Harvard is a Joke

Are you kidding me? Half the kids have A-'s or above? The modal grade is an A???? It's absurd how inflated Harvard grades are compared to schools like MIT, Wharton, or Princeton (among others!). This is why a 3.6 from Harvard means nothing, whereas a 3.6 from MIT would impress the hell out of me. Thoughts?

Substantiating Fears of Grade Inflation, Dean Says Median Grade at Harvard College Is A-, Most Common Grade Is A

The median grade at Harvard College is an A-, and the most frequently awarded mark is an A, Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris said on Tuesday afternoon, supporting suspicions that the College employs a softer grading standard than many of its peer institutions.

Harris delivered the information in response to a question from government professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 at the monthly meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

“A little bird has told me that the most frequently given grade at Harvard College right now is an A-,” Mansfield said during the meeting’s question period. “If this is true or nearly true, it represents a failure on the part of this faculty and its leadership to maintain our academic standards.”

Harris then stood and looked towards FAS Dean Michael D. Smith in hesitation.

“I can answer the question, if you want me to.” Harris said. “The median grade in Harvard College is indeed an A-. The most frequently awarded grade in Harvard College is actually a straight A.”

Harris said after the meeting that the data on grading standards is from fall 2012 and several previous semesters.

In an email to The Crimson after the meeting, Mansfield wrote that he was “not surprised but rather further depressed” by Harris’s answer.

“Nor was I surprised at the embarrassed silence in the whole room and especially at the polished table (as I call it),” Mansfield added, referencing the table at the front of the room where top administrators sit. “The present grading practice is indefensible.”

On the other hand, Classics Department chair Mark J. Schiefsky, who was in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting, said he was surprised by how high the median grade was.

“I don’t know what should be done about it, but it seems to me troubling,” Schiefsky said. “One has a range of grades to give and one would presumably expect a wider distribution.”

Schiefsky said Harris’s comment raised a number of questions about the distribution of grades and that he would appreciate more discussion about the topic.

Classics professor Richard F. Thomas, a member of the Faculty Council who was also in attendance at the monthly meeting, said he expects FAS will discuss grade inflation at some point in the future.

Link: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/3/grade-inflation-mode-a/

 

Definitely - I'm not trying to say that Harvard kids are dumb. All I'm saying is that when you're comparing them to other target schools, it's pretty important to pay attention to what percentile they rank in, rather than just pure GPA...

Also, pretty sad that grade inflation is so incredibly rampant there.

dollas
 

Devil's Advocate - what if those grades are a reflection of how smart their kids are? They have so many smart kids that everyone gets A's. Which brings the question: why should class curves and averages be based upon a "normal distribution?"

 
orangebull:

Devil's Advocate - what if those grades are a reflection of how smart their kids are? They have so many smart kids that everyone gets A's. Which brings the question: why should class curves and averages be based upon a "normal distribution?"

Because their kids aren't that much smarter as a whole than the other top schools. For instance, it's close to 55/45 for people that chose Harvard over Stanford (~45% choose Stanford). They attract a similar caliber of students. I personally don't mind that they inflate their grades, if you manage to get an A average at Harvard you're clearly intelligent. Plus for the extremely competitive jobs (top private equity firms), they'll have other ways of distinguishing you through the interview and through past internships.

 

This isn't exactly a secret. But it's how it is, no need to hate.

That said, I can guarantee that any of the top Stern grads would destroy the average Harvard grad in academics. Too bad they didn't get into the big H.

Please don't quote Patrick Bateman.
 
beardown:

Probably, but so what? The top Harvard grads would also destroy the top Stern grads.

Smarter? Grade wise? Going to GS TMT? At a certain point, all your metrics will break. The better phrase would be that the top 20% will be notably better than the top 20% at other schools. The top 1,2,3,4,5 individuals between large schools will be near impossible to distinguish.
DBCooper:

This isn't exactly a secret. But it's how it is, no need to hate.

That said, I can guarantee that any of the top Stern grads would destroy the average Harvard grad in academics. Too bad they didn't get into the big H.

So would the top kids from any large university. Even state schools. Imagine each school as a bell curve with means that vary slightly depending on caliber. At the very high end or right side, most of the curves will be indistinguishable without a microscope. College admissions is dice roll - only the means vary much.

In the end, there are trade offs here. Everyone's grades at Harvard is worth less, but Harvard can do this because it's Harvard. Recent studies show that grade inflation IS good for grad school admissions (because adcoms are too lazy to discount), so maybe it's smart choice after all.

 

Yeah it's an absolute joke. I have a classmate did a 3-2 program at another Ivy League school and he says it's not even a fair comparison.

It's not just that there's less variation at the Ivy; apparently it does everything it can to essentially make you not fail. He puts in way fewer hours and says he has to try a lot less to get the same grade, and this is reflected in his significantly higher GPA at the Ivy.

 

yea major grade inflation... however i almost dont see this as a bad thing. as grades become less meaningful, people can focus more on learning or extracurriculars. in phd programs there are no grades, i think that is a good thing.

actually at mit you get a 5.0/5.0 if u get at least an a-, that's why there are actually a fair percent of ppl graduating with perfect gpas at mit.

caltech is a different story though...

