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College Application Inflation — Marketing Meets Admissions
gollum123 sends this quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
"The numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants. For this fall's freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called 'simply amazing,' and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff 'deeply impressed and at times awed.' Nine percent were admitted. Such announcements tell a story in which colleges get better — and students get more amazing — every year. In reality, the narrative is far more complex, and the implications far less sunny for students as well as colleges caught up in the cruel cycle of selectivity. To some degree, the increases are inevitable: the college-bound population has grown, and so, too, has the number of applications students file, thanks in part to online technology. But wherever it is raining applications, colleges have helped seed the clouds — by recruiting widely and aggressively for ever more applicants. Many colleges have made applying as simple as updating a Facebook page. Some deans and guidance counselors complain that it's too easy. They question the ethics of intense recruitment by colleges that reject the overwhelming majority of applicants. Today's application inflation is a cause and symptom of the uncertainty in admissions."
Gee... it don't cost nuthin to get your wiki degree.
College want their admissions process to become a proxy for due diligence in hiring. ("Sally went to XYZ college, so she's more likely to be a valuable employee than Bob who went to a less selective school.") While this makes sense a little bit, it's also scary. For example, does this mean that what kids do in high school will increasingly set their destinies for life? Are XYZ graduates actually better employees, or is it just marketing?
They question the ethics of intense recruitment by colleges that reject the overwhelming majority of applicants.
Come to us, we want you, we need you, we love you! Oh wait...just kidding.
This reminds me of advertising for pharmaceutical drugs. "THIS WILL HELP YOU!!! TAKE IT NAO!!!" Then who does the patient get pissed at when their doctor tells them that drug won't help due to a specific condition? If my time spent in the industry is any indication, it isn't usually the pharmaceutical company...
Living With a Nerd
Talk about demand ... just give your school a catchy name that will attract elitists and - whamo! You've got cash to burn. Try something like "Slashdot U" or "Snarky U" ... you get the picture
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Well, it depends. Some schools ARE better than others. I hardly think you'd consider an engineering degree from MIT equivalent to an engineering degree from UC Berkley - not knocking their program there, just saying that MIT's is better. However, for the majority of colleges, no, it doesn't matter much because few people are going to know EVERY program at EVERY college to judge on how your specific choice of college affected your education.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Come apply at the Princeton University, where you can explore all your horizons!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
* Strip the name off the degree
* Ban selectivity for any US citizen (e.g. citizenship guarantees a place once you're otherwise qualified)
* Remove the degree (or any indirect indications of it) from consideration in any job.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
As an aging Slashdot'er and parent of two kid$ recently completing the "goat rope" called US college education I concur. The payout vs payoff would not be a consideration in my retirement portfolio but is status quo for our kids. I don't claim to have a solution, I'm glad I'm out of the game.
What I find hilarious is that there's all this competition for schools. What benefit do college grads see these days? A college degree certainly doesn't guarantee a job. So even if you're one of the 9% or whatever that get admitted, your chance of getting a job after school is still going to be 5%.
Cost benefit analysis of college is really showing that it's really not worth it. You're better off starting your own business and learning stuff as you go along. Google is a better teacher anyway.
Which is why I applied to exactly ONE college, where I knew I would get in wanted to go. Half the people I know apply to Stanford and crap just so their parents can brag about it, and brag even more if they get accepted. They have no intention of actually going there.
But frankly, the elephant in the room is that the students they DO accept get stuck with loans they can't pay off--proving their education was wildly overpriced. Being from a Big-Name School these days just isn't worth the extra $50,000. It's insane.
Sure, the 'brand name' of a school will have an impact, but so will the student's degree type, their grades and a bunch of other things. Yes, bad high school grades might well translate to a less selective university, which will then knock a few points off against the guy who went to Harvard, but that's not the same as having one's destiny set for life by the age of 18.
Maybe high schools should start advertising the merits of vocational and tech schools a little bit more. I remember my high school councilor advocating four year college to a lot of students that, quite frankly, just weren't going to do well in four year college (disinterested in abstract concepts, prefer working on something tangible, rather than developing math problems or theses, far too lazy to put more than an hour-a-day on homework, etc.). We have this obsession in the States with four year degrees, acting like employees without one are incompetent and useless. We have students that don't want to attend college attending college because they are told there's no other way to succeed in the world. And, simultaneously, it seems like fewer and fewer college kids I know are actually prepared for the world that they are put into. Few know how to maintain a car. Most don't understand the first thing about taxes. The concept of fiscal responsibility is lost on many of them. Hell, most kids I know didn't even know how to cook before heading off to college.
So maybe this increase in college applications is indicative of the trend that, when a society obsesses over a college degree in all walks of life, then that is one thing that most coming-of-age adults value.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
As a student who attends a very selective engineering school, I have long since realized that is the case. While convenient for me, the trend is disturbing from an ethical point of view.
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations..." -Winston Churchill
For example, does this mean that what kids do in high school will increasingly set their destinies for life?
It certainly should. here's no question that most high school kids do not take education as seriously as they should. For many, high school is really just a social gathering.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
When they do the regressions, it turns out the schools you got turned down from were the biggest factor on career success, far more than where you actually attend.
The Ivy League is the worst. Getting into MIT is hard, but so is going to MIT. (Despite this, if you get into MIT, you have a 90% chance of graduating.) Getting into the Ivy League schools is hard, but then you can make contacts and coast on academics. George Bush Jr. went to Yale and Harvard, after all.
(I went to Stanford, in CS, in the 1980s. The education was at best mediocre.)
Debian makes you happy?
More applicants, more money. Higher education is rapidly turning into a scam, anyway, they just want to bleed more application fees out of people.
On a MBP? Well this obviously points away from it being OS X issue.
Must be something apple coats their hardware with.
Am I the only one who think it's more likely a reflection of today's bad economy?
I imagine with how difficult it is to get a job right now, even a student just graduating high school is aware that he'll have a hard time getting a decent job without a college or vocational degree.
Sure it's easier to apply online...but I don't think it's really harder for someone to send the application by mail, just slower
That is how it is in law school. A lot of law firms put a lot of weight on GPA and what school one graduated from. A tier 1 college (as per US News and World Report) will get one hired essentially anywhere. If someone came from a lower tier, they would need to have a resume with entries to compensate for not having Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, or UT by their academic section.
