Which is better: a 3.0 at HYPS or a 4.0 at a state school?

sakky · May 27, 2006, 4:29pm

[quote]
Sure, but would you classify majors like urban planning, international relations, politics, and business among these fields? A lot of people choose to pursue "good" majors. At the very least, they choose majors that provide them with a solid footing in math/statistics, writing, foreign languages, and so on.

[/quote]

All these majors are still rather low-paying, with the exception of business. For business, it depends strongly on the school you are talking about. Those who get undergrad business degrees at top schools like Wharton or Sloan do very well. But most business students go to no-name schools, and usualy wind up with not much . In fact, at many no-name schools, business is considered the 'easy' major filled with students who aren't particularly serious about studying. This is a big reason why at many of these no-name schools, the business major tends to attract a lot of the scholarship football and basketball players. A lot of these athletes aren't really serious about studying, for all they care about is making it to the pros. So they end up choosing a major that will allow them to stay academically eligible to play without a lot of work. Only a handful of college football players who are stars will choose to major in, say, chemical engineering.

Look, the truth is, certain majors are far more marketable than others. If you don't know what those majors are, well, you should find out. I think that's part of the job of a college student in choosing majors. The salary surveys are out there. CNN publishes them periodically. You can Google for them. Many colleges publish salary surveys of their particular majors (if not published online, then it is often times available in the career office in hard copy). It shouldn't be a surprise. After all, part of being a student is learning how to access information.

For example, here is the 2006 version of the CNN starting salary survey. I hope it doesn't surprise anyone that engineering pays better, on average, than the liberal arts do. This has been true for decades in the past, and almost certainy will be true for decades in the future.

<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starting_salaries/index.htm%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starting_salaries/index.htm</a>

Or consider these salaries for people holding just associates degrees. Note, these are not starting salaries, but rather average salaries (for people who have experience). Still, the fact is clear. Certain skills are far more practical and marketable than others. Vocational skills like health care, engineering, computers, and so forth, can land you a solid job.

<a href="http://cnn.tv/2006/US/Careers/05/04/cb.associates/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://cnn.tv/2006/US/Careers/05/04/cb.associates/index.html</a>

[quote]
A lot of majors have not traditionally been low-paying fields, but that is changing. The people who choose to major in them do not knowingly take a vow of poverty when they selected them.

[/quote]

I think right there is the main crux of our disagreement. I believe that a lot of people know exactly what they are getting into. If they don't, then they should know. After all, the information is freely available. All you have to do is search around on the Internet and look up salary information. Come on, these are supposed to be smart college students here, and they can't find information about salaries?

I agree with your general point that things will fluctuate. But they don't fluctuate THAT much. And furthermore, certain long term trends are quite clear. I am willing to be that 4 years from now, Chemical Engineers will still be making higher salaries than Art History majors will. It is true that oil will not stay at $70 a barrel (and much of ChemE employment is still based on the health of the oil industry), but even in the worst of times in recent memory (i.e. 1998, when oil plunged to $10 a barrel), chemical engineers were still making very good starting salaries. The price of oil is high today because of geopolitical tensions and because of burgeoning demand for oil from China and India. I am fairly certain that in 4 years, there will still be geopolitical tensions and there will still be a lot of demand from China and India. And in any case, even if the worst case scenario, it's hard for me to see how chemical engineers will end up making lower starting salaries than the Art History students will. Or the starting salary of the average liberal arts student, for that matter.

[quote]
But the market for all but a handful of majors still stinks. So what is it?

[/quote]

Now, see, this I would vigorously dispute. But I suppose it's all relative. The truth is, the economy is white-hot right now. Employers are hiring like mad. The economy is booming at 4% growth right now, and adding about 200,000 jobs a month, and the unemployment rate is less than 5%, which is far below average. These are some of the highest growth rates in modern American history - and significantly higher than the average growth rate throughout history. Certain companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple have been hiring boatloads of people. In fact, high-tech in general, is back, with lots of Internet companies like Yahoo and Amazon adding lots of people. It's not the same as the bubble economy of the 1990's, but it's still a pretty good time to be in high tech. The consulting firms like McKinsey have been snapping up people left and right. Accounting firms have been snapping people up due to the need for more accountants to deal with Sarbanes-Oxley and other regulations. Oil companies have been hiring thousands of new employees to expand operations in the wake of $70 oil. Banks have been racking up record profits and are therefore hiring boatloads of new people. And then of course there is health care, which is arguaby the hottest field of all. It's not just doctors and dentists. Demand for nurses, pharmacists, physician's assistants, medical technicians, and so forth, is through the roof.