 

Also, unless you have a grading system with the same exact curve for each class, people will seek out easy classes to maximize GPA. That's what I did (at a school not known for grade inflation), and it worked out very well.

 

Holy shit..

Always knew Harvard had rampant grade inflation, but this is ridiculous. Graduating with "honors" at most schools means you were in the top 10-15% of your class. Harvard just hands it out at the end of your 4 years?? Now, I think this shit is relatively harmless within Harvard itself; i.e., when OCR comes around, Harvard students will be compared against other Harvard students, and if everyone has a 3.8 it doesn't mean anything.

But when it comes to graduate school admissions, this sorta grade inflation is gets hairier. For example, at my school, my major classes were curved to a 3.2. So my graduation with a 3.7 is actually a legit accomplishment. I actually outperformed my peers by a fairly significant margin to get that GPA. But if Harvard just curves its classes to a 3.7, when I'm compared to my peer bankers who also have 3.7s and 3.8s, etc. my GPA doesn't appear nearly as impressive. When in fact, getting into the top 20% of your class (where I was at, roughly) at Harvard would give you like, a 3.9+.

Law schools, med schools, biz schools etc all claim that they're aware of grading differences and adjust everything for comparisons' sake...but I kinda doubt it.

FWIW, state school monkeys, I'll keep this in mind next time I'm reviewing resumes.

 

Whatever, this really doesn't matter. I got to the school where the average GPA is a 3.2 and yes it is a state school. However, it is important to realize that since it is a state school, the GPAs will be lower than a private university. I would suspect that if the school weeded out the many students who are getting grades in the 2's, our average GPA would be around a 3.3 or 3.4. Yes, Harvard does have grade inflation but there really isn't anything to do about it. Move on and try and do your best with what you got.

 

There have been shirts for years at UofC that said "If I wanted an A I would have gone to Harvard".

That being said - most students, had they gotten into Harvard, probably would have gone there instead!

And so it goes
 

At basically all of the top schools aside from Princeton, your major gives a lot of context to your GPA. Departments like art, area studies, languages, sociology and so on give out As like candy, whereas a lot of STEM departments curve to much lower grades. I'd respect a 3.5 in Chemistry from Yale a lot more than I'd respect a 3.8 in Chinese from the same school because the 3.5 would be above average in a competitive cohort taking hard classes, whereas the 3.8 would be below average in the Chinese department from what I've heard.

 

This doesn't make sense for two reasons: 1.) Princeton is the only Ivy League school with notorious grade deflation (basically no more than 35% of grades are A's or A-'s. So, a 3.6 is actually .2-.3 above average, roughly putting the applicant in the top 2/5 of his/her class. 2.) There is no Women's Studies major at Princeton.

dollas
 

Nice lie, dude. You're doing a great job of impressing people online.

As stated earlier, there is no women's studies program at Princeton (only a certificate program i.e. minor in gender and sexuality studies). And a 3.6 would put you in roughly the top 25-30% of Princeton overall GPA-wise, regardless of the department. This is because all departments have roughly the same grading distribution because they all give out 35% As (more or less).

 
cityandcolour:

Nice lie, dude. You're doing a great job of impressing people online.

As stated earlier, there is no women's studies program at Princeton (only a certificate program i.e. minor in gender and sexuality studies). And a 3.6 would put you in roughly the top 25-30% of Princeton overall GPA-wise, regardless of the department. This is because all departments have roughly the same grading distribution because they all give out 35% As (more or less).

It was probably another Ivy

 

Curious if any employers here talk about their general experience w Harvard recruits? Good? Bad? Mediocre? Have worked w a few and it's a mixed bag, like anywhere else I guess.

if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it
 

How is the most common grade given an A- yet the median grade an A.

On a different note, if these kids had to actually spend most of their time studying how would they be able to film the social network?

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Yes I understand that, unless the statistical distribution is almost exactly 1/3 to A-, A, A+ it would be hard for the statement made to be correct.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Harvard just knows how to play the game.

They know their brand is strong enough that there really isn't a need to further distinguish their students. They also probably know that what you learn in college has dick shit to do with what you'll actually need on the job. Thus it makes no sense to give anyone anything less than an A. Why unnecessarily disadvantage your students in the job market?

 
Born2lose:

Who are you to say people don't deserve their grades ? If 90% of the class produced work worthy of an A why wouldn't you give them all an A ?

Doubtful. Like I said earlier one of my classmates did a 3-2 engineering program at an Ivy and says he worked way harder at the school I go to, and got worse grades. The amount of help they give you at that Ivy is just a joke.
 
NuclearPenguins:
Born2lose:

Who are you to say people don't deserve their grades ? If 90% of the class produced work worthy of an A why wouldn't you give them all an A ?

Doubtful. Like I said earlier one of my classmates did a 3-2 engineering program at an Ivy and says he worked way harder at the school I go to, and got worse grades. The amount of help they give you at that Ivy is just a joke.

Maybe there isn't a problem with the ivies but with the school you went to ? Ever thought of that ?

I like money
 
Born2lose:

Who are you to say people don't deserve their grades ? If 90% of the class produced work worthy of an A why wouldn't you give them all an A ?

