Well students at your school must be extremely smart or those tests weren't difficult enough.
Are classes at higher-tier UG schools more difficult than lower-tier UGs?
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Well students at your school must be extremely smart or those tests weren't difficult enough.
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Just speaking from my experience in case someone wants to jump at me:
For the sciences/math, the lectures are more fast-paced and the homework/test problems require more deep thought. You're also competing against some incredibly intelligent people who may have won prizes at international science or math competitions. Labs are more involved, and your hand isn't held nearly as much. For the humanities and social sciences, writing is graded more harshly, questions are more thought-provoking, and it's not as easy to BS. In all subjects, you're rarely able to simply regurgitate information that you heard in class or read in the textbook, in contrast to most of the classes at the state school I studied at. You have to have a deep understanding instead of just having things memorized. That's not for all cases, however. I've had a few easy As at my high-tiered school too, though they're much rarer.
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I don't see how grading on a curve means that either of those two are true. Grading strictly on a curve is sheer laziness. The utility of exams as an assessment is absolutely lost if the only point of the exam is to see how well person A does relative to person B.
(sent from my phone - please forgive typos and brevity)
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Agreed. There was never a "curve" in my undergraduate coursework. In fact, every professor I ever had specifically stated in the syllabus that there would be no curve. You got the grade you earned based on the syllabus. As I recall, pretty much every post-exam discussion revealed that the exam generated a standard bell curve (which indicates what you'd expect from a professor who made an exam that reflected the assigned material). If a professor writes an exam where a massive curve is needed to produce solid grades, the professor is doing something wrong (statistically speaking). In a class of 60, we'd have 2-3 As, more Bs, a lot of Cs, etc. The only courses where I recall massive casualties were obvious gatekeeper courses. Typically at my undergraduate institution, 100 first year students will declare biology as their major, and about 20 of them will graduate with their degree in biology within 4 years (8 semesters). This tells you that sub-standard students aren't simply skating through the program on good looks and luck.
I have to say, I really enjoyed this system. One of the problems with "the curve" is that when you grade students based on the work of others in the class, it's not possible for every student to earn an 'A'. While this motivates some to work harder, it demoralizes others (and rightfully so!). Philosophically, I have big problems with such a system (many professors have written extensively on the topic of curves, so I don't see any reason to go into it further here). Speaking for myself, I appreciated knowing that if I worked hard and submitted my best work, I'd be fine.
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Well, I think everyone on here knows you are very smart (you do go to Chicago med). I think you'd be able to get good grades at any undergrad so I don't know how valid your argument is. I know many people from my high school that have passed up chances at a top 25 school to go to a school that gave them more money or they got into the honors program there.
They are very smart but they chose to be the few people to go to a mid tier or lower school. Everyone at schools like Harvard and MIT are smart. The level of competition is insane and the professors have amazing backgrounds. It's ridiculous to think that an A at a mid tier school is the same as an A from a top school. Big fish-little pond vs Little fish-big pond.
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Similar to colleges having courses with an easy professor (first class to be closed during registration) and a hard professor (always open, people avoid taking), it is like this when comparing to other colleges. However, top tier schools are wayyyy harder not only because they tend to have tougher professors, but also because of competition.
For example, if a professor taught physics at Princeton and gave out an exam, odds are that the exam average would be a 70/100 because most students there are cream of the crop,
In comparison with a state school, if the same teacher gave out an exam, it would have an average of 50/100 or maybe even lower. You would have an easier time at the state school because averages for exams would be lower. Not saying that there wouldn't be any smart kids at the state school because someone could easily have scored a 100 in the state school, but other students could have easily received 0's as well. This is why colleges are more difficult in top selective schools.
Top schools tend to also curve harshly! for example, my Bio teacher in Boston College told our class that she curves to a C+ and that receiving a C+ was actually very good -_- . Top schools also take more classes. For example, a lot of college require only 4 courses 12-14 credits while Boston College premeds have to take 16 credits 5 classes and 2 labs a semester.
For example, if a professor taught physics at Princeton and gave out an exam, odds are that the exam average would be a 70/100 because most students there are cream of the crop,
In comparison with a state school, if the same teacher gave out an exam, it would have an average of 50/100 or maybe even lower. You would have an easier time at the state school because averages for exams would be lower. Not saying that there wouldn't be any smart kids at the state school because someone could easily have scored a 100 in the state school, but other students could have easily received 0's as well. This is why colleges are more difficult in top selective schools.
