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This is what I think of these surveys.. if it were on paper, I'd use it to line up a bird cage.
US News Top 50 national universities and Top 25 public universities lists are pretty accurate to me. Their regional lists and small college lists are more obscure to most people, but I still think some of those are pretty decent schools. Oftentimes, they end up on a separate list because they are not doctoral granting institutions.
Once again, the quality of students admitted to a school doesn't tell us anything about the quality of education they receive once admitted. One study shows the civic literacy scores of Harvard students actually declining as they progress from freshman to senior.
The quality of education you're 'getting' makes no sense. You can't judge it unless you actually went there and somewhere else.
That isn't true. One can make accurate judgements about the quality of an education without actually receiving it. You can start with the content of what is being taught. You can make judgements about the importance of various subjects. If you have some idea of what a liberal education is supposed to look like, you can evaluate various curricula and reach solid conclusions.
Read Douthat's article. In no sense is what he received a liberal education worthy of a college undergraduate.
That isn't true. One can make accurate judgements about the quality of an education without actually receiving it. You can start with the content of what is being taught. You can make judgements about the importance of various subjects. If you have some idea of what a liberal education is supposed to look like, you can evaluate various curricula and reach solid conclusions.
Read Douthat's article. In no sense is what he received a liberal education worthy of a college undergraduate.
In my opinion, grade inflation is a good thing. I only wish I had the foresight to attend a reputable school that used grade inflation (not that it would have mattered for my life path). I got into a few for sure.
College is all about self motivation. You learn and retain what you actually want to LEARN. Not what you force feed yourself in order to beat the mean on a test.
You think Ivy League schools are filled kids who never go to class, never do work, and just collect their 3.5 GPA?
They got into those schools for a reason. Because they have work ethic. And usually ... that carries over.
If you are teaching an Ivy League, Georgetown, or Notre Dame audience, you are teaching brighter kids. They most likely will absorb 80+% of the material ....
Not if the material is sufficiently challenging. Grade inflation makes that difficult to determine. The questions remain: 1. Are students sufficiently challenged? 2. What is the quality of the material? 3. What is the relevance of the material?
Quote:
Originally Posted by robertpolyglot
That means a lot of As and Bs will be given.
No, it doesn't. As mentioned earlier, in 1955 just 15 percent of Harvard undergraduates had a GPA of a B-plus or higher.
Quote:
Originally Posted by robertpolyglot
The other thing is that retention is a good thing about a school.
It can mean different things depending on the schools being compared. All things being equal, the more rigorous the program, the lower the retention rate.
Last edited by WesternPilgrim; 12-13-2012 at 01:44 PM..
All right, folks. Where's the evidence that Ivy League schools offer superior educations?
Having an ultra-selective admissions policy is not evidence.
Having large numbers of successful or prominent graduates is not evidence.
These things only prove that extremely intelligent students are admitted, who are probably self-taught to a large extent, and that the school's prestige carries weight with employers.
But they say nothing about educational quality, breadth, or depth; academic rigor and difficulty; the formation of the intellect; the imparting of knowledge; the development of wisdom and character; etc.
This makes no sense whatsover. Having lots of successful graduates means the schools are less successful?
"More than 90 percent of the class of 2001 had earned grade-point averages of B-minus or higher. Half of all the grades given the year before were As or A-minuses; only six percent were C-pluses or lower. By way of comparison, in 1940 C-minus was the most common GPA at Harvard, and in 1955 just 15 percent of undergraduates had a GPA of B-plus or higher."
The deeper one digs into the reality of Ivy League educations, the more it appears that "the emperor has no clothes".
This makes no sense whatsoever. Having fewer students graduate means the school is more successful?
Not if the material is sufficiently challenging. Grade inflation makes that difficult to determine. The questions remain: 1. Are students sufficiently challenged? 2. What is the quality of the material? 3. What is the relevance of the material?
No, it doesn't. As mentioned earlier, in 1955 just 15 percent of Harvard undergraduates had a GPA of a B-plus or higher.
It can mean different things depending on the schools being compared. All things being equal, the more rigorous the program, the lower the retention rate.
In your quest to present yourself as being very orthodox, you are being anything but on this topic, applying selective perception to how you view universities, what they teach, and now even their grading. If it works, don't fix it.
As for your last sentence (quoted), does this imply that the 95+% retention of medical school students mean that most of them are incompetent? Most of them ARE competent.
If you are the "chief cook and bottle washer" in helping your brood of kids make choices about college, this doesn't look like it's going to bode well.
In my opinion, grade inflation is a good thing. I only wish I had the foresight to attend a reputable school that used grade inflation (not that it would have mattered for my life path). I got into a few for sure.
College is all about self motivation. You learn and retain what you actually want to LEARN. Not what you force feed yourself in order to beat the mean on a test.
You think Ivy League schools are filled kids who never go to class, never do work, and just collect their 3.5 GPA?
They got into those schools for a reason. Because they have work ethic. And usually ... that carries over.
Agreed. I couldn't rep you again.
I've gone to some respectable public universities and how did I pull very high 3.xx type GPAs? By saying no to the pubs and living in the library. Those who did not do that got lower grades. It's as simple as that.
Western Pilgrim has once stated elsewhere that he was not a particularly good student. That he is sparring with people who have invested heavily in their academic pursuits is laughable ... and a waste of bandwidth.
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Well, I guess that makes the community college down the road from me, pretty much the best institution in the USA.