I guess you don't understand how a bell curve works. Many colleges grade on a bell curve. If 10 people can get an A in a class and 10 get 100s and one gets a 99 the student that received a 99 will get a B. College is supposed to be a competitive environment. Not saying I agree with students that do A work should get a B because their A work was only slightly less of an A.
Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Saying that you're smart because you got into Harvard is incredibly simplistic. That's like saying going to the moon is easy because we've done it before. Neither statement is true for obvious reasons. Getting at least into a first round with Harvard is not hard. High school is not hard. If you put in any work at all, high school is the easiest thing you will ever do in your entire life. Therefore, if you crushed in in HS, thereby gaining interest from Harvard as a potential student, this is not necessarily an indication of some higher level of intelligence. It's just not. There are several former students at my undergraduate university that went to Harvard for graduate studies. They all have said, many times, that the classes at their undergraduate level were as well-taught and as difficult or more so than the graduate classes they took at Harvard, relative to the level they're taught at. Harvard is a great school. But it is not infallible. I've been hearing stories about grade inflation over there for a long time. Sounds like its finally going to come out in a big way.

"When you stop striving for perfection, you might as well be dead."
 

This is funny...

I go to W and our classes are generally 30/40/30 over an A/B/C distribution. This generally results in about 15% of each grade (A, A-, B+, B, etc. all the way down). Admittedly, very few people get below a C. The majority of classes are curved so that the median is in the B range (can be anywhere from B- to B+, but depends on both course and professor). What happens is that people who are in the "top 30%" wind up in the top third for nearly every class. The same goes for the other thirds, however. As a result, lot of GPAs concentrated around the bands of 3.7, 3.4, and 3.0. However, it is worth noting that easier electives generally bump up the grades received in W.

Really strange that the most frequent grade is an A, as I'm not sure how employers can determine who the top students are. I know some employers (at least smaller firms or those with smaller hiring needs) will reach out to professors here during recruiting in order to ascertain who the best students are, but I imagine this isn't feasible when there are that many kids with straight A's. Would be interesting to hear from someone in a hiring position regarding whether the view is generally "wow a kid from Harvard with a 3.6, let's hire him!" or "he has a 3.6 from Harvard, so it's worth consideration, but we realize there is grade inflation".

Just my two cents

 

Nothing new to see here. Most schools are guilty of grade inflation these days. Harvard and many of the Ivies are the worst culprits. Princeton is the only Ivy that's actively managing grade inflation (perhaps there may be others). Private schools tend to be the guiltiest, since they have a product to sell. If their grads aren't placing well into jobs, law/med/business school, kids are much less likely to fork over that $50K a year.

Only a handful of schools (and they tend to be state schools) do not practice grade inflation. When I see a non-STEM 3.5 GPA from most Ivies, I think meh. When I see a STEM 3.5 GPA from GaTech, UC Berk, UIUC, Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union, etc... I know that kid graduated in the top 15% or so of the science/engineering class.

 
Ipso facto:

Nothing new to see here. Most schools are guilty of grade inflation these days. Harvard and many of the Ivies are the worst culprits. Princeton is the only Ivy that's actively managing grade inflation (perhaps there may be others). Private schools tend to be the guiltiest, since they have a product to sell. If their grads aren't placing well into jobs, law/med/business school, kids are much less likely to fork over that $50K a year.

Only a handful of schools (and they tend to be state schools) do not practice grade inflation. When I see a non-STEM 3.5 GPA from most Ivies, I think meh. When I see a STEM 3.5 GPA from GaTech, UC Berk, UIUC, Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union, etc... I know that kid graduated in the top 15% or so of the science/engineering class.

Thank you. My butt still hurts from Tech and I only got out with a 3.1.

 

That may be so. But I feel like in order to get to Harvard you've already demonstrated your intellectual horsepower, diligence and dedication.

The most you have to get out of a place like Harvard or Princeton is not the academics... what will aid you most in future success is not studying to gain the knowledge to earn a 3.8 GPA instead of a 3.2. What will aid you most is the softer stuff, like meeting people, making friends, learning to be sociable, learning to lead and taking leadership roles.

Personally I didn't do too well in high school. I definitely had the intellectual horsepower but I was lazy and undisciplined. For me, going to a school like USC or Ohio State and being able to focus and excel in the classroom was what I got out of my education. I hadn't learned to be diligence and disciplined and this is what excelling in college taught me. That is what has aided me most in being successful since leaving school; so for me, a student at a far lesser school than Harvard, a real GPA scoring structure was essential to keep me motivated and focused.

Very little the actual content to learn and master in college will help you excel post-UG. What you're really developing (hopefully) are the skills you need but don't yet have. The Harvard kids have the intellectual skill down, I think they do the right thing by creating some statistical noise around actual classroom performance.

 

I think Marcus_Halberstram is spot on.

I don't see GPA inflation as a problem because GPA isn't a reflection of how talented you are as a student or how much value you will add in the real world. High GPA doesn't indicate intellect, it's the result of hard work and gaming the system. Problem is, 95%+ of what you learn in school is utterly useless. I'd argue that excessive focus on GPA has a negative impact on society because it incentivizes students to cram useless knowledge into their brains (or more realistically, cheat) rather than spend time doing extracurricular activities that are more beneficial to their education (working in a lab, doing a part-time internship, starting a company, etc). Why do you think employers don't give a shit about B-school GPAs and most top B-schools have grade non-disclosure? That shit doesn't matter.