Top schools tend to also curve harshly! for example, my Bio teacher in Boston College told our class that she curves to a C+ and that receiving a C+ was actually very good -_- . Top schools also take more classes. For example, a lot of college require only 4 courses 12-14 credits while Boston College premeds have to take 16 credits 5 classes and 2 labs a semester.
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I've taken classes at an Ivy league school, as well as at my state school. The state school classes were actually MUCH more difficult, because they were not curved, and the material was the same. You want an A? Get a 93%. No one got a 93% that semester? No one got an A. At the Ivy where I took classes, there was a somewhat generous curve for every single class that I took (needed about an 87% for an A, 84% for an A-).
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It depends on the professor too.
Also keep in mind that Ivy Leagues are notorious for grade inflation.
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You could, you know.
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Maybe a 100% on the exam is a true test of their abilities. You're simply assuming that it's not.
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I think what they meant was: If 30% of the class scores above a 90%, how can we tell who actually knows the material and who doesn't?
If we have a spread of one person with an 87, a couple with low 80's, a bunch in the 70's, and most in the 60's and 50's, then we really know how much mastery each person has on the subject. A wider spread is the object of a curve, not laziness.
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Even with grade inflation, my GPA at the Ivy I go to is a good bit lower than what I had at my state school. (And much of the reason for that lower GPA is because I thought the studying habits I had at the state school would also work at the Ivy. I learned otherwise the hard way.) Basically, it's generally harder to totally fail, but it's also much harder to be a 4.0 student (or close to it). Grade inflation doesn't necessarily mean easier.
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Sounds like you went to Harvard, Yale, or Dartmouth.
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If you want to think that actually matters, go right ahead. For the purposes of medical admissions, any imaginary differences are all but meaningless.
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As the professor, you know what you want your students to learn and what's less important. The underlying flaw of exams written intentionally to be curved is that they're so insanely difficult that their purpose isn't to be a test of your knowledge any longer. It becomes a silly competition designed to parse students out with "high resolution" by testing stupidly unimportant details and/or testing at a level that is beyond what students of the course would be reasonably expected to learn for no other reason other than the professor's amusement. Surely you don't believe that if half of a class scores As in an art history class because they learned the material the professor wanted them to learn that the tests were too easy? Why is this no longer true for a "hard science class?"
It's possible to write an exam that tests your knowledge as a student. How someone else in the class did on an exam has absolutely no bearing on whether or not YOU have mastered the content of the course and, thus, how you perform on an exam. In ochem, if you understand a reaction mechanism, you understand a reaction mechanism. Why does it matter how well Johnny, who sits next to me, knows the mechanism with respect to my performance on an exam?
Curved and standardized exams are nice for comparing a group of individuals. Whether or not they effectively test your knowledge of the material isn't assured by virtue of the fact that it's "hard" and curved.
Actually, comparative assessment defines the utility of an exam.
That's just a cop out. It's like saying: "Sure, your classes may be harder, but it doesn't matter when it comes to admission."--which is probably true.
Although, I think it should. Med Schools have a high standard for pretty much everyone.
Also as a side note, I see you went to Baylor. I'm from Texas so I am reasonable familiar with the type of students who go there and practically none of them were the top students---by a long shot.
The top 10 people from my high school went to Yale, UT and Texas A&M mostly. In fact, the people who went to Baylor weren't even in the top 10% of my random public high school.
Do you actually think that a school full of people like this would be as rigorous and difficult as a school full of people who were in the top of their classes?
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See my post above. In my view, the purpose of an exam is to test whether or not you learned the material. I still don't understand how it is that how well person A scores on an exam impacts how well person B scores on an exam. How is "comparative assessment" the purpose of the exam? If you (as a professor) write an exam that tests all of the concepts that you think are important/you taught over the course of the time period being tested, why does it matter how anyone else in the course does when it comes to an individual's grade?
It would seem that you see a fundamentally different purpose for exams. I see them as assessing your ability to master the material. You seem to see them primarily as a tool for comparing a group of people and dividing them up into performance tiers. It's possible to do both with one exam, but doing the latter doesn't require that you do the former.
Your view is wrong.
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Maybe, maybe not - I have my very limited experience, and based on that experience the difficulty has been comparable. I only went to one undergrad, and that's all I can base it off of.
