An assumption that nobody else has stated, hinted at, or “argued” in this thread.
I’d expect that requiring a larger number of upper level CS courses typically corresponds to learning more CS specific material. This might correlate with better chance of acing the tech questions during first CS job interview and being hired, or slightly better average earlier career performance in a CS-specific job. It probably also has some influence what the school is known for among both students and employers, which has some degree of influence on which students choose to attend and which employers choose to recruit. However, this is speculation. There is no way to test whether true or not.
Looking at a single extreme outlier is not particularly meaningful for drawing conclusions, even more so for fields where graduate degrees with additional courses in major beyond the bachelor’s course hours are often expected.
You say no one has even as much as hinted at the proposition that greater numbers of CS courses could translate into a difference in successful outcomes. But that’s the thing about assumptions: they are assumed, not proven, often not even stated. If you didn’t think better outcomes would be produced, whether provable or not, whether stated or not, then what was the point of all that data? That exercise seems to me to speak for itself.
In any event in the balance of your post you give some actual reasons why you think greater hours make a difference. Your reasons seem plausible, especially as a generalization applicable to most who enter that field.
I was arguing only that there could be another model more suited to another type of individual. That type might be in the distinct minority. I gave an instance of the type, a very eminent instance. In my own college days I knew many more of that type if not quite of that ultimate eminence. I was asserting only that the type I described was more likely to be found at Chicago than at the tech schools and that the Chicago model serves that type well. I was arguing only that achievement in science, as in other fields, has more than one pathway.
If you look at the thread history, you’ll see that the many posts comparing unit counts at different colleges have never had anything to do with outcomes. You are the only one who seems to have made this assumption.
The comparisons began when a poster claimed that Caltech and MIT required more non-STEM core courses than Chicago. There was a difference of opinion about which college had the more rigorous core, which led to more detailed analysis of counts in different fields of study, including full totals rather than just core. As stated earlier, my take was, “While taking classes outside of their primary field of study is unsettling for some students, I’d expect that the most rigorous and challenging courses at all of these schools were typically upperclassmen advanced classes, rather than intro freshman core classes. So I don’t think looking at intro freshman general ed requirements alone is a good way to evaluate rigor of the respective colleges.”
I am not claiming that one college is better than the other – only that they seem to have different major requirements. In at least CS (the only major that is popular at all of the discussed schools). Stanford seems to place relatively more emphasis on in-major CS/Eng/Math courses, while Chicago seems to place relatively more emphasis on out-of-major non-STEM core. I can see why the different styles of each school would appeal to different types of students.
@Data10 , no one has perhaps made an explicit linkage between numbers of CS courses and outcomes, but that linkage, even if unprovable, is surely a logical one. Why else do faculties design curricula except with a view to results? You are not going to tell me, are you, that the question of optimal linkage of courses to results never entered your mind or the mind of any reader of the data? It is surely the question left hanging in the air in respect of your summary in #414 above showing that “the general theme seems to be that Stanford requires more courses and a greater degree of minimum rigor in the fields more directly related to the CS Major”, etc. Why is that a point worth making - unless you intend a conclusion to be drawn from it?
Note to edit: With the addition of that last sentence to your prior post I believe we have found common ground.
The post I replied to which was quoted stated the following. I read the post as Chicago requires a “more thorough” preparation in CS than Stanford (may have been a typo), which I did not think was accurate – “more through” in non-STEM general ed, but not “more thorough” in CS/Eng/Math in-major courses – and listed specific numbers to support this belief. I wasn’t thinking about outcomes and did not expect others to as well since nobody had talked about outcomes in the many previous unit comparison posts.