This doesn't say that a lower tier is a bad thing -- there is no such thing as an unemployed attorney unless they get disbarred, but the plum positions starting from graduating are essentially about what tier you came from, all things being equal.
The sad part is that many students and their families are talked into sending in dozens of applications to schools that they really have no chance at getting into. At $50-$100 each, application costs in the thousands of dollars are becoming more and more the norm. What's worse, many schools apply a simple GPA/SAT based gross-cut filter and won't even look at some of these applications; in essence, these students and their families have spent $50 to have a computer think for 1ms and then spit back a "no."
Being a Ph.D. candidate in mathematics at one of the big name Ivy League schools, I am yet to see all these "amazing" students. Yes, practically every student get the basics (something that doesn't happen at less selective schools), but give them a problem that requires creativity and you'll see that a handful of students in the class are able to solve it. They might work hard and they are motivated, but it's not like every student is terribly smart.
Just because all the applications are amazing doesn't mean they have to accept all of them. Maybe they don't have the resources to support that many amazing students. There's no incongruity here.
I believe that, a C student who applies to Harvard but was rejected has ambition, which is something no school can teach
the free market says buy a college degree and you may be able to a big court case over a religious / church degrees not being taken by employers under religious discrimination.
Colleges get $50 (sometimes $100) from each applicant. That means that if Brown or Stanford increase their applicant pool by 5,000 people in a year, thats an extra quarter million they are making, minimum.
What's easier than making money from overpriced tuition? Convincing underqualified people to apply, taking their application fee, and instantly throwing out their application in a GPA/SAT filter.
I wonder how long this can keep up. In my experience, as soon as you graduate and get your first job, almost every future employment prospect is based on how well you perform in the "real world." Getting that first job is tougher if you are a state school graduate (like me,) but if you majored in something marketable, you do eventually get hired. My first 2 jobs were awful, but I was able to gain enough experience to eventually get the job I have today. No one has ever asked me where I went to school or what my grades were, unless it was just out of curiosity.
If you're truly headed for an academic career, elite schools can give you a leg up also - but if you're good, you will be able to go somewhere for grad school also. Same goes for the professions (law & medicine.)
Contrast this with someone who pays the price, gets past admissions and graduates from a top-tier school. From what I've seen, the price of the school gives you access to opportunities you wouldn't normally have, such as:
As far as any other benefits go, I can't see them. You may have some very famous professors and top experts in their fields, but you may never see them, and that may not matter to you if you are not pursuing the subject as a career.
It's a big shift - even when I graduated 15 years ago, it was pretty much a given that you would at least be employed if you went to any college and got a bachelors' degree. If you went to an elite school, you were revered by future employers as if it was an infallable indicator of your abilities. Now, you hear all these stories of students taking out $150K+ in loans and not finding work even remotely related to their field or paying enough to cover the huge investment they made.
I think kids and parents are really going to have to take a hard look at whether it's worth it for the kid to go to the most expensive school they can get into. It's going to have to be seen as an investment rather than a rite of passage. If you hate investment banking or consulting, or can't hack medical or law school, you may never get out from under the debt you rack up for yourself.
Thoughts?
...there's maybe a half dozen universities whose name carries "weight". If it's not an Ivy League caliber school (and not even all of them), nobody gives a rat WHAT school you went to. nobody, but NOBODY cares if University "x" has a more exclusive student body than University "y". Mostly they don't care because they don't know...and they don't know because they don't care.
There are a few exceptions for schools that are particularly well known for a given discipline, but mostly a degree is a degree is a degree...unless it's from University of Phoenix, then it's trash.
today's employers don't know how bad costs are for college and some of the big name colleges are more well known for that sports teams then the school part.
But the tech / Vocational Schools are more to topic for the real world with less filler and more upto date courses but employers don't like then why?.
Undergrads at prestigious universities are just the suckers that pay for all the R&D the grad students do. Do yourself a favor and research the undergrad programs in your state. There's a good chance you'll find an excellent program at a fraction of the cost. Of course you won't get the brand name recognition.. But you also won't be in debt the rest of your life.
Most of the Ivy Leagues make a commitment that if your family + you make less than $75k a year, they'll pay your tuition. No loans. No nothing. Straight up full ride.
Or that they have a good sense of humor.
Like that one school I saw a flyer for:
"Attend Harvey Mudd! Then you tell people where you went to school can say it quickly and make people think you were saying, 'Harvard Med!'"
I've always heard that unless you go to one of the top schools in the nation for your degree, it doesn't really matter where you go. So while Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and a handful of others are excellent, there's no point spending the money on a Vanderbilt, USC, or SMU when you can go to a state school or University of Phoenix. I suppose there are regional exceptions (if you plan on staying in North Texas, SMU can be worth the money) or certain professions (USC is a much better choice for budding Speilbergs than just about any other college in the country), but outside of those two specifics it just doesn't matter a whole lot.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Wait, of all the possible choices, you chose Berkeley?
I'd say that Berkeley and MIT are equivalent, and Stanford is clearly superior ;)
Amusingly, I once worked at a company that refused to hire recent graduates from a certain local selective university because they found the graduates to be too egotistical to handle the kind of low profile work that is usually given to new hires with essentially no experience. That is not to say that there were not a lot of very sharp students coming out of that university. They just too often had a superiority complex for a while after they graduated.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Not that there's anything wrong with this approach. The tier 1 schools are tier 1 for a reason, and, all else being equal, one should assume that new attorneys from those schools are going to be better at their profession than someone from a lower-ranked school. Five years into their careers, this might no longer hold, but it's impossible to know that right after graduating.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
And that should be considered a serious problem, because even high school students who do take their high school education seriously are adversely affected by how not seriously everyone around them takes it. And that factor is affected generally by how rich and/or white your neighborhood is.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Anyone disagree?
93% of applicants, should you be expanding?
Granted, you won't want a percentage of those applicant under any conditions.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"The business of higher education is booming. It's a $400 billion industry fueled by taxpayer money. But what are students getting out of the deal? Critics say a worthless degree and a mountain of debt. Investors insist they're innovators, widening access to education." Watch the video.
