you're not flailing Caltech (an expensive private school) for failing to graduate the same percentage of its students as Berkeley does. Here's a few other numbers: Stanford reports a 95% graduation rate; Emory 87%, UVa 92%, MIT 93%. Frankly, the difference in graduation rates between public and private schools is, as I stated before, insignificant.</p>

151

<p>sakky,</p>

<p>i have always said that the top publics may be steps down in PRESTIGE than top privates but not in quality of education. Sure Brown may be a more prestigious name than UVa, but I don't think for a second my friends at brown are leaving me and my friends at UVa in the dust academically...or behind at all.</p>

152

<p>
[quote]
Sure, I've been using graduation rate as a proxy, because I don't have the actual relevent metric (nobody does). However, the use of proxies is an accepted statistical technique.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think it's a poor proxy when you're using it to measure the scope of the problem.</p>

<p>It may be an okay proxy if you're comparing two schools--yes, in general, the school with a higher graduation rate is likely to also have more of its non-degree attainers successfully transferring elsewhere. Even without knowing precisely how many do graduate, I'll accept that you can use graduation rate as an ordinal measure of what schools do better with their true graduation rates. </p>

<p>But you go further that that. You're using these rates to draw conclusions about absolute numbers. You've said that large numbers (or "a lot", I don't recall your exact wording) of people who attend top flagships fail out never to get a degree. We don't know that at all. You don't know how many do get a degree versus don't. You're also arguing that this large (and unverified) number justifies a pretty big policy change when it comes to how prospective students are evaluated and admitted.</p>

<p>I just don't think that's sound.</p>

153

<p>Siserune:</p>

<p>The Harvard website right now specifically states financial aid exactly as I have specified it above. It is a fact that there are families making > 200k per year with two children in school who qualified for aid.</p>

154

<p>
[quote]
As a case in point, while I can't prove this, at least anecdotally speaking, it is practically impossible to get an 'F' at a top private school.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sakky, </p>

<p>I know we have been through this before, and I have shown data disproving the assertion that failure is less common at the elite privates than at the top publics, including Berkeley specifically. As I recall, we worked through the grade distributions and compared them to the entrance qualifications of the students, and found no evidence for the claim that it is easier for a given student to flunk out of Berkeley than an elite private. </p>

<p>I feel sorry for your friend, but one anecdote is not evidence. Maybe he would have received a degree had he gone to Stanford, maybe he would have flunked earlier. Who knows? </p>

<p>But the evidence is against the argument that, for a given student, attending an elite public is academically riskier than a private.</p>

155

<p>
[quote]
No, my comment was entirely apropos. (Look it up: <a href="http://education.yahoo.com/reference...us/entry/inapt%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://education.yahoo.com/reference...us/entry/inapt&lt;/a> ) The thing is, a basic ability to understand the circumstances and motivations of students who are at Harvard as opposed to students at various public schools (and I assume you're going to move the goalposts back to Berkeley at this point) should be obvious to anyone who knows college students, or has at some point in theirs lives. No, a Harvard students is not going to be equally likely to move home "to save money" as is a Berkeley student. Harvard has a far higher percentage of students for whom the cost is not an issue, regardless of aid. For those who do need aid, Harvard has a huge endowment, which allows it to meet the financial need of every student - without a huge portion of loans (as does Stanford.) Berkeley is funded by taxpayers and has an endowment a fraction of the size of any one of the HYPSM group you cite. It can't just print money for students. It doesn't meet 100% of need and it uses a bigger portion of loans in the financial aid package. So yeah, Berkeley students are more likely to leave due to financial need than Harvard students, even if the nominal cost at Berkeley is "only" $22,000 per year instead of $50,000. The other factors are similarly obvious to anyone who actually knows real students, but if you have to ask, you won't understand the answer.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And looks like you continue to not understand my response, or perhaps you just don't want to understand it. </p>

<p>So let me try again. I can accept that Berkeley brings in more students who don't have the financial means to pay for 4 years of college. But that just begs the question of why Berkeley should be bringing in these students? Who does that help? Like I've said several times on this thread, these students already don't have a lot of money to begin with, and yet these students are going to end up spending some of that money on Berkeley tuition and still not end up with a degree? Who does that help? Does anybody get helped? These guys end up worse off than before. They end up with even less money than they had before. </p>

<p>
[quote]
If you'll note: Caltech graduates the same percentage of matriculants as does Berkeley - 89%. Again, I'm not clear on why you're not flailing Caltech (an expensive private school) for failing to graduate the same percentage of its students as Berkeley does. Here's a few other numbers: Stanford reports a 95% graduation rate; Emory 87%, UVa 92%, MIT 93%. Frankly, the difference in graduation rates between public and private schools is, as I stated before, insignificant

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First off, I think you will find in other threads (to posters like Ben Golub's infuriation) that I have in fact criticized Caltech numerous times precisely about this topic.</p>

