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But the data do not support the idea that the same student, turning in the same performance, would get a higher grade at S or P, anywhere along the distribution from the top to the bottom. In fact, given very small differences in grade distribution, extremely low rates of D and F grades, but large differences in high school preparation, the grading seems a tad easier at B than at these elite privates
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<p>I think you are not taking an expansive enough look at what is meant by 'the data'. The data is not simply about the grades itself, but the entire attitudes of the school towards students.</p>
<p>To wit: I know a number of students at the elite private schools who have run into problems - psychological problems, personal problems, romantic problems, and whatnot. The school gave them every opportunity to work through their issues, and even gave them quite generous leaves of absence to do so. They will waive classes, allow you to drop them late, and so forth. </p>
<p>Contrast that with the attitudes expressed by many public schools. I will use Berkeley as the example. I know one guy who found out his girlfriend was cheating on him the night before a major exam. Obviously he was going out of his mind. But the prof didn't care. He had to take the exam anyway, and unsurprisingly, he ended up failing the exam. Again, the prof didn't care. This was a good solid kid, who under normal circumstances could have turned in a quite fine performance on the exam. But these were clearly not normal circumstances. But Berkeley didn't care that they weren't normal circumstances. </p>
<p>Contrast that with a guy I know at Princeton who had issues of a personal psychological nature. In each case, the profs were willing to reschedule his exams, drop classes, give him Incomplete grades (so he could complete the work at a later date), and so forth. </p>
<p>See, afan, that's the difference in what we're talking about. You are talking solely about the talent levels of the students and how those talent levels are expressed in terms of grades. I agree with you that the average student at Berkeley is not as good as the average student at Stanford. </p>
<p>What I am talking about is the fact that there is a lot of randomness associated with academic performance. If the night before an exam, you find out that the love of your life had slept with someone else, your exam performance is going to be poor. Plenty of students have bad things happen to them. In normal circumstances, they would be perfectly strong and solid students. But some of them just have bad luck. But schools like Berkeley don't care about that. According to Berkeley, you either get high exam scores, or you don't, and if you don't, then we don't care why you don't. So if you not scoring well just because you're having a personal problem, that's too bad for you. </p>
<p>In other words, poor grades do not reflect JUST students with low talent. They reflect those students AND those students who have plenty of talent but are suffering from bad luck. </p>
<p>And this gets back to my older posts in this thread. While obviously nobody can prove anything either way, I strongly suspect that certain students at Berkeley who flunked out could have passed at the elite private schools. That's because the reason why they flunked out had a lot to do with bad luck. At a school like Stanford, even having terrible luck is not going to hurt you that badly. Like I said, the worst you will get is a C. But at Berkeley, if you have a run of bad luck, you're toast. The worst part about it is that nobody can ever know that they won't run into bad luck. Hence, going to Stanford is, if nothing else, an insurance policy. Even with terrible luck, you are still going to get a degree. For example, (just making something up here) if you found out that your girlfriend had an orgy with all of your best friends and some farm animals the night before your finals and the whole thing was videotaped and being sold over the Internet, then while you'll probably do extremely poorly on your exams, you'll still get a (barely) passing grade. You can't say that about Berkeley.</p>