Has anyone had a chance to read this book? The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in U.S. History-and How We Can Fight Back
On the other hand, one could argue that the education you get is largely unrelated to the school you attend. I would instantly pick an A student from UC Berkeley (or even someone from a cow college in flyover country) who was actively involved in outside projects over a C student at MIT who wasn't involved in outside projects. At an undergrad level, you can get the basic skills anywhere, and beyond that basic level, what you get out of your college education is directly proportional to what you put in. In the grand scheme of things, I'm not convinced that there's a dime's worth of difference on the average between a Berkeley grad who puts in the effort and an MIT grad who does the same. Most of what you really will need to know on the job, you'll be picking up in your first few weeks anyway, and (good) employers know this.
The only real advantage I can see for MIT and other schools that have strong specialization in a particular area over smaller, less specialized schools is that students have more opportunities to work in various areas of specialization that would not be feasible at other schools. This matters if you are hiring somebody in that area of specialization, but only for maybe a few years after graduation. After that, the field has changed too much for what they learned to be relevant anyway. The ability of a graduate to learn is far, far more relevant to that person's success than which specific pieces of information the person has learned upon graduation. Also, a fair amount of what you need to know for a given job is going to be specific to that job anyway, so it is critically important to be able to hit the ground running and learn as you go. That matters much more than what you know going in.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I'm a grad student at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Our admissions department uses the past performance of students in their university careers to track back and see what high schools give their students inflated marks. An adjustment is calculated for the high schools that have enough students going to UW to make the results statistically relevant. If you say every potential undergrad is "amazing", but they consistently flop once they get on campus, we downgrade your "amazing" to our "mediocre".
The funny thing is Harvey Mudd is one of the best colleges in the country. For some engineering disciplines probably beats out Harvard.
According to the article, tens of thousands of "amazing" applicants got rejected from high-tier universities. Now, won't these declined undergrads try to apply to other universities? And since most of them are talented students, won't they pose a threat to other 'normal' students, like me, for instance?
Having your destiny set by your high school grades is a marginal improvement on the current system which is:
Having your destiny set by how much money your parents make.
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To me, the current college application system is a bit like a cute b*tch. She wants ALL the boys to fall in love, but will hand pick just a few.
That does not make the b*tch a top model or a genius!
It also does not make the boys any better.
With Caltech far, far out in front.
FTFY.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
They want your application fees.
Brown: $75
Stanford: $90
Harvard: $75
If they all make applying FREE then I would believe that they're doing it for the betterment of the student body, and not their budget. Source: https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/MemberRequirements.aspx
I'm gay
So, you prepend a "GNU/" to every proper name then?
No, the system is still like that. It's all a self-perpetuating cycle.
How much money your parents make determines, in large part, what high school you go to,
What high school you go to determines what sorts of opportunities you have readily available, especially regarding college prep.
The quality of your college prep work in high school determines how likely you are to be accepted at a top tier university.
The perceived quality of the university you attend determines the job opportunities you will get after graduation. Compare the job fairs at Harvard or MIT versus the job fairs at your average state school.
The quality of the job opportunities you get goes a long way toward determining how much money you'll make in your lifetime.
How much money you make will determine what high school your kids go to.
And on and on and on. Yes, there is the occasional student that breaks this cycle, but it takes a whole lot more effort and quite a bit of luck to do that. Your parents' income is still by far the best indicator of your future earning potential.
To a certain extent; I'd extend the top school list down more, though. Like Vanderbilt is first-rate, has a strong alum network and great academic reputation nationwide (no, I didn't go there). USC probably not worth the money, even if you want to be the next Spielberg. SMU is way too expensive unless you're staying in Dallas and need to rely on the alumni network. I would not lump University of Phoenix together with even obscure state schools. I would always take the state school over UoP.
Used to be that way, but right now Tier 1 is meaningless. Now you'll probably get a job if you went to Harvard or Stanford, with Yale still probably ensuring you have a job. The legal market is bad to the point of surrealism.
What has amazed me is that while the population of graduating high school students have grown, the number of admission slots to the elite universities have remained relatively constant. So inevidently the process for getting one of those admission slots has become more selective. What I would like to see is someone create a new university or universities that compete with the Harvards, Princetons, and Yales of the world. Some additional effects would be to bring the cost of college down as there is more competition for students and to employ more PhDs who want to work in academia but are having a hard time finding a job due to the lack of new professorship opening up each year.
// Universities are supposed to be non-profit but I just had to throw in #4
1. Start elitist university..
2. Recruit lots of applications for students.
3. Reject 90% of them.
4. PROFIT.
.
What determines kids' destinies these days is how well they follow orders in high school; that is how high school grades are determined, which is how college admission is determined, which is how jobs are doled out. I know many people like myself: people who ignored their assignments in high school, and studied more interesting material. We all wound up getting poor grades, despite the fact that we were actually studying material that was more advanced than what we were supposed to be studying. The grades are not a reflection of a students' abilities. A student could ace every exam and get a D in a high school course. A student could be tutoring other students in a course, and get a D.
Basically, the system is designed to punish people who are too far from what is expected -- regardless of whether it is a case of being unable to keep up with the material, or being too advanced. Conformity is the name of the game, and anyone who fails to fall into a specific range of abilities is supposed to be weeded out. You can be intelligent, but you have to do what you are told, and if you are told to do something that is trivial and boring, that is just too bad.
High school basically exists to ensure that people will be ready to do as they are told, nothing more. The rest of the society is just looking at high school grades to ensure that the person they accept to college or offer a job to will perform as commanded, nothing more or less.
Palm trees and 8
To a certain extent; I'd extend the top school list down more, though. Like Vanderbilt is first-rate, has a strong alum network and great academic reputation nationwide (no, I didn't go there). USC probably not worth the money, even if you want to be the next Spielberg. SMU is way too expensive unless you're staying in Dallas and need to rely on the alumni network. I would not lump University of Phoenix together with even obscure state schools. I would always take the state school over UoP.
To add to the parent's point, there are tiers. There is the top tier populated with the Harvards and MITs. There is the second tier populated with good schools (both public and private). Going to one of these will look good on a resume but shouldn't make any recruiter drool. The third tier is populated with the safety schools of students who went to the first and second; you can still get a good education but it's not going to jump out on a resume. Fourth tier would have trade schools like University of Phoenix.