<p>However, I accept the fact that science and engineering programs are tougher and hence that more students are apt to not graduate from them. I don't like it. But I accept it. Caltech is a tech school, hence non-graduation rates are going to be high. Yet Caltech can still display the SAME graduation rates as Berkeley does? Really? That's not exactly a point in favor of Berkeley. Far from it, in fact. </p>

<p>Furthermore, I have always said that many private schools are not doing well. I am certainly not recommending that anybody choose Emory over Berkeley. That's not the question on the table. The question on the table is, whether you should choose a top public school over a top private school (i.e. HYPSM). The comparative graduation rates seem to point to the fact that a top private school is better. </p>

<p>Lest you think that these numbers are insignificant, then let me turn the numbers around. Berkeley graduates 89% of its students. Stanford graduates 95%. Insigificant, so you say? Then look at it the other way. 5% of Stanford's students won't graduate. 11% of Berkeley's students won't graduate. In other words, a given Berkeley student is more than twice as likely to not graduate as a given Stanford student. More than 2x. I would say that that's quite significant.</p>

156

<p><a href="DocT:">quote</a>
The Harvard website right now specifically states financial aid exactly as I have specified it above. It is a fact that there are families making > 200k per year with two children in school who qualified for aid.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Recall that I wrote "no hard cutoff" and "exceptional circumstances" allowing for financial aid at above 170K, with that figure being from previous years. If you are saying that the current de facto cutoff is above 200K/yr (i.e. most families without special circumstances will not get aid above that number), and that is certainly possible given the recent expansion of financial aid, that would strengthen the point about Harvard's demographics. That is, the 30+ percent not receiving any financial aid are an even wealthier bunch than "above 170K" might have suggested.</p>

157

<p>
[quote]
i have always said that the top publics may be steps down in PRESTIGE than top privates but not in quality of education. Sure Brown may be a more prestigious name than UVa, but I don't think for a second my friends at brown are leaving me and my friends at UVa in the dust academically...or behind at all.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, this is getting to a whole different topic, one that I hadn't even brought up. I was never talking about 'quality'. I was simply talking about 'safety'. </p>

<p>But if you want to talk about quality, OK, let's talk about it. I would say that a Brown education is indeed better than a UVa education. One major reason would be the simple quality of the students. The average Brown student is better than the average UVa student. That matters because the truth is, you spend only a minority of your time actually in the classroom interacting with profs. Most of your time is spent interacting with other students. It is that interaction with students that is the REAL backbone of the education. Many of the most thought-provoking ideas I learned in college were learned not in the classroom, but from conversations from other students. </p>

<p>I've talked about this in other threads in the context of the sociology of education. Let's face it. When you're surrounded by harder-working and smarter students, you tend to work harder yourself. But when you're surrounded by less capable students who are more interested in partying and drinking than in actually doing work, then you tend to become lazy yourself. That's not to say that everybody at UVa is lazy. Far from it. But it just illustrates the point that the quality of your fellow students matters greatly, because it is the other students whom you will be interacting with for the majority of your time in college. </p>

<p>
[quote]
It may be an okay proxy if you're comparing two schools--yes, in general, the school with a higher graduation rate is likely to also have more of its non-degree attainers successfully transferring elsewhere. Even without knowing precisely how many do graduate, I'll accept that you can use graduation rate as an ordinal measure of what schools do better with their true graduation rates. </p>

<p>But you go further that that. You're using these rates to draw conclusions about absolute numbers. You've said that large numbers (or "a lot", I don't recall your exact wording) of people who attend top flagships fail out never to get a degree. We don't know that at all. You don't know how many do get a degree versus don't. You're also arguing that this large (and unverified) number justifies a pretty big policy change when it comes to how prospective students are evaluated and admitted.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But I am doing a comparative analysis. I am comparing the top flagship schools to the top private schools. Hence, I think (and you seem to agree) that my method is sound. </p>

<p>Now, I agree that I don't know exactly how many people fail to get a degree. But why do I need to know? Even if the problem is small, it's still a problem and should be fixed. Nobody should end up worse off from going to school like that guy I have been using as an example. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I know we have been through this before, and I have shown data disproving the assertion that failure is less common at the elite privates than at the top publics, including Berkeley specifically. As I recall, we worked through the grade distributions and compared them to the entrance qualifications of the students, and found no evidence for the claim that it is easier for a given student to flunk out of Berkeley than an elite private.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, I believe you worked through the grade distributions, but not the 'flunkout' distributions (if you will). If you truly have data that disproves the assertion that failure is less common at the elite privates than at the top publics, then please present it. I can perhaps accept the notion that getting good grades, or even the average grade, is perhaps comparable. {For example, maybe getting A's is equivalently difficult). But the actual flunkout rate? I would like to see this data.</p>