The point still stands, though, that with the exception of people masturbating to the trials and tribulations of THEIR school experience, this whole discussion of relative difficulty is, for the purposes of medical admissions, meaningless.
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Ah, ok. Well who am I to question you and your Yale experience. I bow to your superior intellect.
As long as you acknowledge it.
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Expected a more convincing argument from someone called dbate
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It's misspelled; should be dbait.
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His view is worse than wrong. Even if it was correct, it wouldn't be interesting. Curved tests are more fair, and still assess "mastery of the material". Uncurved tests may not be fair to the top students, who still make mistakes, and worse, fail to challenge them to learn in depth.
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For my mid-tier undergrad, there was a significant difference between honors and regular classes. Honors classes moved faster and had harder problem sets (but sometimes weren't required to hand in for grading). The difficulty of the class was well compensated for by the exams though. Usually, questions were open ended and there was room for a ton of partial credit. Profs were definitely more generous with grades -- most people got As, some Bs, and almost no one got Cs or lower unless they just didn't put the work in. It was easier to get As in my honors classes than regular classes. But with that said, I'm sure if I went to MIT, I would have gotten destroyed.
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If you read enough of his posts, you won't have such high expectations any longer.
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Lots of classes if the mean is 75 or higher.
Plus a lot of curves are curved up instead of cutthroat style aka the pathetic version
Its always nice to hear from a follower!
I'm not going to waste time and effort arguing with someone on an internet forum. I have a real life.
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This forum never ceases to amaze me.
The prevailing wisdom seems to be that you put yourself at a disadvantage by not cheating, and that no one can take an incredibly hard test (and get a great score) without a curve.
Newsflash: there are plenty of people in life who do superbly well without cheating, and who need no curve (even on the hardest of exams) to do astoundingly well on exams. Yes, I attended a no-name state school. I'm a non-traditional student, and it was (for all intents and purposes) the only choice available.
Put me in any pre-med core course in a top tier school. Give me lecture access, a textbook, and I'll guarantee you I'll come out of there with the same 4.0gpa that I just graduated with from my unranked state school without cheating, and without a curve.
I understand that certain universities confer a certain je ne sais quoi upon their students and graduates. But I have a serious problem with students at these institutions deciding that somehow they "know more" or their grade "means more" than mine. Last I checked, calculus and chemistry don't magically change at Harvard.
The internet has really broken down a lot of barriers in this regard. With the magic of open courseware, it is indeed possible for anyone to take MIT courses (as well as an ever-expanding catalog of similar opportunities at other big name universities) and see where they measure up. It also means that research opportunities that were once housed at single institutions can now draw participants from across the country. WUSTL's Genomics Education Partnership is a fantastic example of this.
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Curved classes produce meaningful grades. If your school does not curve, in my opinion, those grades do have less meaning. The material is the same at your school and at Harvard, but if an unlimited number of students can get A's it is impossible to decipher who actually knows the material. As a result, you getting a 4.0 at your school gives me no information. You could get a 4.0 at Harvard just as easily as flunk out.
I 100% guarantee that this would not be the case. In my class of 1,300 people only 12 have 4.0s. So unless you are the top 1% of the population of Yale students, I doubt you would have a 4.0.
Newsflash: When test averages are in the 60s, for some of the brightest people in the country, then I don't think the level of difficulty of state school tests are on par.
I have a problem with people who don't acknowledge that the work people do at another institution is more difficult than their own. Perhaps it is a matter of pride or some latent notion of inferiority, but it is simply the case that it is harder to earn an A at a top school than it is at a state school. Point blank.
I will readily admit that the difficulty of course work varies between schools. When I used MIT's opencourseware to do practice problems for Orgo 2, I was completely blown away. The stuff they have to do there is lightyears harder than the organic chemistry we do at Yale.
The only difference between me and you people is that I don't get all butthurt about it.
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How are "meaningful grades" produced by saying only 10% of a class can earn an A, REGARDLESS of your mastery of the material? That makes absolutely no sense. All that says is "you were one of the top 10% of people in your class - congratulations."
It baffles me that you fail to see that your vision of college grades is set up as a combative, competitive system that focuses more on getting a gold star than actually learning what the professor wants you to learn. With a strict curve, you're implicitly saying that only x% of people can demonstrate maximum mastery of this course's material. That's clearly not true. Content mastery isn't a limited good. If EVERYONE performs well on an exam - i.e., demonstrates that they learned the material by taking an exam - EVERYONE should earn the best mark possible. Not doing so simply means you're using a competitive system rather than one based solely on learning and academic performance.