Disclaimer: I literally put these definitions together on the spot. Feel free to critique them but understand they are underdeveloped definitions.
So while Harvard, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and a handful of others are excellent, there's no point spending the money on a Vanderbilt, USC, or SMU when you can go to a state school or University of Phoenix.
I work in higher ed. I'd advise my own kids that if they don't end up at a really top school that a state school will do just fine. However, I'd certainly avoid them to avoid schools like the University of Phoenix. They're expensive, unremarkable, and poorly regarded.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
That depends on your specific situation I'd say. Better schools do provide a better education or at least don't assume you're a grade A moron. The professors and administrators also seem to either be better (ie: not a FOB Russian who can't speak English and assumes he's God just like in the good ol' soviet school system) or at least care more.
Most companies essentially require internships on resumes for technical positions and a good school would likely give you better ones. If you plan to do research instead or other such things than a good school would also give you more opportunities.
If you're doing CS, for example, and plan to go to the Bay Area than any good school will give you plenty of network opportunities no matter where it is.
Not all schools are created equal. Some are more equal than the others.
By the way, this is not what I would call selection.
MGU in my days had between 1% and under 0.1% pass rate. Even the rather 2nd rate by Eastern European standards Sofia State University to which I went had higher selectivity for some majors than the "scary" 5% listed here. IIRC Biotech had a sub-1% pass rate, same for law.
IMO there is nothing wrong here. That is what scores and exams are for. You perform well you get in a good school. You perform badly you get in a bad school or no school at all. Discrimination? Yes of course, however I am all for it. We need more such discrimination throughout society as it is a discrimination _AGAINST_ the stupid and the lazy.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
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In general, yes. Some other schools have more pull, especially if you're applying for a job within a few states. For instance, I'm in grad school for Economics and there are several very big multi-national corporations in my home city, and as such due to the research the professors / grad students do for the businesses in the area, you have more pull in getting a job with one of those companies.
For instance, when I was in high school applying for college and advisor told me that if I was planning on staying in the area, the nearby high reputation private school would be a good choice but if I was planning on leaving the area, then another much more nationally known university would be a better choice.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Apparently that ego is a problem for a lot of graduates these days, especially ones with a business degree. I've heard many hiring managers complain that a lot of these kids graduate and expect to be made a mid-to-high level manager right from the start instead of getting an entry position.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
You pick Berkeley engineering to make that point? You and your mods are morons.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I hardly think you'd consider an engineering degree from MIT equivalent to an engineering degree from UC Berkley - not knocking their program there, just saying that MIT's is better.
Actually, I would consider an engineering degree from MIT equivalent to an engineering degree from UC "Berkley". Or for that matter, any other engineering school ranked as one of the very best in the U.S. Certainly, MIT may have a stronger brand, and that counts for something. But on what factual basis would you say MIT's program is better than Berkeley's? Or Stanford's, or Cal Tech's, or ...?
After attending multiple top engineering schools, you realize the curriculum is roughly the same, the quality of teaching is roughly the same (ranges from abysmal to excellent; a product of a research-oriented university system), and the same goes for the student body. In grad school, I had a chance to interact with graduates from both schools, and there were both impressive students and underwhelming students in both camps. The distinction between the degrees is hardly as important (or as apparent) as the distinction between the individuals possessing those degrees.
I was going to say the same thing about the University of Phoenix. If I see a resume with that as the vendor of the degree (usually an MBA), it gets round filed immediately.
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress
I interviewed a recent grad from Dartmouth who informed me that he wasn't interested in any projects that were on a schedule or a budget. I told him that he should consider running for public office and he said he was an anarchist and didn't believe in organized government. So I suggested maybe using his own money to finance his own venture and he informed me that he didn't believe in capitalism. I really wanted to hire him simply to see if a few months in the real world would help him understand how life works, but I had other candidates who really wanted to work. I ended up hiring a person who didn't even have her degree yet and she did an excellent job. Colleges don't matter. People matter.
That isn't saying much, Harvard is not exactly known for having a great engineering department. Anyone who wants to be an engineer and has the cash to go to really expensive private school in Boston is going to choose MIT.
Amusingly, I once worked at a company that refused to hire recent graduates from a certain local selective university because they found the graduates to be too egotistical to handle the kind of low profile work that is usually given to new hires with essentially no experience. That is not to say that there were not a lot of very sharp students coming out of that university. They just too often had a superiority complex for a while after they graduated.
On the flip side, I went to a top tier school and found that many people have an inferiority complex after they see what university I went to.
Of those who students who ended up not attending Stanford, how many of them also applied at Brown? Maybe the best students are applying at all of the good schools so they have more choices as to where they end up. If all students applied to approximately 10 schools each, the low admission rates would be correct and expected.
"...there's maybe a half dozen universities whose name carries "weight". If it's not an Ivy League caliber school (and not even all of them), nobody gives a rat WHAT school you went to. nobody, but NOBODY cares if University "x" has a more exclusive student body than University "y". Mostly they don't care because they don't know...and they don't know because they don't care. There are a few exceptions for schools that are particularly well known for a given discipline, but mostly a degree is a degree is a degree...unless it's from University of Phoenix, then it's trash." - by RapmasterT (787426) on Friday November 05, @04:32PM (#34141388)
Man, you're largely correct... from my viewpoint at least (to an extent only though - school DOES help and it teaches you things that help you avoid mistakes you'd make without the "tips/tricks/techniques" & "patterns of thought" it helps develop).
You are correct though, that degrees can be "just merely paper"!
Especially IF you're really "not into" what you're going to school for... to myself, I will tell any person planning to attend a college, be SURE you like what you're getting into, or you will NOT be any good at it.
You're also QUITE correct that not many folks give a damn WHERE you went to school (this is a common theme I see here and it's QUITE accurate, especially for guys that have many yrs. under their belts in their fields), because it ALL really comes down to the TECHNICAL interviews (mostly, as well as if the folks like you personally too which the other parts of interviews do initially @ least).
