Except that’s the point made by the two articles cited in the OP: a large number of these students wouldn’t have met the academic admissions criteria without the ALDC boost and been rejected. Specifically, from The Guardian article: “Roughly three-quarters of these applicants would have been rejected if it weren’t for having rich or Harvard-connected parents or being an athlete.”
Is it because now they are at Harvard that their academic performance has increased to a level that didn’t exist before? Probably not.
On the grade inflation issue, I’ve started another thread on that topic alone. I simply found the average Harvard GPA staggering, but it is apparently true based on multiple sources. I am curious why. It was referenced by another poster in the context of the Harvard ALDC studies. But it’s probably more suitable as a standalone topic.
The author was incorrect. If you look at Data10’s statistics it appears that ALDC admits (with the exception of athletes) had a remarkably similar academic rating to non-ALDC admits. Most received an academic rating of “2” (77% non ALDC and 75% for LDC) which is the most common academic rating of admitted students (very few receive a 1).
However, since Harvard scores applicants’ athletic achievements separately from that of other ECs, that suggests that, even for those not recruited as athletes, athletic ECs are somewhat more important than other ECs in their effect on admission to Harvard. Perhaps Harvard and other relatively small colleges with full sets of sports teams do that in order to provide a large-enough pool of potential walk-ons to fill those sports teams.
The difference is that an F at any other school means you failed out. A B at Harvard means you still graduate with a coveted diploma, and the person with the untrained eye will still think you did pretty well.
Comparing like to like, Harvard’s normal frosh/soph math sequence (1a, 1b, 21a, 21b – single variable calculus, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations) appears roughly equivalent in content to similar sequences at other colleges, such as 3A, 3B, 3C, 3E + 3F at Laney College. The difference is that Harvard 1a, 1b, 21a, 21b is one of the lower level options there, while Laney 3A, 3B, 3C, 3E + 3F is the highest level option there. Laney is unlikely to have students who would be interested in equivalents to Harvard’s honors level courses (23, 25, 55), while Harvard is unlikely to have students needing the equivalent of Laney’s courses in elementary algebra and intermediate algebra (Harvard’s lowest level course, Math Ma and Mb, is a slower paced version of 1a with a review of precalculus).
It depends what you think a ‘B’ means. If you think receiving a B grade means a certain comparison to peers in class (average in class, above average, top #%, …); then you may have a completely unrealistic expectation of what a Harvard ‘B’ means. However, if you instead think a ‘B’ corresponds to certain degree of mastery of the material, then I don’t think it’s clear that a ‘B’ at Harvard means something very different from a ‘B’ elsewhere. Colleges that matriculate kids who mostly received B’s in high school tend to have a much larger portion of the class that does ‘B’ quality work in college, than a place like Harvard where the overwhelming majority had near straight A’s in HS.
According to Harvard College, B+, B, B- Earned by work that indicates a good comprehension of the course material, a good command of the skills needed to work with the course material, and the student’s full engagement with the course requirements and activities."
According to the Harvard Crimson, a final GPA of 3.0 (or a B average), puts a graduating senior of the Class of 2021 at the bottom 0.4% of his/her class.
I know that prestigious schools like Harvard are filled with the best and brightest students that the world has to offer. However, in my personal experience, I have never encountered any group where the bottom 1% did anything approaching “a good comprehension of the course material, a good command of the skills needed to work with the course material, and the student’s full engagement with the course requirements and activities.”
You are conflating the cumulative self-reported average GPA across 4 (or more years) with the grade of a particular course. I expect in the overwhelming majority of courses at Harvard, >1% receive B grades. This is not inconsistent with the self reported GPAs in the survey because a student getting a B grade in particular class does not mean his/her cumulative graduating grade is 3.0. If you look at the bottom of 1% of particular classes, I’d expect in large sample size underclassmen courses, bottom 1% usually corresponds to a grade of C or lower.
Using some specific numbers, Stanford’s 2020 senior survey reports an average self-reported GPA of 3.75 – similar or higher than Harvard. However, the self reported course grades of Stanford classes show far more variation than cumulative GPA, particularly in large underclassmen courses. For example, checking some common freshmen courses:
This grade distribution with B being the most common grade and a good number of C or lower grades is not inconsistent with the 3.75 reported cumulative GPA for several reasons including
Intro freshman courses taken by a variety of majors tend to have a different grade distribution from upperclassmen major-specific courses
The non-accelerated freshman courses above have a lower concentration of kids doing ‘A’ quality work than the accelerated/advanced versions of the courses. The best Stanford students in chem or math often take other course sequences than the ones listed.
Fields with objectively graded problems like math and chem tend to have lower average GPAs than fields with subjectively graded papers.
Some kids who receive lower grades than they’d like choose to avoid further classes in the subject. The classes above both are the first in a freshman course sequence. By later classes, many of the kids who did not receive high grades have chosen not to continue with the sequence, in some cases looking towards majors that don’t require math/chem.
Some students choose to repeat classes with lower grades, replacing the lower grade on their transcript (and cumulative GPA). I knew one woman who’d repeat classes, if she got an A-.
Self-reporting effects – different groups of students choose to participate in newspaper survey vs online course selection guide
I was talking about Stanford. I believe Harvard only allows repeat/replace for failing grades, which are very rare. Another relevant difference between the 2 colleges is Stanford has an A+ grade, which gets counted as a 4.3 when computing GPAs. Some kids graduate each year with a >4.0 GPA. However, when I attended, A+ grades were quite rare. The few times I received one related to doing something beyond just getting high grades on exams and problem sets, such as finding an exam solution that the professor hadn’t considered.
Not exactly. You can repeat a failed class, but but the both grades remain on the transcript snd are factored into GPA. You can repeat a course you passed and both will appear on the transcript. But the retake is for 0.0 credit and is not factored into GPA.
My Oxford son had a lot of “educating” to do when he interviewed with US companies used to recruiting from Ivies. Single grade from an end of year exam graded by independent markers (not your tutor) where a 70 gets you a distinction and grades in the low 60s and even high 50s aren’t uncommon.
The publication linked in the OP is based on a model created by the authors, which is just an opinion. There is nothing factual about it.
Does this matter? The suggestion of this thread is that Harvard has done something wrong, or even illegal. I maintain that even if Harvard had 100% varsity athletes, so be it. They can do what they want.
I’m sorry. I look at that and I’m like holy ****. Level 3 stats are safety-school stats, at best, for most serious Harvard applicants. Not that the Ivies don’t spend a ton of money soliciting applications from people that has no chance at all of getting in. Here’s my take: SCOTUS says not to AA, then the only moral response by Harvard is to get rid of this other crap.
I find your point to be very interesting and thought provoking.
Any constitutional attorneys on this thread? Makes me wonder if, depending on how it is written, the ALDC admissions practices could even be directly impacted.