If you go to Princeton or somewhere where you're working your ass off for worse grades than you'd get at Harvard, sucks to be you. However, I think that that's a problem with the system (the fact that we place so much importance on GPA) rather than a problem with any single institution.

In all reality it probably makes more sense to do away with grades and assign each student a percentile. Then nobody can complain.

 

You're an idiot. Making that statement clearly tells me you don't go to Harvard/Stanford/Yale etc. Most of these top schools have a solid 30% of the student body that just isn't intellectually on par with the rest of their peers - undeserving legacies (not all legacies!), kids of famous people, recruited athletes (again, not all, but a significant number), etc. Say what you will, but when you have kids with sub-2100 SATs and mediocre GPAs getting into HYPS, they're not going to do well. Consequently, being average at HYPS is actually not terribly difficult.

Now, I don't deny that Harvard is competitive - of course it is. But is a student in the 40th percentile at harvard any smarter than a student in the 40th percentile of Princeton or MIT? Not a chance. Yet that student at Harvard would probably have a 3.7, whereas at Princeton or MIT they'd have a 3.4 (avg at both schools is, on a 4.0 scale, roughly a 3.3-3.35). That's what the issue is here - the inaccurate inflation of grades relative to peer schools (and it's not just Princeton/MIT - I bet Columbia, Caltech, etc also face this issue, but maybe to a lesser degree).

Essentially, if you give out so many A's, the value of the A becomes meaningless. and It means that you can't really differentiate between the top 40th percentile and the top 10th percentile through GPA (which is unfortunate, because that's the most commonly used proxy in the outside world for intelligence). And trust me, if you went to one of the top schools, you'd know that there's definitely a difference in caliber between a kid who's in the top 10th of his class versus someone in the top 40% of his class.

dollas
 
boobielover:
And trust me, if you went to one of the top schools, you'd know that there's definitely a difference in caliber between a kid who's in the top 10th of his class versus someone in the top 40% of his class.
To be fair, the most noticeable difference is that the kid in the top 10% of the class has aspergers, sings to himself in the cafeteria, or walks only on sidewalk cracks when he is heading to class. (Actually, we also had this at UIUC.)

I think there's a clear difference between the top 25% and the bottom 25%. I think the top 10% are going to go into academia and do amazing things, but I am not 100% sure all of them would be able to function in industry. This is just as important a concern to hiring managers as what your GPA is. So for folks who happen to be in the top 10%, it's advisable to just try and conform to how other people normally act and behave, at least in the interview.

If you're brilliant, but you can't work with other people, you might be a good fit for academia, maybe even technology, but probably not finance.

 

That is actually not true in terms of 40th percentile. The average GPA at Harvard is approximately 3.4. The quote from the dean was taken out of context, and mainly applies to kids in humanities or arts majors like English, History, Sociology, Gov, VES, etc. It is extremely difficult to get A's in life sciences, engineering, mathematics, and economics type courses. The distribution for most economics courses: 10% A, 15-20% A-, 45% B range, etc. When put in the context of banking, most Harvard applicants are in the realm of ec, applied math and statistics.

 

lol, OK...I do happen to go to Harvard, and I can tell that you don't. 40th percentile is a 3.7? Aside from the fact that 60th percentile is what you're looking for, that would probably be around a 3.5-3.6. And as others have pointed out, throwing numbers around without accounting for concentrations is useless. Yes, there's definitely grade inflation in the English or Government departments, but that isn't IB's target audience.

For example, Phi Beta Kappa elections are divided into 3 areas: Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. Each area gets to select a pre-determined number of students for PBK, so grade inflation is controlled for. Also, since the banks and consulting firms only give out a limited number of 1st round interviews, it's not like you can clear 3.5 and be safe. It's the top percentile of students that end up getting interviews. And frankly, many of the students who miss out on the top interviews because they had a 3.5 in Econ or whatever would probably crush it at Michigan/NYU/some other semi-target that also gets good recruiting. This doesn't sound especially unfair in favor of Harvard students to me.

I do think that Princeton should get rid of its enforced curves if it's putting students at a disadvantage for recruiting and grad school.

 
Jon258:

Honestly, most of the A's are justified. You guys don't realize just how competitive Harvard is.

The AVERAGE student graduates with a 3.7 (enough to get you into any top graduate program, comfortably beat GPA cut-offs for any consulting/banking position that interests you) and over 80% of Harvard grads even get some sort of honors.

My kindergarten was more cut-throat than that.

 

I see where you're coming from, but honestly: who cares? It's not like we didn't know that Harvard people are at an advantage due to brand name etc anyway so now we know they also all look better on paper in terms of GPA.

I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. See my Blog & AMA
 

Fuck Harvard. My school is practically the by and embraces the curve. Some kids at certain schools (mainly Med schools) have the mean average grade a C+. Terrible.

I'm bi-winning. I win here, and I win there.
 