I told my nephew (who is @ RIT now, one of the better schools in the N. East U.S. in fact for CSC & technology that's pretty outrageously overpriced imo), nearly constantly while he was in his teens "Who do you admire, and who do you respect in this life and who do you want to be like, and what do you like to do?" I felt that was the best question I could ask... lol, he went CIS/MIS with a specialization in Computer Forensics & Security. He's in his 3rd yr. of 4 now too (hard to believe, time flies).
Anyhow: Yes, I too got "roped into it" myself on a B.S. in Business Administration with an MIS concentration, which put me a GOOD $17,000 U.S. Dollars "in the hole" back in the late 1980's (today's dollars? That'd be a LOAD more - like double I would guess offhand)...
Heh, man - Once I got rid of that debt after 10++ yrs.? Man - it felt like a battleship anchor got pulled off my neck, & I could "financially breathe" again, @ last... that I felt was the 1st hurdle to achieve, alongside getting work experiences.
So, anyhow/anyways - @ first?
The Business/MIS degree really didn't DO ME A HELL OF A LOT OF GOOD (well, better than working in a temp service or as a laborer I suppose, this is certain)
It's just that initially, I ended up grabbing anything I could because of the debt payout starting 6 months after I graduated (like anyone else I suppose), so I ended up as a retail manager for a few years (loss prevention) & I actually did VERY well @ it (e.g. - I led a HUGE chain of 218 KMart stores in it).
However, the money?
Talk about "not there", & I lived, well... less than wealthy, put it that way!
(Ugh, I do NOT even like recalling that time in my life in fact but I suppose we all go through those times.)
One day though, one of my colleagues is telling me about how C/C++ were "up & coming" more than ever, around 1989, & I thought:
"Man, I have to admit: I do really respect folks that know their way around computers, & not just at the levels I do on the job using apps & doing analysis for the programmers - they're the guys who really REALLY have my respect!"
So, back to school I went again in 1992, for CSC, for more current architectures such as Client-Server designs and more than the COBOL, & BASIC languages I was using @ school on the MIS degree track (however, ONLY after saving "a few coins" & for a few ye
Coming in #2 only to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
To be fair, your parents' income is almost certainly proportional to their intelligence. And while there are outliers, and the trait regresses to the mean, your parents' intelligence is a pretty fair predictor of your own.
That, and it takes a long, long time to climb up out of the bottom of society. Count on at least three dedicated generations to go from the working class to the upper middle class. There is an enormous amount of human capital embodied in upper-middle-class society, and getting yourself and your family there takes a lot of work and a long time.
Actually, doing something really unique in high school and having average grades is a far safer course for getting into a selective school. In the good grades crowd, you're competing with 31,500 of the 32,000. If you've done something unique, you're only competing with the last 500. And the 7K slots are usually allocated 6500 for grades, 500 for unique.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think there's maybe an exception for known bottom of the bucket schools too. I mean, University of Phoenix is no 'any real college'.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
A college is a name and a reputation. That's it.
With that name comes the assumption that they have a rigorous process for hiring a certain quality of educator. That they have a Dean who makes sure the professors he hires tomorrow turn out students that are at least as well educated as the professors that teach there today.
A college degree is the reputation of that school backing your assertion that you are educated. Again, that's it.
Things like the number of applicants, the percentage of applications accepted, minimum GPAs, the percent graduated, right or wrong all those attributes weigh in to how people perceive the school and its graduates. The schools hope these add to their reputations, which in turn makes their degrees more valuable, which in turn means they can charge higher tuition.
John
Comparing a mid-tier to a state school is legit. But to University of Phoenix? Hell, why not compare it to Devry? The university of phoenix is a diploma mill, not a school.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I have a huge ego. But I also don't mind mopping floors. The two aren't really in conflict. It's more a question of diligence, I think, than it is of ego.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
What did you expect? This is the millennial generation, the so called "trophy kids", who grew up being told constantly by their parents and teachers how special and important they were and how they could do anything. The parents and educators have decided to leave it up to future employers to take these kids down a notch or two when it's time to live in the "real world". After all, someone has to tell these kids, "No, you are not worth that much" and they will learn this lesson soon enough in the cutthroat real world of globalization and bare knuckle business.
The problem is that research, even research done by those certified by top universities as intelligent, suggests that intelligence is better predicted by training than by genetics.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
> On the flip side, I went to a top tier school and found that many people have an inferiority complex after they see what university I went to.
It's interesting socially. A higher-tier school gives you a leg up in some conversations and a leg down in others. Lower-tier-school students have to show they work hard or do interesting things, while higher-tier-students have to show they're not a stereotypical gifted-but-selfish brat; they start with different sets of expectations. The more you know about the schools, the more specific the expectations become. (Yale gets the most brilliant intellectuals, for example, while Harvard gets the absurdly productive. You expect a Yale student to be smarter, but more laid back and intuitive. You expect a Harvard student to publish more.)
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
No such thing as an unemployed attorney? Sure there is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103000211.html/
And that should be considered a serious problem, because even high school students who do take their high school education seriously are adversely affected by how not seriously everyone around them takes it. And that factor is affected generally by how rich and/or white your neighborhood is.
In addition to that, high school students who take their education seriously are affected adversely by teachers who don't. There are many high school teachers who have an unjustifiably low opinion of their students. They're convinced that high school students are mindless dummies who are capable of no intelligent activity beyond regurgitating information - and acting on this theory, they eliminate any element of actual teaching/learning from their course material in favor of a "here is information, you must memorize, you must pass test" approach. That, in turn, interferes with the education of the students who actually do care. These are often the same teachers that demand complete respect from students while giving none in return. They don't realize that they don't even deserve respect. From my experience and observations, most high school teachers are not like this, but the above profile does describe a minority significant enough to interfere with the quality of education. And that's not even taking into consideration the teachers (at least in the US) who base their curricula on the contents of horribly inadequate state-administered tests.
