“This doesn’t mean at all that the other kids weren’t more qualified. You agree to that right? We don’t know the counter factual. It is just a question of fairness. I am not trying to be hard. I am just trying to clarify where there is a flaw in the argument.”
I don’t understand your point re: fairness. My GC told me that since they started keeping records, nobody got into my college that wasn’t in the top 5% of the class (by rank). I wasn’t even in the top 10%. I had sky-high scores, some weird interests, some out of school accomplishments that nobody at my HS would have known (or cared) about. So sure it’s “unfair” that I took a seat away from a varsity athlete ranked #2 in a graduating class of 1100 kids. And sure it’s “unfair” that someone with a higher GPA who cared about fractional points on a test didn’t get in and I did.
So what exactly is your point? It’s not like I couldn’t keep up with the Vals and Sals…
I think you’ve also picked a poor example with BU. You have obviously never met several generations of the “Gentleman C’s” at Harvard (and at Princeton, for that matter.) They would be right at home at BU, and would find that the top cohort of the BU class could run circles around them, intellectually, work ethic, etc.
Pick a more suitable comparison and then we can talk. Harvard did an analysis a few years ago showing that for many of their alumni donors, getting in and graduating from Harvard was the most important thing they had ever done in their lives. I won’t hazard a guess on Princeton because I’ve not seen their numbers. But the analysis showed that for the crowd that was born on third base, it was easy enough to give generously to Harvard. All they had to do was not flunk out, cash their trust fund checks, and find a suitable non-profit to devote their extra funds to.
You don’t think there are dumb kids at Harvard? Or at least dumber than kids at BU? Holistic admissions is what allows the adcoms to take a chance on a first gen kid who grew up in a housing project on the South Side of Chicago with a single parent but who shows incredible academic potential despite being “lesser” statistically, AND take Thurston B. Howell III’s grandson, for whom a library and neuroscience complex are named. I don’t take issue with either decision.
Having attended one of the schools that makes so many go crazy on this site - I can also say I met plenty of students with terrific stats (ask me how I know their stats…because they told everyone without any prompting) who weren’t the ‘best and brightest’ in the classes we shared.
There were other students who were so casually brilliant you felt lucky to have them in your discussion/lab section. Have no idea what their stats were for admission, they never brought that baloney up.
Most everyone else was somewhere along a ‘range’ of achievement/smarts…but one of the things I learned at that top University was:
There is always a bottom 10%, no matter how smart everyone is who came into the group.
There’s a bottom 10% in that Harvard math class so many like to bring up in these conversations. And there is a top 10% of math majors at non-Harvard schools who rival most anyone at Harvard.
There are lots of places a student can study at the appropriate level and do well. And if a student is “all that” in mathematics, they wouldn’t be having a hard time getting admitted to Harvard.
With enrollment of 11 students in MAT 218 this spring, it looks like over two thirds of the 35 math majors per year at Princeton do not take MAT 216 and 218.
Students in the highest honors course offered are not necessarily representative of even the students in the major. Many students in the major start with the “regular” major courses instead of the highest honors ones.
Kids that are not academically inclined at Harvard may chose majors that are more forgiving. Economics comes to mind. Several studies majors also come to mind. But it is incorrect to claim that the quality of education is the same. I was commenting on the differences in the quality of education. I know it is not a popular topic :-). I am not saying that everyone at Harvard is smarter than BU. Far from it, given all the admissions shenanigans Harvard goes through. I suspect for each thin slice of the bucket – asian to asian, stem to stem, math to math etc Harvard students may be significantly more capable than BU students. Once inside Harvard, many students are wise enough stay in their own lanes, and not drift into lanes where they may get crushed. If they weren’t at least that smart (i.e., smart enough not to take 55a / 55b), they wouldn’t have gotten into Harvard in the first place.
The 11 number is incorrect. That is indeed the main math course. It is not fringe. If you are not aware of this first or second hand, there is no point discussing this further.
Why is this not a popular topic? It is certainly popular on CC where there are at least 50 threads every April with parents asking if a kid can get "just as rigorous an education at (fill in the blank college) as they could at Harvard or Stanford. We debate it here all the time.
We agree that a careful management of one’s schedule is required at many “top ranked” schools for the less academic kids to make it through.
The cohort starts at something like 40-45 in 216. There are some half a dozen kids that skip the entire sequence and take more advanced classes each year. Of the 40-45, some 5-10 drop out of the class and drop down often to 215-217 which is a slower sequence, hoping to catchup with the main class later on. Of the remaining 35 or so, another 15 drop out by the time they get to 218 down to 217 – depending on who is teaching 218 and who is teaching 217. If they are on the 217 track, they are already at a handicap in the department, and catching up is often hard, unless they know they know they like Geometry or other areas better – The set 215-217 or 216-218 are the analysis sequences. Harvard is known to start with more of an algebra focus. I think this is also the end of the shopping period this past Friday. I am not sure everyone is formally where they need to be on the registrar’s website. It is also possible that this is a weaker than average class. i wouldn’t know.
Some kids also realize that formal proofs is not their cup of tea and move onto ORFE, which is the applied math program, which, incidentally, is not taught by the math department.
Fefferman, that I notice is listed for 215 for Spring, is a giant in the field.
And Pardon, listed for 218, is soft expected to win the Fields at some point. He was a full Prof at Princeton at the age of 26.
I heard a friend tell me that this “rate” through the front door has seen significant inflation. A Chinese billionaire is known to have given some 20-25mm to Harvard, and his kid did not make it into Harvard. He was supposed to have given 15mm to Yale, and that was sufficient to do the needful. This was some 4-5 years ago
Interestingly, some of the wall street “Quant Firms” want to see that you have taken the 216/218 sequence in order to take you seriously :-), if you are from Princeton.
CMU has a yield rate of just 36% because applicants use it as a safety for MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, etc. (except for CompSci). Their admissions rate for ED is a good bit higher than for RD because they are trying to prompt students to commit.
It’s my understanding that Princeton doesn’t have as many different math levels as Stanford, Harvard, and similar; so the slowest math course at Stanford/Harvard is slower than Princeton… as well as many LACs and smaller colleges. For example, a partial list of possible math sequences that entering freshman at Stanford might take is below. I suspect you are referring to the math 19-21 sequence, which is the slowest and least rigorous math offered at Stanford, outside of summer pre-freshman courses and online. Harvard/Stanford offer a slow version of calculus to give students from weaker HS math backgrounds a chance to catch up and pursue math-intensive fields. All students are required to take a math placement test to help determine which math sequence is appropriate. If you compared the most rigorous math sequences or math sequences are students most likely to take at Princeton to Stanford/Harvard, I suspect you’d come to a different conclusion.
Math 19-21 – 3 quarter version of single variable calculus
Math 41-42 – 2 quarter version of single variable calculus
Math 51-53 – differential and integral calculus in several variables, linear algebra, and ordinary differential equations
Math 61-63M – covers the material of the Math 50 series at a much more advanced level with an emphasis on rigorous proofs and conceptual arguments
Math 61-63DM – covers the same linear algebra material as the Math 60CM series and otherwise focuses on topics in discrete mathematics, algebra, and probability theory at an advanced level with an emphasis on rigorous proofs