Obviously, Harvard is more about social sciences. It heavily emphasizes on students' social adaptation and is not renowned for heavy exact sciences. While MIT, Stanford, Wharton and co. more concern about in-depth applied subjects. Taking into consideration that the main method of education in HBS is case-study (80%),then students are involved in endless discussions and do not care a lot about theoretical aspects.

 

Couple thoughts on this.

1.) A poster has mentioned that Princeton hands out only 35% As and A-s. This is largely true. However it is rather difficult to get a C or D.

2.) Despite this anti-grade-inflation policy, I think it's still easier to get an A at Princeton than it is in Engineering at a good state school. I think that if you can get a 3.5 in Engineering at Georgia Tech, you can get a 3.5 in Econ at Princeton.

3.) If you can get a 3.5 GPA in Econ at Princeton, you can probably get a 3.7 at Harvard or Yale.

4.) Harvard Econ 3.7 GPA = Georgia Tech ECE 3.5 GPA? Ok, maybe that is trolling too hard. I will vociferously argue that a Georgia Tech, UT Austin, or Berkeley engineer should not have his GPA discounted against a Harvard Econ or Engineering major.

I do think (actually I know) it's possible to differentiate smart people who know the material well and smart people who know the material extremely well.

 
IlliniProgrammer:

4.) Harvard Econ 3.7 GPA = Georgia Tech ECE 3.5 GPA? Ok, maybe that is trolling too hard.

nah, not that big a stretch, IMO. Average GaTech GPA university wide is like 3.1-3.2? Average GaTech STEM GPA is probably like 3.0? I'm guessing now, but a 3.5 GPA kid from GaTech is probably in the top 15% of the STEM class. A Harvard Econ 3.7 GPA is apparently a 50th percentile student.

Is the average Harvard Econ student > than a top 15%ish GaTech STEM grad? I would guess yes, and perhaps even a substantive edge. But I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a significant difference

 
Ipso facto:
IlliniProgrammer:

4.) Harvard Econ 3.7 GPA = Georgia Tech ECE 3.5 GPA? Ok, maybe that is trolling too hard.

nah, not that big a stretch, IMO.

Is the average Harvard Econ student > than a top 15%ish GaTech STEM grad? I would guess yes, and perhaps even a substantive edge. But I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a significant difference

lol

 
wannabeaballer:

take the student body of harvard and send them to cal tech. take the student body of cal tech and send them to harvard. write your own conclusion!

The average GPA at Caltech would drop 1 point and at Harvard the number of clubs, amount of volunteering, and number of dates on campus would drop to levels that have previously only been seen on the other side of the Charles River (at MIT).
 

Also, I would go so far as to argue that the people going around claiming that there is a very clear difference between the top 10% and the rest of the class are either not in the top 10% or mayhaps have the savant issues that I have described. The normal people in the top 10% don't go running around claiming there's a huge distinction because it makes them look like an asshole and a normal person would realize that.

 
sdgo:

The actual average GPA at Harvard is closer to a 3.4

"Now, the distribution of grades at Harvard is not as uniform as in the above example, so we turn to the median to try to make sense of Harvard’s grade distribution. It’s important to stress that saying the median grade at Harvard is an A- (or 3.67 on the GPA scale) is completely different from saying the average grade, and therefore average GPA, is a 3.67. The median just says that 50 percent of grades are A- or above, and 50 percent are A- or below. In fact, the average GPA is likely lower than 3.67 since the distribution of grades is likely skewed to the left; you can’t go much higher than an A- but you can go much lower. So very poor grades pull the average GPA down more than very high grades pull it up, despite the fact that they affect the median in the same way. Finally, since A and A- grades must comprise at least 50 percent of grades, and since A is the more common of the two, the smallest possible percentage of A’s must be a little more than 25 percent. (It is worth noting that A-minuses probably comprise the lower half of the distribution too, so the percentage of A’s is likely higher.) Eight years ago, 48.3 percent of grades were in the A range. Only a 1.7 percentage-point increase in the number of A-minuses would be needed to proclaim that the median grade is an A-. And given the leftward skew of grades, the current average GPA may not be too far from its 3.45 value in 2005. People are acting like things have changed drastically when the recent news is inconclusive." That's not what the article said...
 

@Jon258... this is the most ridiculous statement I have ever seen:

"Honestly, most of the A's are justified. You guys don't realize just how competitive Harvard is."

If every one can get an A, then that means there is ZERO competition. I went to UChicago and majored in economics. Per department policy, no more than 20% of a class can get A- or better. 5% can get A's.

The teachers make the tests so hard (or so insanely long that they are virtually impossible to finish) that the average grade in most of the classes is a 30 or 40 (although I've seen even lower), and curved from there. True competition is not giving everyone A's. It's structuring the class in such a way that you have to absolutely blow everyone out of the water to earn your A. I sat in a class where I got a 40 on a test (avg was 32, so I got a B+), and the girl next to me got a 98. THAT is a justified A.