But even liberal arts students are benefitting. As can be seen by the survey, starting salaries for liberal arts students increased by more than 6% in a year. If the market really 'stinks', then why are these companies raising salaries for these guys? Are these companies being stupid by just throwing money away?

<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starting_salaries/index.htm%5B/url%5D">http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/13/pf/college/starting_salaries/index.htm</a>

So I profoundly disagree with your assessment of a market that 'stinks' Right now, the market is far far better than average. If the market stinks now, then what would you have to say about the market during the downturn of 2001? Or the recession of 1990-1991? Or the deep recession (almost a mini-depression) of 1982-1983?

Look, my point is, people had to know that certain skills and fields, notably the technical fields and health-care fields, are more marketable than others. If you didn't know, then you should have known. For example, it's not that hard to punch up some salary surveys and see which college majors pay better. If you search around college internships and co-ops, you should have noticed that a lot of companies are looking for engineers, computer scientists, health-care workers, or things like that. For example, I strongly remember back in my school's college fair how an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of the recruiters were looking for engineers or CS people. My school didn't offer nursing, but if it did, I'm sure that a lot of recruiters would have come looking for nurses too. Correspondingly few recruiters were looking for liberal arts students, and those that were looking for them tended to be consulting or banking firms (and yet a lot of engineers got offers from these firms too).

I don't want to be harsh, but it's hard for me to sympathize with people who chose a less marketable major and then find out that they can't get a job. Why didn't you pick up some more marketable skills. I'm not saying that you necessarily have to major in engineering. Just pick up a marketable skill. For example, I know a guy who majored in English but fiddled with computers as a side hobby, and ended up getting a job as a computer programmer at a software company - and ended up becoming one of the top programmers in his company. The point is, you have to develop marketable skills.

sakky · May 27, 2006, 4:37pm

[quote]
A 4.0, at least in the same or similar major, is a lot better. Don't get so hung up on prestige that you think going to HYPS gives you some kind of god-like status. For law school, anyway, you're screwed with a 3.0.

[/quote]

I would agree with this, although I would add that it may actually be EASIER to get top grades at HYPS than at a state school. That's because of the grade inflation. Basically, at HYPS, it's almost impossible to get a truly bad grade. As long as you do the bare minimum, the absolute worst grade you get is maybe a C, and you'll probably end up with a B. However, most state schools have absolutely no problem in handing out boatloads of bad grades and a general attitude of just not caring about their students.

To give you an example, I know a guy who chose Berkeley over Stanford because Berkeley was offering him a very good financial package (plus he was getting in-state tuition at Berkeley). He then proceeded to flunk right out of Berkeley. Although we will never know, both he and I strongly suspect suspect that if he gone to Stanford instead, he would have graduated. Maybe not with a 4.0, but he almost certainly would have pulled at least the minimum 2.0 he needed to graduate from Stanford. That's because it's almost impossible to get a grade below a C (which is equal to a 2.0) at Stanford. However, Berkeley had absolutely no hesitation in handing out all manners of sub-C grades that caused him to be expelled. Hence, here's a guy who would have ended up with HIGHER grades at Stanford than he would have at a state school.

ecape · May 27, 2006, 5:21pm

That may be. But a 2.0 from Stanford won't get you much of anywhere, and once you get into the B range of grades and above, its easier to make high grades at most state schools than most elite schools (although according to the Boalt law school thing I posted above, Stanford is one of the easier ones for grading)

sakky · May 27, 2006, 5:42pm

[quote]
That may be. But a 2.0 from Stanford won't get you much of anywhere

[/quote]

True, it won't get you into law school. But you can at least get a job with it. Let's face it. There are a lot of jobs out there that just require that you have a college degree, and it doesn't really matter how well you did in college or what you majored in, or much of anything at all. All that matters is that you have a degree. Whether we like it or not, in the job market, there is a BIG difference between having a college degree (even if you got mediocre grades) and not having a degree at all. In other words, I think there can be no question that it is better to get a 2.0 at Stanford and graduate than to go to Berkeley and flunk out.

