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I'm comparing a (my non-selective public) top 10 engineering to other top 10s [engineering]. Near peer selective to near peer non-selective. You compared a top 50 to a top 10 ranked engineering, far from peer schools. Starting with 10% says nothing about the difficulty of the program. You don't even know that they were the best 10% of engineering material, just that they were the top 10% of what the school thought were picks as candidates. Selectivity does not confer difficulty. High (50%+)success rate of your selective cohort does not confer low (25%-) success rate of the non-selected group.

> My main point is that my experience with schooling is more extensive then yours.

It seems we have the same amount of experience with top 10 schools, where N=1 for both. I have been to a 'lower tier' school but not for engineering so I didn't even bother to mention it, and yeah I agree it was a joke comparatively.

It does. Like I said the the smarter kids the tougher the courses. Because smarter kids normalize easiness. The difficulty of the program is set by the kids who attend. The school absolutely cannot fail the entire class, they have to set the hardness so that a certain amount pass. It is absolutely a factor especially if most schools grade on a curve. So if any Tom Dick or Jane can join the curve however steep it is, will reflect the quality of those who join.

"Best engineering material" is a misnomer. the smartest kids from other schools correlate with best engineering material. I already stated that sure you can have some miracle kid that succeeds at engineering but bombs at school, but this is rare. Kids who do well in school tend to do well in engineering. Any other thing you see is likely to be an anomaly.

You're basing your argument off the erroneous notion that engineering talent in school is completely separate from all other subjects and therefore selectivity is completely irrelevant. That doesn't make any sense. I'm saying it's not completely separate at all. There is a strong correlation that if you graduated top of the class in your high school you have a higher likelihood of better performance in engineering at a top school. It's not always the case but the correlation exists.

>It seems we have the same amount of experience with top 10 schools, where N=1 for both. I have been to a 'lower tier' school but not for engineering so I didn't even bother to mention it, and yeah I agree it was a joke comparatively.

Sure it's N=1. But read my paragraph above. That's a common sense figure. Person A gets all F's in your classes and Person B gets straight As and takes a bunch of AP courses... by probability person B will be the better engineer. Common sense. We can make a good estimate based off of common sense logic without the need for statistically rigorous data. So based off of that logic, my reasoning goes beyond a N=1 sample size as we can use common sense induction to arrive at a broader conclusion.

False. There is no requirement that the course be made easier, nor that the non-selective school refrain from creating a much harsher curve to reflect a like-achiever performing similarly to like-achiever at a different school.

>The school absolutely cannot fail the entire class, they have to set the hardness so that a certain amount pass.

They absolutely can, and in fact most of the courses I took REQUIRE the teacher to fail everyone who fails to achieve certain ABET designated criteria, regardless of what percent fails to master the material. Although in practical case, this means the non-selective school just fails a lot more people than the selective school at freshman/sophomore level.

>It is absolutely a factor especially if most schools grade on a curve. So if any Tom Dick or Jane can join the curve however steep it is, will reflect the quality of those who join.

Only on the basis of the fallacy that curves cannot vary from school to school.

>That doesn't make any sense. I'm saying it's not completely separate at all. There is a strong correlation that if you graduated top of the class in your high school you have a higher likelihood of better performance in engineering at a top school. It's not always the case but the correlation exists.

How the top 10% or whatever n% performs doesn't say anything about how the bottom 100-N% perform, (other than the top performed better). It merely provides a maximum, which in your example was 50% passing. We've been over this fallacious assertion many times now.

>You're basing your argument off the erroneous notion that engineering talent in school is completely separate from all other subjects and therefore selectivity is completely irrelevant

Selectivity DOESN'T CONFER DIFFICULTY. Say that in your head 10 more times. That 50% of your selective cohort passes doesn't prove that the non-selective cohort will be below say 25% of your baseline "only with a pulse" group. A t best it suggest that they won't exceed the 50% of the favored cohort. I didn't make an 'erroneous notion' about selectivity or talent because I never claimed selectivity increased nor decreased difficulty, in fact that was your 'erroneous notion.'

>Sure it's N=1. But read my paragraph above. That's a common sense figure. Person A gets all F's in your classes and Person B gets straight As and takes a bunch of AP courses... by probability person B will be the better engineer. Common sense. We can make a good estimate based off of common sense logic without the need for statistically rigorous data. So based off of that logic, my reasoning goes beyond a N=1 sample size as we can use common sense induction to arrive at a broader conclusion.