You seem pretty butthurt. But I'm sure you aren't because of your super sweet "real life" that you have at Yale.
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Not al all lol
I puke at the thought that if 20 percent gets a 90+, that's bad. Its good, classes aren't meant to overcompete, especially in COLLEGE of all places haha
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True dat.
People who side with the professor on curving too much/thinks too many As are bad are probably gunners, not laid back/chill, or like to see their friends do bad. I'm the guy who wants everyone to get an A
Also if everyone gets 80s and 90s that's a good thing. If people think its too easy, LMAO. I'd rather see that than most of the class crying
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Wrong, it makes no sense to assume that a student can master the material, let alone half the class. I assume a class has a range of abilities, curved tests are objectively better at differentiating between these students. Just because it is higher resolution doesn't mean only 10% can get an A, it means the professor can more confidently assign grades to his students based on ability. In fact, the professor is free to choose the point in the grade distribution at which performance was A-quality. It seems at your school this professor would be able to give A's to the majority of students, since they are evidently genius, but at least with a curved class he could do so justifiably.
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Again, your assumption is that the point of college is to award gold, silver, and bronze stars. It seems, to you, that someone must be a loser in order for the real winners to stand out. ANY limit to the number of As (or whatever grade) awarded is stupid if that limits people's ability to earn a particular grade despite their performance. By the way, I'm referring to strict curve (i.e., 10% get As, 20% get Bs, etc.) schema.
I don't think that's a healthy or correct philosophy for education, but to each his own.
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I think one person has gotten a 4.0 at Harvard in the past 10 years. It's pretty easy to get a 3.8-3.9 there but hard to get a 4.0.
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I don't assume the point of college is to identify winners and losers, I assume the point of grades is to reliably reflect a student's academic performance relative to his peers. Apparently the problem is that you associate only A grades with success, and anything less with failure. That is an unhealthy philosophy.
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Personally I'd attribute the F grade with failure.
Grades to me are an indication of how well a student has learned the material. Any subsequent differentiation based on grades, while convenient, is just a byproduct.
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Agreed. That is nowhere near the point of college. The value of As is the same lol. Only ugly people think things have to be challenging or extreme to separate a small fraction. If everyone gets a 90, what normal chill person would get mad? >.>
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I have gone to four different undergrads, including an ivy, and let me tell you that there are major differences to say the least. My current school is by far more demanding than any other place I have ever been to. When I first got here I thought that having a curve would make classes much easier but I quickly found out that since everyone here has a type A alpha male personality it makes it much more intense to even score above the median. Of course, everyone has different experiences and everyone is different. I can only speak of the three universities in southern Florida I attended and Columbia, but I can say with confidence that they all have been completely different experiences with a completely different level of difficulty.
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Are you taking bets? I could use some extra cash this summer.
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Meh I turned down a chance to go to a more prestigious university. Considering that the MCAT is all based on pre-reqs I don't think I got a bad education at my alma mater.
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In terms of my intellect, I am an above average student in a lower-tier UG. There is a HUGE difference in the method in which I am learning from people that I know who went to higher-tier UG. For example, my chemistry professor has to "dumb down" the tests as to let the majority of the students pass the course since a majority of the students are in joint PA/PT/Clinical Laboratory science programs. I got an A in the class based on ~10 hours of studying for the entire semester. Another instance ocurred in my Computer Science class where so many students failed the exam which accounted for 18% of our final grade that the professor changed the grading rubric so that the test only counted for 9% of the final grade. I'm sure this would not happen in a higher-tier UG in which a hard exam simply separates the best students from the worst.
I realized some people say that it depends on the professor moreso than the school, but a professor is very likely to survey the intellect of his/her students. Just like you change the way in which you speak with you're peers based on their intellect, a professor is likely to manipulate the test as to best fit the intellect of his students.
That being said, getting a 4.0(or anything close to this) in a lower-tier undergrad is an accomplishment in itself and shows that you were among the top of you're students.
I realized some people say that it depends on the professor moreso than the school, but a professor is very likely to survey the intellect of his/her students. Just like you change the way in which you speak with you're peers based on their intellect, a professor is likely to manipulate the test as to best fit the intellect of his students.
That being said, getting a 4.0(or anything close to this) in a lower-tier undergrad is an accomplishment in itself and shows that you were among the top of you're students.
