Academic and athletic stresses at an Ivy

typo:

the last line should read "Do they only teach half of the laws ''OF'' physics at unranked schools? No"

Puke at Exams wrote:

Stan, Yale, USC, Harvard are a bitch but you don't have 60% CJKIPEs to f u c k up the curve at exam time.

Freshmen are so nervous at USCD, Berkeley, and UCLA, at midterms and finals, some vomit in class.

At least math & sci are still white at the Ivy colleges, USC, and Stanford mainly due to apartheid admissions. My friends at UCLA and Berkeley report that 5 out of 6 math & science students are Asians.

Wow, would love to meet all these LR geniuses who can ace their "easy" classes at the top schools while being star, 3-season athletes. Yes, there are super-talented kids who can do it, but they are few and far between from what we've seen. Usually there is an inverse relationshjp between rising GPA's and improving running times. One reason for this is that it's hard to get enough sleep to run well when you have so much school work to do.

Mensa Member wrote:

Usually there is an inverse relationshjp between rising GPA's and improving running times.

Except that the data don't agree!

Track and cross-country teams at the Ivies (and most other colleges) *consistently* get higher average GPAs than are the norm for the student body as a whole.

The NCAA did a study on this and it's true for most sports, not just ours. Interestingly, the people who are in single-season sports get higher GPAs (on average) when they're *in* season than during their off-season.

The reason, I think, is that the demands of training/travel/competition force students to prioritize and to live an organized lifestyle--fewer of the all-night BS sessions with other people on your dorm floor, and probably *more* hours of sleep than the average student gets.

But whatever the cause(s), the fact remains: on average, NCAA student-athletes get higher GPAs than does the student body as a whole; and the athletes' grades are *higher* in season (so I'd say that someone who's serious about academics should go for three seasons of sports--xc, indoor, and outdoor t&f, say).

So you're wrong.

pqwosk - yes, the difference between highly ranked schools and other institutions is the student body. Now, when almost all of your classes are graded on a curve and the professor sets the mean to a B- or a B, if you are an average Ivy student, you'll be getting a 3.0.

Very intelligent students have to compete with each other for grades. This makes school, as Ivy insider said, require a huge commitment of time and diligence.

Stormy Waters wrote:

pqwosk - yes, the difference between highly ranked schools and other institutions is the student body. Now, when almost all of your classes are graded on a curve and the professor sets the mean to a B- or a B, if you are an average Ivy student, you'll be getting a 3.0.

Very intelligent students have to compete with each other for grades. This makes school, as Ivy insider said, require a huge commitment of time and diligence.

Grading on a curve should not affect you that much. If you get 93%+ of the questions correct, then you will always get an A no matter what anyone else gets. Thus there is no need to worry about competition. You either know the material or you don't.

Also, if you go to a school that predominantly does grade curving, then you should question whether that school is actually doing you a service or a disservice. Your inflated grades mean you aren't learning anything. They really need to standardize course tests between universities. Why don't they do this? They do it in highschool.

Mensa Member wrote:

Wow, would love to meet all these LR geniuses who can ace their "easy" classes at the top schools while being star, 3-season athletes. Yes, there are super-talented kids who can do it, but they are few and far between from what we've seen. Usually there is an inverse relationshjp between rising GPA's and improving running times. One reason for this is that it's hard to get enough sleep to run well when you have so much school work to do.

doesn't the fact that the average gpa on campuses is around 3.5 tell you that passing to good grades are not hard to get?

go green wrote:

doesn't the fact that the average gpa on campuses is around 3.5 tell you that passing to good grades are not hard to get?

show me the stat that tells you the average gpa at ivies is a 3.5.

I can guarantee that classes at Ivies are not easy, and like other posters said, the curves destroy souls.

ok. From two source - secondary:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/973542-does-anything-know-average-gpa-all-ivy-league-schools.html

and primary:

http://www.gradeinflation.com/

Here are the average GPA's at the Ivy League Schools (and the year in which this was the case):

Brown: 3.61 (2007)

Yale: 3.51 (2008)

Harvard: 3.45 (2005)

UPenn: 3.44 (2004)

Columbia: 3.42 (2006)

Dartmouth: 3.42 (2007)

Cornell: 3.36 (2006)

Princeton: 3.28 (2008)

Brown stands out as a seeming inflator of grades, and Princeton as a seeming deflator of grades. This is unsurprising, as Brown offers the option of taking a class Pass/Fail and Princeton instituted a policy whose aim was to reduce the number of A's that are given out.