Granted, I would rather have grade inflation because my resume would look better, but please don't act like those A's are justified. That is a huge load of horseshit

I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.
 

you sound more like a victim of Stockholm Syndrome than someone who actually understands these issues. I'm sorry UChicago is mean to you guys but in no way should the standard for an A need to be even close to that high -- grades just really shouldn't matter that much, and until something else major changes, elite universities deciding to alleviate some of the completely unnecessary stress and pressure placed on their very, very smart students by inflating grades so they can focus more of their time on things that actually matter sounds perfectly reasonable to me. as noted in the Crimson link above, this thread is a hilarious and reactionary example of how not to interpret data anyway, but eh

 

Grades are meant to be a way to measure students relative to others. If the average grade is an A, this undermines the entire purpose of even having grades. If you want to do that, then just go to a P/F system. If you want to have grades that matter, then set the average at a point where everyone is challenged and the majority of the class gets in the B range, and truly intelligent students can actually show their intelligence. There is no reason to baby everyone by eliminating competition.

That being said, I personally think grades should be subordinated to extra curriculars and work experience, but if you are going to have a grading system, don't undermine it's entire purpose and validity by handing out A's to everyone.

I would agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.
 

My upper level STEM classes were curved to like a C+/B- and everyone studied their asses off...so scraping off a B wasn't trivial, let alone an A grade. And not only was it curved, but the tests themselves were ridiculous...often like just a few big problems and if you didn't know anything about one of them you're already screwed, which was why the average on an exam was often something like a 30. Competition was fierce and those who ended up getting solid A's deserved them. That being said, amount that the class as a whole learned about the subject matter, or appreciated the topics? Very little. It was a shitshow. Getting an A was like a pyrrhic victory. That's not how schooling should be run.

 

I would agree that a median of 3.7 is pretty stupid and unjustified from a perspective of fairness on competition, but if I was running the college, I would do the same exact thing--help out my students optimally when they exit to their careers. Given the standard for admission for prospective students and education for prospective teachers at H, I don't think they are worried that their students aren't learning due to the lack of difficulty.

 

This: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/leaked-harvards-gradin…

"A longtime government professor at Harvard lashed out Tuesday at what he deemed a system of rampant grade inflation after learning that students are receiving mainly A’s.

— The Boston Globe, Dec. 4

From: The Dean of Harvard College

To: The Faculty

In light of the controversy regarding so-called grade inflation, please take a moment to review the grading guidelines rubric, reproduced below:

The A+ grade is used only in very rare instances for the recognition of truly exceptional achievement.

For example: A term paper receiving the A+ is virtually indistinguishable from the work of a professional, both in its choice of paper stock and its font. The student’s command of the topic is expert, or at the very least intermediate, or beginner. Nearly every single word in the paper is spelled correctly; those that are not can be reasoned out phonetically within minutes. Content from Wikipedia is integrated with precision. The paper contains few, if any, death threats.

A few things can disqualify an otherwise worthy paper from this exceptional honor: 1) Plagiarism, unless committed with extraordinary reluctance. 2) The paper has been doused in blood or another liquid, unless dousing was requested by the instructor. 3) The paper was submitted late (with reasonable leeway — but certainly by no more than one or two years).

An overall course grade of A+ is reserved for those students who have not only demonstrated outstanding achievement in coursework but have also asked very nicely.

Finally, the A+ grade is awarded to all collages, dioramas and other art projects.

The instructor may at her discretion supplement the A+ with one or two additional pluses (A++ or A+++). This grade is known as the A+ with garlands. Garlands are generally awarded for no reason.

The A grade, still exceptional, is reserved for work that is nearly as excellent as that receiving the A+ and that would receive the higher grade if not for some minor and easily excused flaw, such as that the student is not enrolled at Harvard.

The A– grade is awarded to work that, while very good, is nevertheless diminished by a significant flaw that cannot be completely overlooked. For example, a final examination receiving the A– might be impeccable, except for having been left blank. Or the student filled in the test, but did so according to no discernible pattern, while screaming like a maniac. An A– term paper might offer an original analysis of a complex topic, but exist only within the imagination of the instructor or the student, or, in some rare instances, both.

In cases where an assignment falls precisely on the border between A and A–, the instructor should err on the side of awarding an A+ with garlands.

The B+ grade is reserved for students who have committed assault.

The B grade may be awarded as a joke, before being replaced with a higher grade, so long as the instructor has checked with the registrar that the student’s psychological profile permits practical jokes of a cruel nature.

Contrary to “urban legend,” grades lower than B do exist, and should be awarded without hesitation to any and all work submitted by farm animals."

dollas
 

The year before I applied to college, a woman at MIT poured gasoline on herself and lit a match when she received a C in a class. And then there was the Va Tech shooting. You find crazy everywhere.

I think the only thing I find irritating here was that the student thought he was smart enough to get away with it (reading the complaint, he tried to cover his tracks via TOR and an anonymous email service- but was caught accessing TOR on Harvard's network at the time the email was sent). I don't think it's unfair to call this Ivy League arrogance.

 
IlliniProgrammer:

I think the only thing I find irritating here was that the student thought he was smart enough to get away with it (reading the complaint, he tried to cover his tracks via TOR and an anonymous email service). I don't think it's unfair to call this Ivy League arrogance.

Ivy League arrogance? As opposed to non-Ivy League arrogance? Is this a serious comment or just your usual trolling?
 