[quote]
and once you get into the B range of grades and above, its easier to make high grades at most state schools than most elite schools

[/quote]

This I also strongly question. I think it depends on the schools you are talking about. Getting A's at Berkeley is certainly no walk in the park. I suspect that, on average, getting an A at Berkeley is no easier than getting an A at Stanford, and in many classes, the latter may actually be easier.

Take a look at these figures. Granted, the Stanford undergrad student body is better than the Berkeley undergrad student body, so that accounts for some of the difference. Nevertheless, I think it shows that it's easier to get higher grades at Stanford than at Berkeley.

<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html</a>

pip-pip · May 27, 2006, 5:57pm

sakky, I would recommend consulting the BLS rather than "Money". I believe that's actually where "Money" gets its data.

In my opinion, the degrees I listed can be valuable--but only with a graduate degree from a top uni. Check the BLS for more info. Traditionally, people with a BA/BS in those fields were able to make $35,000; which I define as a good living as a recent college graduate. But that's declined. For now, people in w. just a BA in those fields (regardless of the institution or GPA) can be outplaced by someone with three years relevant experience and who is still working towards their degree (like me).

(Yes, I knew technical and healthcare fields are higher paying. I'm actually an econ major, planning to pursue a doctorate upon graduation.)

sakky · May 27, 2006, 6:33pm

[quote]
sakky, I would recommend consulting the BLS rather than "Money". I believe that's actually where "Money" gets its data.

[/quote]

The starting salary data on Money was obtained from the NACE. The data for experienced people was, I agree, probably derived from the BLS.

But anyway, that's neither here nor there. The point is, no matter what publication you cite, you will see that the data is consistent - that certain degrees and career paths are more marketable than others. If college students are not aware of this fact, then they should be. It would be sad indeed if America's colleges were conferring degrees upon people who don't know how to look up a salary survey.

[quote]
Traditionally, people with a BA/BS in those fields were able to make $35,000;

[/quote]

Uh, when was this? It seems to me that you are referring to some mythical golden age that never existed. If it did exist, it may have existed only during the early history of the country when only a tiny percentage of the population went to college (and when a significant percentage were of the population lived on the farm).

Look, the fact is, ever since the mass spread of higher education, liberal arts bachelor's degree recipients have never made as much starting salary, on average, as students who earned bachelor's degrees in technical subjects, especially engineering and (recently) health-care fields. I would really like to know when exactly this golden age was when liberal arts students were making 35k to start, on average.

ecape · May 27, 2006, 6:43pm

sakky, did you look at the Boalt law school thing? Here it is again: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm%5B/url%5D">http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm</a> Berkeley's own law school decided it was easier to make As at Berkeley than at Stanford, on average. Granted, the two are very close. I don't have any agenda, trust me. This Boalt Law School thing is just the only ranking of this kind (difficulty to get As) that I've seen.

sakky · May 28, 2006, 2:42am

Uh, not only did I look at the Boalt law school thing, I think I was one of the first ones (perhaps the first one) to have found it off the webarchive.

First off, the score sheet is NOT solely a measure of grade inflation or solely about the difficulty of getting A's. This is a huge misnomer, even though that is what the web page says that it is. As a simple proof, look at the score given to Harvard and the score given to MIT. Harvard gets a higher score. Yet I think even most Harvard students would concede that grading is harder at MIT. The same can be said about the LAC's. Places like Carleton, Colgate, Wesleyan, and so forth are no push-overs, but to assert that the grading at those schools is more difficult than it is at MIT, that's one heck of a reach.

No, the true purpose of this grade sheet is not solely to account for grade inflation, but rather to assess the value of an applicant's grades relative to success at law school. In other words, it's a combination of both grade inflation and just how prepared a student from a particular undergrad program is for law school. For example, while I think that most neutral observers would agree that MIT's grading is more difficult than Harvard's (or the aforementioned LAC's), on the other hand, which therefore "gains points" for MIT, MIT then loses points because its graduates are not as well prepared for law school as grads from those other schools are, probably because MIT's strong tech focus does not do the best job of preparing its grads for the law.

