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What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

washingtonpost.com

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Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#41

Post by jforman »

This article has very little basis in reality based on my experience at Harvard as an undergrad and at Princeton as a grad student and TA.

Yes, students are arrogant and push for grades quite a bit. But I saw zero evidence of systemic catering to them as a whole or to any specific sub-population. I imagine the Development Office (the folks who would cater to the ultra powerful) may get involved in extreme cases? But it would be a huge to-do among the faculty (tenured faculty at Harvard and most elite institutions are incredibly powerful) and I never heard of it happening.

As an undergrad, I pressed for grade changes twice and was denied, reasonably, both times. As a TA at Princeton I was often pressed for grade changes and all were denied.

What almost certainly happened in this person's case is that the Professors either a) weren't tenured and couldn't bother with student push-back given a sea of work and anxiety (or mistakenly thought student perceptions matter), or b) were tenured and didn't care to deal with student push-back.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#42

Post by cm2187 »

Animats wrote: post #25

Harvard's graduation rate is 97.5%. Yale 97%. Princeton 96.9%. It's hard to flunk out of the Ivy League. Non Ivy League highly selective schools: Caltech 92.3%. Stanford 93%. MIT 92.2%. UC Berkeley: 90.9%. Low 90% success rate is normal there.

Can it have something to do with higher tuition fees too?

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#43

Post by pdabbadabba »

giardini wrote: post #38
rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

Why are you obligated to "explain"?

Because one's job is not just to evaluate, but also to teach.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#44

Post by vostok »

irrational wrote: post #14
NumberSix wrote: post #9

The article ends with: It’s a system that polishes privilege, its byproduct a contempt for earned authority. Many of the people who started with this attitude had it ratified and encouraged by perhaps the most prestigious university in the world — and now they’re running the whole show. Emphasis on now added. Who in their right mind thinks people who attend Harvard and a handful of other elite universities and prep s…

Is Harvard really considered more prestigious than Oxford or Cambridge? That doesn't follow my perception.

In academic circles, yes. Socially, not so much.

A huge portion of the middle class in the UK went to Oxford or Cambridge. Something like 25% of Etonians get into Oxford or Cambridge. For the Westminster school that number is something like 45%.

Harvard does not have that same grip on the corresponding class stratum in the US, but Harvard also has far fewer undergraduates than Oxford or Cambridge and the US is a much larger country.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#45

Post by tptacek »

jforman wrote: post #41

This article has very little basis in reality based on my experience at Harvard as an undergrad and at Princeton as a grad student and TA. Yes, students are arrogant and push for grades quite a bit. But I saw zero evidence of systemic catering to them as a whole or to any specific sub-population. I imagine the Development Office (the folks who would cater to the ultra powerful) may get involved in extreme cases? But…

When you say "very little basis in reality", you mean "disagrees with my own experience". The difference between those two phrases isn't subtle. The author is relating their own actual experience teaching at Harvard, and the directly related experiences of other teachers.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#46

Post by ben1040 »

Something1234 wrote: post #37
paulgb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I canceled mine because they use outbrain but it hasn't expired yet.

What's out brain and what's wrong with it?

Outbrain is the source of the "from around the web" advertising links at the bottom of news articles. They're generally just ads for diet pills and the like, disguised as other news stories.

Other similar vendors of the same kind of service are Taboola and Lockerdome.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#47

Post by [deleted] »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

[deleted]

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#48

Post by ahelwer »

thomasahle wrote: post #39
rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

The problem is when the grades given on assignments influence what goes on your final exam papers. At a university, only the final exam should count. This way you can give honest feedback, and the student doesn't feel obligated to point out every little mistake to try to make you change your decision. It also allows them to misunderstand things at first, but then 'get' it later. Of course universities don't like this…

Really? Spreading grades out among various assignments and tests is how I managed to pass university (I coincidentally also attended the University of Calgary, hi rdlecler1!). I would have imploded if it all came down to a single giant exam. Why the heck would you want academic achievement to come down to a handful of hours of actual performance? What goal does that serve? University isn't the Olympics.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#49

Post by plussed_reader »

cm2187 wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #25

Harvard's graduation rate is 97.5%. Yale 97%. Princeton 96.9%. It's hard to flunk out of the Ivy League. Non Ivy League highly selective schools: Caltech 92.3%. Stanford 93%. MIT 92.2%. UC Berkeley: 90.9%. Low 90% success rate is normal there.

Can it have something to do with higher tuition fees too?

Why would it?

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#50

Post by [deleted] »

rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

[deleted]
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