I see no reason why person A and B alike couldn't be held to similar standards regardless as whether they went to a selective vs non selective school.

Your selective program is not more difficult on that basis alone.

>They absolutely can, and in fact most of the courses I took REQUIRE the teacher to fail everyone who fails to achieve certain ABET designated criteria, regardless of what percent fails to master the material. Although in practical case, this means the non-selective school just fails a lot more people than the selective school at freshman/sophomore level.

Of course no official requirement exists. But all schools must do this. Failing an entire class or most of the class is grounds for a lawsuit. It's also extremely bad for business as schools are basically businesses.

The only thing schools can do is grade on a curve and this curve must let a percentage of people through. The quality of that percentage depends 100% on the quality of the group that is in that class. Thus selectivity effects difficulty. If every student scored 99%, then 99% is now a C grade. See the logic? Selectivity is causative to difficulty in classes with a curve AND that is a quantitative inductive conclusion which is incredibly hard to counter with qualitative anecdotes.

I also don't know why you're bringing up ABET when we agreed it's trash and irrelevant.

>Only on the basis of the fallacy that curves cannot vary from school to school.

Curves are different, so are the students going in. But when you look at the whole, by the law of large numbers (aka basic probability) a pattern emerges. Selective schools have smarter people and are therefore harder overall because of these curves. The generality is true despite exceptions that may exist. You can say on average, what I say is more likely to be true.

>How the top 10% or whatever n% performs doesn't say anything about how the bottom 100-N% perform, (other than the top performed better). It merely provides a maximum, which in your example was 50% passing. We've been over this fallacious assertion many times now.

It already does. The top 10% indicates that the bottom 90% failed to perform at the level of the top 10%. That is something right there. Failure to perform. If you fail to be part of the top 10% then you're more likely to fail at other things INCLUDING an engineering curriculum. Correlation and probability. Your assumption which imo is much more far fetched is stating that this correlation DOESN'T exist. Think about it. It's much more logical to assume high performers in high school are more likely to be high performers in university.

>Selectivity DOESN'T CONFER DIFFICULTY. Say that in your head 10 more times.

Say it as much as you want. I am literally telling you that IT DOES.

I said two things that by induction leads to higher difficulty. Literally. Selectivity leads to higher performers in a class. Higher performers effect the intrinsic curve EVERY school has. THEREFORE difficulty increases. As I stated before this hinges on the correlation between performance before entering the university with actual performance at the university in an engineering curriculum. That's the basis of my thesis right there. It is unreasonable to deny that correlation.

>I see no reason why person A and B alike couldn't be held to similar standards regardless as whether they went to a selective vs non selective school.

You hold the standard too high, then nobody passes the course. A certain percentage has to pass, therefore, for a non-selective school the curve MUST be lowered for more people to pass. As I stated before, although there's no official rule stating that schools can't fail everyone, it's pretty stupid for a school to fail everyone. Bad for business and various other things.

Thus by this logic a non-selective school MUST lower the bar or too many people will fail. Keep in mind, selective schools also have high attrition rates, so we can do the math on this if you have statistics about your school. I'm guessing something like Georgia Tech which is like 40% percent dropout rate (could very well be a BS statistic as I've only heard people regurgitate what the dean says) and 75% acceptance, versus my school which is 11 percent acceptance and dropout is 10% (highly inaccurate as this is the overall dropout rate of the entire school... Engineering is MUCH higher).

This leaves Georgia Tech with 45% and my school with 10% of the initial group of people that applied. Assuming that both schools have the same distribution of talented people applying, there's no logic that can justify Georgia Tech being easier than my school. More people of the same level of talent out of this distribution make it through Georgia Tech than they do at my school. Therefore my school is harder.

Of course it should also be noted that my school is prestigious enough that most mediocre students don't bother to apply. So my school weighted towards a group with greater talent.

I don't know which school you went to but Georgia Tech is the only top 10 CS school that I know of that has a reputation for letting "anyone with a pulse" into their online masters program, so I'm using that as my model.

>Your selective program is not more difficult on that basis alone.

Certainly there are exceptions aka Anomalies, but the generality is impossible not to be true. It's an axiom of probability. You could very well be a genius of unparalleled talent that came out of a non-selective program.

In fact by probability, it is actually highly unlikely for anomalies not to exist. Somebody eventually gets struck by lightning.