Going Concern:

Ivy League arrogance? As opposed to non-Ivy League arrogance? Is this a serious comment or just your usual trolling?

I'm saying it's unfair to call students at Harvard psychopaths because of one incident. I have no idea why you seized on my concession that you could make an argument about arrogance.

My view is that most reasonable people, before making a bomb threat, (at least in a post 9/11 world) would fully expect to be caught. This student acted in a way that suggested he did not think he would get caught, implying some degree of arrogance.

 
IlliniProgrammer:
Going Concern:

Ivy League arrogance? As opposed to non-Ivy League arrogance? Is this a serious comment or just your usual trolling?

I'm saying it's unfair to call students at Harvard psychopaths because of one incident. I have no idea why you seized on my concession that you could make an argument about arrogance.

My view is that most reasonable people, before making a bomb threat, (at least in a post 9/11 world) would fully expect to be caught. This student acted in a way that suggested he did not think he would get caught, implying some degree of arrogance.

In case it was unclear, my question was focused on your use of the phrase "Ivy League"

 
Going Concern:

In case it was unclear, my question was focused on your use of the phrase "Ivy League"

In case it was unclear, my response was that you selected a three word concession out of a two paragraph post that largely defended Harvard.

It's a stereotype. It's something I've been accused of ("Ivy League Arrogance").
It's something I've seen others get accused of. It may or may not exist. I'm not promoting a view here. I'm observing a debate strategy while ruling another one out.

If you want to attack Harvard on this, it's a bit silly to claim the students there are psychopaths when in fact incidents of crazy happen everywhere. I think the one somewhat unique feature in this situation was that the student seemed somewhat sure he could get away with it.

 

I don't think it was "the one" unique feature of this situation...

You think most students who would try this stunt are expecting to get caught? That actually sounds like the opposite of "reasonable." If someone is going to produce a bomb threat, I would assume that the person would try to do it in a way so he/she does NOT get caught....

 
wso929292:

I don't think it was "the one" unique feature of this situation...

You think most students who would try this stunt are expecting to get caught? That actually sounds like the opposite of "reasonable." If someone is going to produce a bomb threat, I would assume that the person would try to do it in a way so he/she does NOT get caught....

1.) After Sept. 11th, if you phone in a bomb threat and don't expect the FBI, NSA, a group of elite hackers, and several SWAT teams to come crashing down on you, you're an idiot.

2.) It appears that said person being an idiot isn't a good explanation for someone hired to do research for a renowned political science/global security professor.

3.) If you have some idea of what happens after a terror threat is made, and still think you can outsmart the smartest people in the federal government, I'd call that arrogance.

4.) If you're trying to quash an exam, why not spoof a fire alarm like what 90% of students would do? This would result in a mildly annoyed fire captain and a misdemeanor charge if they even bothered to fingerprint everyone.

Idunno. I read arrogance out of this in the accused's actions.

-He was a researcher for a political science/global security professor at Harvard Kennedy. -He went to great lengths to cover his tracks. -He used Harvard's network to pull this off. -He probably figured or knew the FBI would respond. -He was probably going to go home and do whatever reclusive psychopaths do to celebrate an awesome victory after the FBI couldn't figure it out.

I think this was a game for him- a smaller scale version of the Leopold and Loeb murders. And he lost.

 

i dont think it would be hard to call in a bomb threat without being caught and it happens somewhat often actually. I am of course not saying i would do it or its "smart" but there are plenty of places where one can exchange 20-30 bucks for a burner/pre-paid cellphone no questions asked and plenty of dumpsters and rivers to toss such a phone in after the call. Unsolved bomb threats are pretty common.

 
Bondarb:

i dont think it would be hard to call in a bomb threat without being caught and it happens somewhat often actually. I am of course not saying i would do it or its "smart" but there are plenty of places where one can exchange 20-30 bucks for a burner/pre-paid cellphone no questions asked and plenty of dumpsters and rivers to toss such a phone in after the call. Unsolved bomb threats are pretty common.

Maybe he is just not comfortable talking on the phone/faking a voice that can not be traced back to him? Perhaps he has a distinct voice or heavy accent. I am curious how the police tracked him down. Apparently he used a Tor to mask his IP address but the police found him anyway when they noticed that he accessed the Tor from Harvard's wireless network. But just because someone used Tor doesn't mean he was the one that sent the emails. I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least a few other individuals on Harvard network also using Tor around same time--a lot of folks are worried about online privacy these days, esp in light of the Snowden revelations. Perhaps the police went out and interrogated everyone of them and this kid just cracked under pressure and confessed. Should have gone off-campus, perhaps another town, and used a Starbucks wifi instead.

Too late for second-guessing Too late to go back to sleep.
 

i dont know the specifics of the case i am just contesting the notion that phoning in a bomb threat is so hard that anyone who would do it is stupid to think they would get away with it. The way illinprogrammer is talking about this guy you would think he planned to rob the vault of the MGM Grand Casino Ocean's 11-style. I would give myself or anyone else a way better then 50% chance of getting away with this...more like a 90% chance. Using the harvard network seems incredibly stupid but thinking that one could get away with calling in a bomb threat is not on its own "arrogant". Go to some shitty neighborhood, buy a burner off the backof a truck with cash, use a shitty fake accent when you call in the threat, toss the phone in nearest dumpster or river, and go home....not too complicated. Stupid? yes. Arrogant? No.