<p>As far as what data that I have, I admit that I don't have hard numerical data either. But I do have one shining example - the Berkeley 'major trap', which is basically the notion that if you are in certain difficult majors like EECS or ME and you do poorly, you can't get out of the major because no other major wants to take you. Hence, you are forced to stay in a major in which you are doing poorly. I think logically speaking that that would lead to a boosted flunkout rate. Compare that to what happens at HYPSM. No 'major trap' exists there, because any student can change majors at any time and for any reason. If you go to Stanford and major in EE and do poorly and so decide you want to switch to something easier, nobody is going to stop you. But they will stop you at Berkeley. </p>

<p>"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in": so said Al Pacino in Godfather 3. That's how it feels to many engineering students at Berkeley - they want to leave engineering but can't get out. </p>

<p>Now, you might say that that's just an example specific to Berkeley engineering. Sure, I'm just using it as an example. But this ties to what you have asserted. Ultimately, what I have always said is that the public schools are risker than the private schools. What I mean by that is that while maybe the "expected value" of the grades you may get are the same, the variation is higher. After all, risk basically means variance. Sure, maybe the average GPA at HYPSM is the same as the average GPA at Berkeley, after accounting for the quality of the students (which is what I believe you've showed on other threads). But I believe that the grading variance is higher at the public schools. For example, you might enter Berkeley EECS and do very well - i.e., even better than you might have at one of the top private schools. But on the other hand, you might do very poorly (and then get stuck in the major trap and wind up flunking out). </p>

<p>So what you are saying does not address the issue. I am talking about risk aversion. Most people are justifiably risk averse. Most people would rather take a guaranteed $1 million rather than take a 50% chance of gaining $3 million. The expected value is actually higher in the latter case, but most people don't want to take the risk. Similarly, in this day and age, because you basically need a college degree, you should prefer to go to a school in which are highly likely to get one. That means that if 2 schools have the same average GPA (after adjusting for student quality), then you should prefer the school that has the lower GPA variation, because it's safer. True, you're reducing your chances of getting truly stellar grades. {For example, it is practically impossible to get a 4.0 at Harvard; only a handful of people in the last few decades have done it}. But you're also reducing the chances of the disastrous outcome, namely not graduating at all.</p>

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<p>Expected value is based on chance while college grades are much more the result of effort and capacity. You cannot influence games of chance or the stock market to any degree but the individual has significant control over his effort in school and even the grade. Thus your example is not applicable to any individual as they have a high degree of control over the situation unlike the lottery or the stock market.</p>

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<p>Sure, I agree that the individual has significant control. But not total.</p>

<p>Think of it this way. Ever have a class in which you studied extremely hard, learned knew the material extremely well... and yet still bombed the exam anyway? I have. The converse has also happened to me. There've been times when I've felt completely lost, felt that I had no grasp of the material whatsoever...and still somehow ended up with an A because I happened to write some random stuff that actually turned out to be correct, even though I had no idea what was happening. </p>

<p>See, that gets to the arbitrariness of grading. You can know quite a lot and still get a bad grade anyway. Bad luck can happen, i.e. you might have simply misread a question (and if an exam consists of only 3-4 questions as many of my exams were, then misreading one of them will crush you. That's what happened to me once). You might become inexplicably nervous during an exam. You might make a silly mistake in a key part of the exam. {For example, I know a guy who took an exam that basically consisted of 4 problems, but problems 2,3, and 4 were based off the derivations you got from problem 1, so really, it was just one big super-problem. Problem 1 was easy, but the guy made a silly calculation error in it, and so not only was he wrong in #1, but that error meant that he also ended up being wrong in all of the other problems too. Hence, he failed the exam. He knew how to do everything, but he just made a silly mistake in a crucial area} </p>

<p>Hence, my example is completely applicable. A safe school is one that has a low variation on grades. In such a school, even if you do "poorly" in a class, you'll probably still end up with a passing grade. A mediocre passing grade to be sure, but at least it will be a passing grade. In contrast, at a dangerous school, if you do "poorly", you can very easily end up with an F. And doing "poorly" may have nothing to do with your effort, but may simply have to do with bad luck. Even the most well-prepared and brilliant student can still misread a question or still make a silly mistake under the pressure of an exam. But the consequences of doing so are more dire at a dangerous school as opposed to a safe one. </p>

<p>Look, even the safest driver in the world can still get into an accident and hurt himself and others. Even the guy who takes the utmost care of his health can still come down with some terrible disease. Yes, doing the right things can reduce the chances that bad things will happen. But you can never reduce the chances to zero. That's why even the safest driver should still get car insurance. That's why even the healthiest guy should still get medical insurance.</p>

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<p>"Think of it this way. Ever have a class in which you studied extremely hard, learned knew the material extremely well... and yet still bombed the exam anyway? I have. The converse has also happened to me. There've been times when I've felt completely lost, felt that I had no grasp of the material whatsoever...and still somehow ended up with an A because I happened to write some random stuff that actually turned out to be correct, even though I had no idea what was happening."</p>

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<li>:) :)</li>
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