I've heard this many times, but you shouldn't necessarily feel like you have to do that. Plenty of people attend schools like Phoenix and actually learn things there. It's just that the perception of them is bad, and so many people respond to resumes with those schools on them the way you do, so I advise students to steer clear of them anyway.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
That Dartmouth grad sounds like a colossal prick, just the sort that you might expect to come out of some east-coast old money family living off trust funds and completely detached from the real world. It would be really fun to see someone like that thrown out on the street and left to his own intellect and wits to survive. Of course, his family would never allow that sort of "education" to actually happen; hell of shame. It's cases like this that demonstrate to all who can see the dangers of massive inherited wealth. Where is Bernard Madoff when you need him? There are still fools out there who desperately need to be separated from their money.
A tier 1 college (as per US News and World Report) will get one hired essentially anywhere... (T)here is no such thing as an unemployed attorney unless they get disbarred.
This would be really good news for me if it were actually true. Honors Tier 1 grad, like 16 months since I passed the bar in the state where the school is located, still no work. Have the resume entries and professional references to boot- after all, I'm an actual adult previously shown to be capable of handling associate work hours, social drinking, business development, etc. Maybe there's something wrong with me that absolutely everyone on the planet is too polite to acknowledge.
That, or you can graduate at exactly the wrong time and there's no accuracy to your observations.
Of all the problems with the University system in the US, why bring this up?
UCLA gets the most applicants? UCLA is the largest state college in the most populous state in the country. Hardly shocking that it gets a lot of applicants.
How about we talk about the problems with recruiting kids into dead-end majors, the lack of practical training, the idea that even an exhaustive college education isn't sufficient (post-doc anyone?), the student-as-labor model of research or absurdly high administrator salaries?
I went to a brand-name school myself. But does it really confer an advantage? It seems to confer as much jealousy as opportunity. There are employers that shun graduates of overly prestigious schools, because they assume the graduates are "overqualified" or won't fit into the company. There are bosses that enjoy making a show of setting up a _____ graduate for failure. And I've known plenty of graduates of famous schools that were unemployed or otherwise unsuccessful. I've read articles that say 90% of Harvard MBAs are unsuccessful in their careers.
The designation of schools as "first tier" or "second tier" is largely meaningless at the graduate level. What matters is the reputation of particular departments, particular professors. In my field (biostatistics), there are schools that are not famous as a whole, but have outstanding departments (U. of Washington); and vice versa, famous schools with small and/or terrible biostat departments (Yale, Berkeley, UCLA).
Also, graduates of prestigious schools are burdened with an expectation that they will travel to London, Dubai, wherever, to pursue a high-profile career. What's wrong with living life as a well-adjusted local person, rooted in a particular city? A graduate of a prestigious school who chooses to put roots down in a given city will face ostracism from locals, plus sneers from their own school's alumni.
(50% Overrated)
(50% Troll)
I suggest something that puts the focus on the education, and get bombed for it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
As someone who went to Mudd 20-cough years ago, I've found it works well, when seeking employment, as the best school no-one's heard of. Sure everyone and their dog knows MIT and Caltech, but if your interviewer knows Mudd, it's a good sign of a with-it interviewer and a truly tech- (or engineereing- or science-) savvy, non-WTF company. Their self-deprecation pretty much fits this image; underneath it they absolutely know they're elite.
That's what makes a college great. The exclusivity of any university is judged primarily by the amount of students it rejects.
- Dean Van Horne, Accepted(2006)
That's obviously what these schools are thinking, and they're eager to show off all the geniuses they had to reject this year. How else would we know that they are fancy and important?
Fuck 'em. Exclusivity is one thing, but it's entirely another to brag about how many dreams you crushed this year.
I think it would be better to say "top or bottom" schools. I would say avoid the unaccredited programs like the plague, because the quality of education really is often quite a bit lower there.
Moreover, having spent the last 25 years in the academic world, I'm not so sure about the "superior" quality of the undergraduate education at even the top schools. I doubt very much that you could tell a Harvard grad from a SMU grad in any meaningful way. Where the Stanford-Princeton-MIT-types really shine is in two areas: their graduate schools and in their professional networks. A Harvard degree isn't so much a better undergraduate education as a place to meet the future movers-and-shakers in the business world.
Yes, there is such a thing as an unemployed attorney. At least one of my classmates has been laid off and was unemployed for a while before finding another job.
Also, Tier 1 will not get you hired anywhere. If you went to one of the top 25 law schools in the country, yes, you're very employable. If you were in the top 10% of your class at any other Tier 1, you're also very employable. The bottom 90% will have a much tougher go of it.
Sent from my iPhone
My friend's father, who works for NASA, held this attitude toward MIT graduates. He wouldn't hire them because he found them too lacking in social skills. While they were technically competent, they had trouble working in teams and integrating with the rest of the group.
There are probably a few other tiers in there (and some that are not directly comparable to others). For instance you have the top tier schools, the second tier along with the "public Ivies" of Michigan, Berkley, UNC, UVA, etc. then you have your midrange private schools and midrange flagship universities (Texas A&M, the weaker Big 10, PAC 10, or Big 12 schools). Then you have the low end flagship schools - a lot of SEC schools, some of the better directional state universities, etc. Then you have your lower tier state schools and community colleges. There are private schools that are also at most of these levels as well, but few outside of their states have heard of them. Then we have the schools that don't fit in the regular tiers - liberal arts schools like Middlebury, engineering schools like VaTech, NC State, RIT, RPI, etc. which may be a tier below in most areas but are upper tiers in engineering, and I would even include Historically Black colleges whose endowments traditionally are much weaker than their traditions would warrant. For what it is worth, the American Math Society groups by mission and prestige - 4 levels of doctoral schools, masters, bachelors, or associate.
UoP isn't a state school. It is a for-profit company. The name throws a lot of people.
THL phish sticks
s/out on the street/wood chipper/
THL phish sticks
I know this is slashdot, where socialization in highschool was a solo activity, and that may make you a bit bitter about your highschool days. But the further I get from highschool the more I realize how important the social skills I developed actually are. From college, to gradschool, to the office, every social environment has been the same.
I know we all value intelligence here, but nothing will limit your potential more than if you're socially awkward.
Oh, and those douchebags who used to pick on you in highschool? The "cool" kids? They're not flipping burgers for a living. They went to college, joined a frat, got a business degree, and are now your managers.
Spend a year working in the K-12 world, and you'll feel the same way the teachers do.
THL phish sticks
Maybe he just didn't want to work (for you or at all), and threw the interview on purpose, only having gone to it to keep his parents off his case.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
This is getting ridiculous!