 
Bondarb:
The way illinprogrammer is talking about this guy you would think he planned to rob the vault of the MGM Grand Casino Ocean's 11-style. I would give myself or anyone else a way better then 50% chance of getting away with this...more like a 90% chance. Using the harvard network seems incredibly stupid but thinking that one could get away with calling in a bomb threat is not on its own "arrogant". Go to some shitty neighborhood, buy a burner off the backof a truck with cash, use a shitty fake accent when you call in the threat, toss the phone in nearest dumpster or river, and go home....not too complicated. Stupid? yes. Arrogant? No.

Lol, to make context more explicit here, IlliniProgrammer has a grudge against everything related to the ivy league and uses every opportunity he can find to denigrate ivy league schools and anyone associated with them, often in subtle ways. It's pretty ridiculous to be honest, and especially ironic given he's getting his masters from princeton.

 
Going Concern:

Lol, to make context more explicit here, IlliniProgrammer has a grudge against everything related to the ivy league and uses every opportunity he can find to denigrate ivy league schools and anyone associated with them, often in subtle ways. It's pretty ridiculous to be honest, and especially ironic given he's getting his masters from princeton.

I've had a grudge against the target school system, as well as the original style of trolling on this forum (people pretending to be from Harvard and Princeton laughing at people from various schools). That trolling is gone and the target school system has changed. I don't have a grudge against the Ivy League.

I think you're trying a little too hard to create a troll that doesn't really exist in the sense that you think it does. Maybe it's the fact that Brady is gone and you're hoping for a new source of drama on WSO, and blastoise isn't posting as much as he used to. If you're bored, you can always create a new account.

 

I think you're reading too much into this thread. You accused me of reading way too much into Kim's actions.

More importantly, we're waaay off topic. The topic is "Harvard is a joke" for the record. I didn't start this thread, I didn't really attack Harvard here, and the post you seized on was one where I was mostly defending the school.

If we're going to continue this, we should probably be discussing "(is) Harvard a joke(?)". However that is a boring discussion because we're going to agree on about 95% of this- Harvard isn't a joke and 70-80% of the students there are somewhere between smart and geniuses. (The 5% will mostly be issues around entitlement mentality.)

 
Going Concern:

Lol, your red herring is cute. I never accused you of saying Harvard is a "joke"...you're way too clever to troll that conspicuously.

Red herring? This is a thread entitled "Harvard is a joke". You posted your prior views here pretty clearly. I posted some of my priors before you attacked a concession in them, and they mostly line up with yours'. Then after attacking me for three words in a post that mostly defends Harvard, you more broadly attack me for being anti-ivy-league.

I've tried to address your issue so far. I've admitted that I've had issues with the target school system and some of the trolling that used to happen on WSO. I've admitted I think a disproportionate number (probably not a majority) of students in the Ivy League may have some entitlement issues, that I have a grudge against entitlement issues, and that we probably disagree on how much entitlement exists in the Ivies. I don't think those views make me unusual or constitute some sort of "grudge" against the Ivy League. Somehow, you're not satisfied with me addressing it at that level.

Let me get to why I really think you're posting here. Something about this thread offends you. It offended you before I even got here.

Why is this on the front page? Who decides the front page?
I regret posting something in this thread and having it continuously show up in my recent posts...what a useless thread.

I don't know why you find what I've posted here so offensive. I suspect it may be the broader aspects of this thread and perhaps not just me. I suspect you went to Harvard or another elite school and were one of the brilliant students. You are sick and tired of being lumped in with the 20-30% that everyone remembers and loves to stereotype and complain about. And with respect to this thread, I am your scapegoat. For the record, while I'm sure you can find an ugly exception or two, I generally avoid making broad statements about Ivy Leaguers.

I do troll Harvard's CS and Engineering rankings, but I can get away with that because they are probably as smart as everyone else (true), and because they spend four years getting this huge signal from everyone around them that they are actually smarter than everyone else (not true).

You are probably even more annoyed by the fact that by you posting here, it continues to show up in your recent posts.

Oh well, back to my rusty honda.

 
Going Concern:
IlliniProgrammer:

I generally avoid making broad statements about Ivy Leaguers.

Just lol.

Can you help me with this? I've tried to be careful to avoid lumping everyone into one category, especially when I've had a lot of friends from Ivy League schools. If there's a post that I've made recently that generalizes everyone from the ivies (or any particular school) can you let me know?
 
Best Response
IlliniProgrammer:
Going Concern:

Haha no I won't be going through your old posts picking out the ones that best highlight your grudge. I might be bored but I'm not that bored.

So then it seems like you tacitly agree with me that in general I don't make broad generalizations about these schools.

I think you have an irrational deeply rooted resentment towards ivy league schools because you weren't able to attend one for undergrad, and your agenda is to act on this resentment by making post after post on topics related to undergrad schools. In the world of psychology, this is related to the defense mechanisms known as "superiority complex", "rationalization", and "compensation". In the world of online forums, this is the posting technique known as "trolling".

 

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