Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 113 posts

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#81

Post by seanmcdirmid »

colincsl wrote: post #32
guelo wrote: post #27

It seems like the graduate school entrance exams (GRE, MCAT, GMAT, LSAT) would be a good indicator of undergrad performance (though not so much for engineering and non-medical science). Are those scores available on a per undergrad-school basis?

I'm not sure about the MCAT/GMAT/LSAT but the GRE is a pretty bad indicator. For example, everyone who goes to grad school for computer science or engineering gets minimum a 750 on the quantitative section. The math only tests high school level ability. While I don't have any links, I think that there are many studies showing that SAT/GRE type scores don't mean very much.

I remember taking the GRE, I got 99 percentiles on quantitative and logical reasoning...and like 69 percentile on verbal. The verbal part was basically a vocabulary test.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#82

Post by seanmcdirmid »

the_watcher wrote: post #39
loser777 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently a student at a large (largest in the UC system) public research university, and I don't see any problem with excluding schools like UC Berkeley from the top 20. While we, like Berkeley, are a "research powerhouse," spend a little time as an undergraduate on campus and you will quickly realize how little the phrase "research powerhouse" really means to you. Professors are hired for research, not teaching…

I also went to UCLA and second all of this. My undergraduate experience didn't feel at all like I was at a research university.

I had a great research experience at UW in my Junior/Senior year. My work even made it into the New York Times (fuzz testing Java's bytecode verifier at the time to find security vulnerabilities). But it was something you definitely had to look for.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#83

Post by seanmcdirmid »

JPKab wrote: post #58
davmre wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been to UC Berkeley? As a current grad student here: it's a fantastic research university and a beautiful campus, but the undergraduate experience is terrible. Classes are giant and there's very little faculty/student interaction, because the focus of the faculty is, for better or for worse, not on undergraduate education. Yes, there are some incredible undergrads and some great opportunities for the 0.…

The US News rankings have a very negative incentivization for schools also. One of the things that my alma mater, Virginia Tech, used to do to (and I'm sure still does) is lure top tier students into their (admittedly great) engineering program. However, they then use a bootcamp style, much harder than necessary first year "weed out" program for the freshman engineering students. The effect is that 50% of the incomin…

But its usually just the door that is hard to get into, once through the door its usually smooth sailing. Actually, this occurs in many exclusive programs/institutions over and over again. But in reality, they have to be selective: the world doesn't need that many engineers, especially ones that aren't that smart, just like we really don't need that many doctors (especially ones that aren't that smart). Computer science is the same: sure you could double or triple the size of your program to except just anyone that wants to program, but then you would flood the market with substandard talent and your reputation goes into the trashbin!

Now, would we prefer a hard program where students would fail out instead of being stopped at the door? This also seems like a waste of resources, but it could work given the right technology (e.g. online courses).

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#84

Post by pokerfacer »

lordofmoria wrote: post #65
pokerfacer wrote: post #37

US News's rankings are based upon metrics like acceptance rate, retention rate, yield rate, charitable donations, faculty-student ratio, endowment, etc. These rankings don't predict the "best" colleges, but rather the most prestigious.

curious, how does faculty-student ratio relate to prestige?

It's not a perfect proxy for prestige, but cash-rich universities with large endowments have more professor positions than less well-off colleges.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#85

Post by learc83 »

overgryphon wrote: post #74
ChuckMcM wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is my hypothesis on why home schooling otherwise normal children is so much more effective than primary school education. 1) Kids between the ages of 5 and 13 often do treat their parents with respect. 2) Kids between the ages of 5 and 13 often do what their parents tell them to do. 3) Home school kids stay busy and don't waste time because the parent(s) aren't going to let the time go to 'waste' 4) Home sch…

Primary school seems to be about social skills just as much as academic skills. How does homeschooling address that?

Everyone says that, but I've seen no data to back it up. In fact, most studies show the exact opposite, that home schooled children have better social skills. People just assume that since they went to school, everyone else should too. Is it really in a child's best interest to spend the majority of his time with hundreds of other poorly supervised children, learning to emulate their behavior rather than the behavior of trusted adults?

As soon as you get out of school you realize that adult life, for most people, is absolutely nothing like school. It's shocking just how much nicer adults are than children. The only social environment school really prepares you for is an institutionalized one (e.g., prison).