The result is that MIT still gets a high "score" on the Boalt grading sheet, but not as high as it would get if the sheet were to solely measure grading difficulty. If that sheet were solely measuring how difficult it is to get top grades, then it is hard to see how MIT wouldn't have the highest score of all of the schools on that list. About the only school in the country that I think could actually beat MIT in terms of grading difficulty would be Caltech, but Caltech is not on the list.

Similarly, I think a reasonable interpretation of the sheet is that while Berkeley grades harder than Stanford, Berkeley also does not do as good of a job of preparing its graduates to become lawyers as Stanford does.

afan · May 28, 2006, 10:40am

[quote]
I think a reasonable interpretation of the sheet is that while Berkeley grades harder than Stanford

[/quote]

What in that table implies that Berkeley grades harsher than Stanford?

I think this gets dangerously close to "the data does not support my preconceptions, so I will declare my preconceptions are correct, in spite of evidence to the contrary"

It is true that this table reflects the expected performance of students who apply to law school, and is not, and could not be, a general evaluation of grading standards. however, for students who apply to law school, this implies that an A from Stanford was preferred to an A from Berkeley.

tomslawsky · May 28, 2006, 1:54pm

I would be willing to bet that the rankings on that list correlate nicely with the school's SAT average for incomming Freshmen. If a school uses performance on standardized exams as a criteria for admissions, the performance of it's graduated on standardized exams should mirror be consistent.

ecape · May 28, 2006, 2:09pm

Well, I hope you're not betting too much on that. Cause you just lost. Stanford has much higher SATs than Wesleyan, Carleton, Bowdoin, Middlebury, etc., yet is ranked below them on the Boalt list. The same could be said for MIT vs. those schools, and for other schools.

tomslawsky · May 28, 2006, 2:48pm

That would be a function of the absurd level of grade inflation at Stanford, though. I would still bet that, overall, students who do excellent on the SAT will do excellent on ANY standardized test. As I see the table, ranking is a function of LSAT scores coupled with average grades at the school.

sakky · May 28, 2006, 5:09pm

[quote]
What in that table implies that Berkeley grades harsher than Stanford?

[/quote]

The table does not imply that. Ecape was asking whether it implied that, and I believe it does not, for the reasons I stated above.

Americanski · May 28, 2006, 6:30pm

[quote]
Well, I hope you're not betting too much on that. Cause you just lost. Stanford has much higher SATs than Wesleyan, Carleton, Bowdoin, Middlebury, etc., yet is ranked below them on the Boalt list. The same could be said for MIT vs. those schools, and for other schools.

[/quote]

I'm pretty sure you'd find a significant correlation if you plotted the data, with a school's average SAT on one axis and their rating from the Boalt grid on the other. It's pretty obvious from looking at it that this is true.

I think the biggest reason for the difference between the apparent "difficulty" of Stanford and Berkeley could be that the bottom of the class at Berkeley is so much weaker than the bottom of the class at Stanford.

sakky · May 28, 2006, 7:08pm

Nah, I still think the main reason is the difference in lower-level grading schemes. For example, I am quite convinced that somebody who is doing poorly at Berkeley would be getting grades if he was going to Stanford instead. He still wouldn't be doing that great, but he'd almost certainly be doing better.

Again, take the guy who I talked about who flunked out of Berkeley. Most of his colleagues, including myself, suspect that if he had gone to Stanford instead, he would have graduated. Probably not with top grades, but at least he would have graduated. That's because it's almost impossible to get a truly bad grade (i.e. anything below a C) at Stanford. But it's quite easy to get bad grades at Berkeley.

Now of course it is true that few of the lower-performing students would have gotten admitted to Stanford in the first place. But some do. In the case of the guy I mentioned, he's a URM who got admitted back in the days before Prop 209. That was a big factor in getting him into Berkeley (on a Chancellor's Scholarship), as well as Stanford, and many of the other top schools. The key difference is that once you've matriculated at Stanford, Stanford will try to protect you and hand-hold you to help you to graduate. Berkeley won't.

afan · May 28, 2006, 9:57pm

Let's see some evidence, rather than anecdote, about relative grading rigor at Berkeley vs Stanford.

