What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

Re:What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League educ... by Gibbon1 on Tuesday September 19, 2017 @06:44PM (#15289435)

I just remember the difference between Stanford 30 years ago and San Jose State.

At Stanford students that were failing a class or getting a grade that was too low would just drop it and retake it the next semester. At San Jose State you couldn't drop a class after the first two days. Stanford you could retake a class for a higher grade. SJSU, you could retake a class if the grade was lower than a C. But they'd average the two grades.

San Jose States Engineering department also graded on a curve, no exceptions. Only 5-8 people out of a class of 30 was going to get an A.

Also at San Jose State if your grades dropped too low you didn't get put on academic probation, you were gone.

Not just picking on Stanford, I've heard similar reports from people that went to other high ranked schools.

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Re:What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League educ... by quuquuquu on Tuesday September 19, 2017 @09:39PM (#15290103)

That sounds like a hellacious place to attend school.

That's like judging an engineer based on a blended average of their output, for 3 months, compared to Nikola Tesla.

If you can't compete with him, sorry, it's gonna have to be a B-.

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Re:What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League educ... by Gibbon1 on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @12:54AM (#15290947)

The deal is when you grade on a curve a B- means something other than 'totally failed' or as an old instructor of mine said, back when I went to school a B was a good grade.

Also my mothers comment was if everyone does really really well on a test then it wasn't hard enough. The reverse is sort of true. If everyone does poorly then either the test test was too hard or the instructor failed to teach the material.

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Re:What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League educ... by quuquuquu on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @04:44AM (#15291774)

While I agree with you, the biased reader of my job application is looking for any reason to deny me :)

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Re:What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League educ... by moretai on Tuesday September 19, 2017 @11:16PM (#15290515)

Yeah, is there a reason to grade on a curve? I don't understand the competition if it the point is to understand the material. There is no evidence that the real world operates on a meritocracy.

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Re:What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League educ... by akhilcacharya on Wednesday September 20, 2017 @05:00AM (#15291828)

And what happens after you graduate?

No matter if you got a 4.0, you're still never going to be graded the same as a Stanford grad*. It's set for life (unless you go to Stanford for a MS/PhD..)

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