And don't even get me started on the distractions, by the time I was 13 or so I spent so much time worrying about girls (and other social stuff, but mostly girls) that learning was the last thing on my mind (I still made a 4.0 in high school, but I didn't actually learn much). I also don't think that those juvenile relationships prepared me in any way for actual adult relationships.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#86

Post by ChuckMcM »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80
frozenport wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense! Homeschool kids are from a selected group where their parents are extremely dedicated Look at public school kids who also come from the group of extremely dedicated parents

This. And consider that homeschooling in no way scales, and is not very effective for kids from troubled families (for obvious reasons).

One can never guess what is going to be projected into one's writing.

Tokenadult pointed out some things that MET figured out were highly correlated with effective teaching, he quoted them with : "Of the 36 items included in the Gates Foundation study, the five that most correlated with student learning were very straightforward:

My wife and I home schooled our kids through "8th" grade, they went to the local high school. I got to meet a number of kids being home schooled, and their parents. I recognized all five of the factors that the MET identified as being present in a home schooling situation. That is all.

What did you think I was saying?

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#87

Post by brainflake »

learc83 wrote: post #85
overgryphon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Primary school seems to be about social skills just as much as academic skills. How does homeschooling address that?

Everyone says that, but I've seen no data to back it up. In fact, most studies show the exact opposite, that home schooled children have better social skills. People just assume that since they went to school, everyone else should too. Is it really in a child's best interest to spend the majority of his time with hundreds of other poorly supervised children, learning to emulate their behavior rather than the behavior…

Which studies? I'm a little skeptical that home schooled children have better social skills than kids that attend public school.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#88

Post by ChuckMcM »

brainflake wrote: post #87
learc83 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone says that, but I've seen no data to back it up. In fact, most studies show the exact opposite, that home schooled children have better social skills. People just assume that since they went to school, everyone else should too. Is it really in a child's best interest to spend the majority of his time with hundreds of other poorly supervised children, learning to emulate their behavior rather than the behavior…

Which studies? I'm a little skeptical that home schooled children have better social skills than kids that attend public school.

Its a common question that comes up, and as far as my wife and I could figure out it has never actually been an issue here. One of the things people don't recognize right away is that rarely are you the only person home schooling, there can be lots of people in your area doing the same. One of the programs we did was for science a bunch of us did a one science topic for the week, and everyone in the group's kids would go to that parent's house for some particular expertise or investigation. These were 5, 7 even 10 student groups of similar ages working on the same material. Similarly for Reikes which was 15 - 25 home schooled kids once a week meeting up at a county park to discuss the ecology, bio-diversity, flora, fauna, land management, lots of stuff.

If the impression is home schooling is 1 kid sitting at home all day doing the same things they would do in a class room, you are not seeing what is going on around here. Groups of kids tackling problems and learning about history, math, communication, societies and communities, and all the material you'd normally get in school, just in chunkier bits with the opportunity to go deeper into the topic if you're interested and just pick up the required bits if you're not. Lots of reading, lots of field trips (the Sierras are fabulous for doing geology field trips), museums and such. Oh and lots and lots of reading.

I'd love to see some more rigorous work on this.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#89

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #86
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. And consider that homeschooling in no way scales, and is not very effective for kids from troubled families (for obvious reasons).

One can never guess what is going to be projected into one's writing. Tokenadult pointed out some things that MET figured out were highly correlated with effective teaching, he quoted them with : "Of the 36 items included in the Gates Foundation study, the five that most correlated with student learning were very straightforward: My wife and I home schooled our kids through "8th" grade, they went to the local high sc…

You are confusing cause and effect, the factors are already present in families who are dedicated/resourceful enough to consider homeschooling, so homeschooling simply has no effect in that case.

It is already known that the most important factor in whether a kid learns or not is their home situation. These studies are on the effectiveness of schools assuming the home factor can't be changed easily by society.

Re: Bill Gates Says There Is Something Perverse In College Ratings

#90

Post by dmhdlr »

armored_mammal wrote: post #7

One of those ideas that's blatantly obvious, but which most will refuse to consider until someone 'big' mainstreams it. I have a hard time reconciling the various useful things the Gates foundation seems to do with the tendency towards obnoxiousness that defines Microsoft.

Obnoxiousness isn't the right word.
Post reply on HN