I'll open with the following

"Of 79,791 undergraduate course grades given at UC Berkeley fall 2003, almost 50% were A's."

<a href="http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html%5B/url%5D">http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html</a>

For elite privates:
"A survey conducted by Princeton in 2003 found that As accounted for 44 to 55 percent of all grades at the eight Ivy League schools, Stanford, MIT and the University of Chicago"

<a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=13925&repository=0001_article%5B/url%5D">http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=13925&repository=0001_article</a>

Now, to me this makes Berkeley seem right in the middle of the pack vs the Ivies and a few other similar schools.

Considering that there are lots of students at Berkeley who would not be admitted to these other universities, it is remarkable that the, on average weaker, students at Berkeley produce the same proportion of A's as do those at these other places.

Please explain how Berkeley in fact has much tougher grading.

sakky · May 28, 2006, 10:42pm

[quote]
Let's see some evidence, rather than anecdote, about relative grading rigor at Berkeley vs Stanford.

I'll open with the following

"Of 79,791 undergraduate course grades given at UC Berkeley fall 2003, almost 50% were A's."

<a href="http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html%5B/url%5D">http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html</a>

[/quote]

You just said it right there. That colloquia you cited was from the College of Letters and Science. L&S is one of the easier colleges at Berkeley. The harshness at Berkeley is largely concentrated in things like engineering.

[quote]
Please explain how Berkeley in fact has much tougher grading.

[/quote]

I never said that Berkeley had tougher grading at the high end compared to a place like Stanford. But on the low end, I think it's fairly clear. Stanford, as a matter of rule, didn't even HAVE the 'F' grade until just recently, and still, the 'F' grade is practically never given out. But this was not true of Berkeley.

I'm talking about the LOW END. It seems to me that while Berkeley may indeed give out the same proportion of A's as the private schools do, the real question is how many truly bad grades (i.e. C's and lower) are given out? At the private schools, the answer is almost none.

You wanted evidence, here is some

<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/harvard.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/harvard.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/princeton.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/princeton.html</a>

The average GPA is clearly lower at Berkeley than at the private schools, in the same time frame. If the same proportion of A's given out is the same, then that must mean that the proportion of low grades at Berkeley must be higher.

afan · May 28, 2006, 11:39pm

[quote]
how many truly bad grades (i.e. C's and lower) are given out?

[/quote]

From the same source, at Berkeley 85% of grades were A's or B's. At the other end of the extreme we find Princeton. Before its initiative to reduce the number of A's, what proportion of grades were A's and B's? Drumroll please...85%.

<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7eodoc/grading_proposals/%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/%7eodoc/grading_proposals/</a>

Look again at the report. The discussion was under the auspices of the college of letters and sciences, but the grade report was not limited to that division.

For those of you who are not familiar with the College of L&S, this is the major undergraduate division at Berkeley. It includes 3/4 of the undergraduates (not some splinter area with gut courses), and includes some notoriously slacker fields such as astronomy, mathematics, molecular and cellular biology, and physics. In other words, for the vast majority of the undergraduates, the College of L&S IS Berkeley.

So, again. If Berkeley has lots of students who would not get in the elite privates, and the same proportion (85%) of A's and B's, then how does Berkeley end up with harsher grading?

I suppose one could argue "Berkeley has harsher grading standards, EXCEPT for the division at Berkeley that enrolls 3/4 of the students and does not have harsher standards, and EXCEPT for the better students, and EXCEPT for..."? I gather the harsh divisions are the ones on which there is no data to support this assertion.

sakky · May 28, 2006, 11:53pm

And again, afan, explain how is it that there can be a 0.2-0.3 difference in GPA between Berkeley and those private schools?

<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/berkeley.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/harvard.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/harvard.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/stanford.html</a>
<a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/princeton.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/princeton.html</a>

ozym · May 29, 2006, 12:09am

well you're looking at the mean, a more indicative measure would obv be the median - resistant to weaker students

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Which is better: a 3.0 at HYPS or a 4.0 at a state school?

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