High school seniors are now being encouraged to submit applications to at least 8-10 colleges, since the acceptance rates have been going down. The acceptance rates have gone down since the colleges are getting more applications. Where will this end?
Colleges have the unenviable task of trying to figure out how many of the applying students to admit, while trying to factor in how many of those will actually accept. Many of those students may not really want to attend there, but applied there out of fear of not getting in their first choice college. The ones getting rejected may actually want to go to that college, but are shut out due to the sheer numbers of other applications. The lucky ones may end up on a wait list, but being in limbo like that is hell.
Some college applications actually ask how many other colleges (and sometimes ask for names too) are being applied to by the student.
Perhaps they will start asking them to rank them too.
Noone was stopping you from doing both...
Then why do other countries have so much more social mobility than countries like the US and UK with elitist education systems? I'm sure I've read that poor kids with lesser grades in high school perform better in university than privately-schooled kids with better grades.
I'm afraid your conclusion regarding the cool kids was not quite right.
Occasionally, I get some juicy info from friends back home who explain me to me all the interesting things the "cool" kids are doing. Most of them turned out to be worthless or at least move on to mediocre positions. While I'm unsure of what the success rate in other areas might happen to be I can certain say that not many of them scored to high on the career chart. I'm applying the definition of cool kid rather liberally here because there were so many social niches in hs that there was little possibility of dominance by any one group.
Also, I tend to find the frat guys tend to veer towards the fluff sales jobs. Ya know, the guys who have to take me out and entertain me so that I might consider reviewing their products for purchase.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I'm sure I've read that poor kids with lesser grades in high school perform better in university than privately-schooled kids with better grades.
I'm not sure what you mean by this sentence. I'm sure that the occasional poor kid outshines the rich ones (hell, that's me), but it's hardly the case that the nation's great minds lie mostly in the ghetto.
"This is the millennial generation, the so called "trophy kids""
This is nothing new or unique to this generation, it's called the "inexperience of youth", it's been going on for millenia and old farts like you and me have been complaining about it since the dead sea was just not felling very well.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." - Socrates
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"To be fair, your parents' income is almost certainly proportional to their intelligence."
Ahhhahahah hohoh hehehe, stop it your killing me.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
>> a state school or University of Phoenix Except that I don't know anyone who hires that takes the University of Phoenix seriously...
Having your destiny set by your high school grades is a marginal improvement on the current system which is:
Having your destiny set by how much money your parents make.
My parents didn't make much money. My mom was a homemaker and my dad drove a truck. There were several times in my childhood when we were on food stamps and other times had to visit food banks so that we didn't starve.
I was a marginal high school student, and went to a crappy state school which I dropped out of after three years because I felt I'd learned everything useful from that school's CS program. I wound up moving 800 miles away to a big city and bluffed my way into a job because I was able to absorb enough of the desired programming language to pass the interview. Within 6 months I'd made myself invaluable enough that they doubled my salary (breaking six figures) when I decided to leave. Since I was naive, I stayed for another 3 months but then decided to go anyhow. That was over a decade ago. I've done pretty darned well ever since (still over six figures in my salary).
Don't let your starting position be a cop-out for lack of motivation.
Sounds just like the École schools in France. http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1292
"I know many people like myself: people who ignored their assignments in high school, and studied more interesting material. We all wound up getting poor grades, despite the fact that we were actually studying material that was more advanced than what we were supposed to be studying."
Yeah right, you got poor grades on the test because you were too intelligent to do your homework and too advanced to be bothered learning the basics. Sure lots of people teach themselves but when they do very few of them realise that their teacher is just as ignorant as their student.
"High school basically exists to ensure that people will be ready to do as they are told, nothing more."
Yes, you're told to learn and you're told to get along with your peers, would you employ an arrogant missfit who can't cheerfully follow simple instructions?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Being an old fart, I subscribe to the notion that a college degree should require at least the IQ of an elementary school teacher.
Back in the day, this meant an IQ of 115 - 1 standard deviation above the average.
In other words, only 30% of the population were potential college material.
Last year 70% of US High School grads started a 4 yr degree. Roughly equivalent to an IQ one standard deviation below the average (i.e. 85 points).
An IQ of 80 used to be regarded as borderline retarded. What value is a university degree in this context?
Yeah, yeah, IQ doesn't mean anything, yada, yada: but whatever something a college degree measures, 70% of the population is well below the average for that something.
The better schools are those that stick to the "+1sd" yardstick (whatever the underlying measure). Their application/acceptance ratio can't help being >> 70/30
Oh please, stop rubbing it in that YOU got laid in high school.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I know. The post I replied to was comparing schools like USC and SMU to a state school or Univeristy of Phoenix. The first is more or less valid. The second isn't- Phoenix isn't a legit school.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Yeah right, you got poor grades on the test because you were too intelligent to do your homework and too advanced to be bothered learning the basics. Sure lots of people teach themselves but when they do very few of them realise that their teacher is just as ignorant as their student.
I did not get poor grades on tests, I consistently got very high grades on tests. I received poor overall grades in courses, because the grades high school students receive are only partially determined by their grades on tests.
Here, I'll put it this way for you: if a student is acing his exams, but not turning in homework assignments, what sort of grade should that student receive in the course? The way things are now, that student is looking at something in the C or D range.
Palm trees and 8
Agreed,
I'm 26, and still stay in touch with a couple people from High School, hear about a couple more every once in a while.
Most of the 'cool kids' ended up pretty average. Middle Management or equivalent, spouse\kids.
Most of the nerd kids (I.E. my friends) either ended up at rock-bottom, currently unemployed or may as well be - Or they shot straight up with a Science-related degree and great job (but few with a spouse o.o).
It's interesting to me to really think about it, because I never really had before.
When they do the regressions, it turns out the schools you got turned down from were the biggest factor on career success, far more than where you actually attend.
All the studies I've seen have been that students accepted to "more prestigious" schools that matriculated elsewhere did as well in life as those who enrolled at the top-tier schools. I have a hard time believing that someone denied by Harvard among others and only accepted by no-name-state-college does as well in life as someone who was accepted at, say, an Ivy, much less as well as someone who attended such a school.
Socrates was a pretty wise man. Perhaps he had a point?
What is ironic is when I graduated college in '08, it was stated repeatedly that the path for a computer science student to have a chance at steady employment was to go into law school. Then either specialize in IP law or work as an assistant DA for computer crime.
I appreciate the good replies to this. I have been enlightened here.
generally by how rich and/or white your neighborhood is.
It's not rich and/or white. It's how motivated and involved (but not to involved) parents are. To rich and the parents tend to become detached - they expect little Johnny and Suzie to ride on mommy's and daddy's coattails. To poor and they don't know how to set a solid example for the kids. Thus the ideal neighborhood is upper middle class - successful enough to know what to strive for but still leading by example. When you're buying a house to raise your kids, buy in this type of area. The "good" kids will do good no matter where they grow up. The "bad" kids will do bad. But the average kid will rise or fall to the level allowed by his/her peers - and the level in the upper middle class (but not rich) areas will push the kids higher than other areas due to the peer pressure that filters down from parents.
Or that is what some want us to think. High schools are using the same trick of exclusivity. The 'prestigious' schools get tons of applications, and then they can say that 90% of applicants are turned away. That way it seems they get the best of the best, when the real case is that kids have other concerns when looking for a high school, and maybe only 20% of those that apply seriously considered attending. I know middle schools where kids are required to apply to several high schools in the area
A better metric is the percentage of students that were accepted who decided to go to another school. Or the number of students who were accepted who had offers from other schools. Rejection is no better a metric than the number of kids who fail out the first year.
Ultimately schools should want the best of whomever has decided that a college education is right for them. Increasingly, unfortunately, schools are targeting kids who have no interest in college, who already know enough and smart enough to do what they want to do. This leads to motivated students having to deal with less motivated and intersting students, and wasted resources.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I have seen exactly what engineers come out like from any university, they are all pretty useless and require substantial on the job training to become useful. This raises another issue the cost of on the job training and which employees are you most likely to retain, fancy university students desperate to recover their enormous education investment or local community college students with a substantially smaller investment and keeping in mind those community colleges are often very tightly tied to local industry and more accurately filling industry needs.
Rather than 'hmm' generating profit for the university, bloating university management wages, winning sporting events that have nothing to do with a quality education, giving passing grades to the spawn of rich and greedy (the rich and ugly psychopaths that marry pretty but stupid narcissists) to pay for new buildings and scholarships for the few actually good students the university brags about.
I wonder how the applications numbers would stack up if students had to pay for them, so that rather than applying to every university in creation they only applied to the ones they wanted to attend in reality and were likely to gain admittance too. It would be interesting to see if all university exams where do upon a federal standard basis with pass of fails locked into federally averaged curve, how many business universities for the rich and stupid would end up with a 100 percent fail class.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Well, Socrates was right - his culture was decaying. Maybe he was right to point that out and complain?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
They're modern nobility. Just mentally substitute "Count" or "Baron" in front of their names whenever you see them, you'll get the idea. Just think how much they'd love it if they were actual nobility from Europe and people had to bow and curtsy before them.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Which begs the question "what is intelligence?"
I don't think I'd care about which university someone came from, but it is important to me that someone completes university. While I know that there are lots of people who are talented and self-disciplined enough to know their stuff, a university degree tells me two things as an employer: first, that they can at least hold it together for three or four years, and second, that they have been exposed to different ideas from different fields.
...and for profit companies really don't care how you do there, or if you complete the program. They still have your money. That is the real rub with some of these schools. The completion rates for the programs are often very low. If all you get out of it is a massive pile of debt, you haven't improved your situation one iota.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
"Here, I'll put it this way for you: if a student is acing his exams, but not turning in homework assignments, what sort of grade should that student receive in the course? The way things are now, that student is looking at something in the C or D range."
As someone who many moons ago taught at university level I'd say a C or D is mildly generous for someone who only completed half the set work. The course requirments are not hidden, you are told upfront what assignments and tests are worth. You simply chose to throw half those extra grades away. You may very well be intelligent but intentionally handicapping your grade is not intelligent behaviour, nor is it the school's fault you chose to do so.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
When did grades stop being a measure of a student's understanding of the material? When did grades become a commodity that can be thrown away? If a student is goofing off and not bothering to learn the material, the student should get a low grade. If the student understands the material and can demonstrate that they understand the material, the student should get a high grade. Why should anything else make a difference?
My original point was simple: high school does not exist to educate students in the particular areas they take courses in. High school exists to train teenagers to follow instructions and do what those who have power over them tell them to do. If a student can "throw away half those grades" by failing to do assigned work, without any regard for whether or not the student actually learned the material, then how is what I am saying untrue?
Palm trees and 8
This is why I almost went to Samford University in Alabama. If you say it fast enough it sounds like Stanford.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
I can't recall the stats exactly, and it's for British universities, but the general gist was that state-educated students generally got the best results (but they were also more likely to drop out). The thing about private schools is that they coach mediocre rich kids to look smarter than they really are.
There's a big market for private tutors, hired by rich parents desperate not to waste the tens of thousands they spent on private school fees, so they pay again to hothouse their kids into Oxford or wherever. Once they get there, they're usually outperformed by poor kids from normal schools who had to actually work to get there.
Nobody but nobody has ever asked me for my degree or where I went to college or even if I did go to college. I've invented, started and run four very successful businesses and the college degree wasn't necessary. Don't waste your money or time on it.
I have heard things that are even stranger. Some top state schools are supposedly not accepting students who are too qualified.
They figure that the student is using them as a backup school. By rejecting these students, they can increase their selectivity ranking, making themselves more prestigious. Buyer beware, or for you Ivy Leaguers Caveat Emptor.
Sock puppet much? Three separate downmods for pointing out that a guy who doesn't even know the difference between your and you're might not be as sharp as he thinks he is? Christ, I get tired of this shit.
"If the student understands the material and can demonstrate that they understand the material"
Assignments are such a demonstration, you failed to demonstrate that you could do them. "how is what I am saying untrue?"
It's not about truth, you have a problem with following VALID instructions and it's going to be a millstone around your neck until you realise that following VALID instructions is just another inconvienient fact of life.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.