Cornell's may be a bit lower because a higher percentage of students have engineering as their major, something which is associated with a lower GPA

"For example, in 1890 Harvard's average GPA was 2.27. In 1950, its average GPA was 2.55. By 2004, its GPA, as a result of dramatic rises in the 1960s and gradual rises since, had risen to 3.48."

From Wiki

maybe what is going on here is that math/science grades are usually lower than humanities grades. So if you hang out with math majors you probably have a different idea of grading than would someone who hangs with the english majors.

go green wrote:

maybe what is going on here is that math/science grades are usually lower than humanities grades. So if you hang out with math majors you probably have a different idea of grading than would someone who hangs with the english majors.

This is possible, though I think perhaps more frequently true in engineering (and secondarily in hard sciences) than in math itself. I remember well that most upper-level math courses at my Ivy, some decades back, were curved to an A-. Of course those were populated by many grad students, as well--the profs may have curved accordingly.

pqowsk wrote:

Grading on a curve should not affect you that much. If you get 93%+ of the questions correct, then you will always get an A no matter what anyone else gets. Thus there is no need to worry about competition. You either know the material or you don't.

Also, if you go to a school that predominantly does grade curving, then you should question whether that school is actually doing you a service or a disservice. Your inflated grades mean you aren't learning anything. They really need to standardize course tests between universities. Why don't they do this? They do it in highschool.

This is simply false. If a class is graded on a curve and the mean is a 93, and you get a 93...you'll get a B. A 93 does not equal an A, it depends on what grade the professor is curving to, and how tight the standard deviation is. You can't just slack through because you know almost all of the material, if the other students know it just a little bit better, you're screwed.

Additionally, many professors shoot for mean test grades around 70, and some intentionally make tests even more difficult. In my four years, I had many test means in the 50-65% range. It's pretty stressful to

And how do my "inflated grades" mean I didn't learn anything? My grades were certainly not inflated. With many classes in my hard science major curved to between a B- and a B+, I would argue the exact opposite.

Ivy Insider wrote:

Stunningly ignorant post. Academics at the top ivy league schools (H/Y/P) are .... there are enough 99%ile types to preclude the need to scrounge around below that level).

God bless.

Stunningly arrogant post, but basically what an intelligent person would expect from someone who selects the name "Ivy Insider".

My perspective (as a professor at a Carnegie 1 university, and having been at several very prominent universities [Oxford, Rockefeller]) is that a good student will excel and find good opportunities at any good university. Obviously there are a lot of mediocre universities, but most of the top 100 schools will provide you ample opportunities to learn, if you want to.

I'd suggest that you focus on finding a university with a good department in the subject that interests you, with an xc/track program you like, in a place that you want to live. For example, many of the Ivy League schools have middle-of-the-road programs in ecology and conservation (my field). Depending on the state you live in, you might find a better program at the flagship state school, if that happens to be your interest.

As far as the workload goes, there is as much variation among academic fields than there is among schools. without knowing your specific interests, it is hard to say whether the load would be a concern. Most top HS students do not find the workload in college a problem that they can't handle.

Of course, if being an 'ivy insider' is the goal, then there's nothing wrong with that either. They are good schools, no one would argue with that.

wwjd wrote:

I'd suggest that you focus on finding a university with a good department in the subject that interests you, with an xc/track program you like, in a place that you want to live. For example, many of the Ivy League schools have middle-of-the-road programs in ecology and conservation (my field). Depending on the state you live in, you might find a better program at the flagship state school, if that happens to be your interest.

As far as the workload goes, there is as much variation among academic fields [as] there is among schools. [W]ithout knowing your specific interests, it is hard to say whether the load would be a concern. Most top HS students do not find the workload in college a problem that they can't handle.

This is outstanding. I've bolded the parts I especially like.

Agreed, fantastic post. Find a university with a good program that intrests you, in a place you want to be. Run fast, study hard, and enjoy it!

Student athlete at Ivys wrote:

I'm a high school girl trying to narrow down my college search and a couple of Ivy's are definitely a possibly for me. My family is really worried I wont be able to balance the academic and athletic lives. My GPA is 4.15, but my test scores are just good, nothing great (ACT-26). I know the importance of an Ivy degree, but I also want to be able to enjoy

my college experience.

That ACT score definitely won't get you into a top Ivy, unless you are black. Also, don't you need to submit SAT scores, not ACT scores, to each of the Ivy League schools?

The answer depends on what you want to study and what your goals are. If you're a social science/humanities major and you are perfectly happy with a 3.0, then yeah it's not that bad. If you're a science/math/engineering major and you want good grades, prepare to live a life of eat/run/study/sleep with periods of sleep deprivation around exams. This is if you want to do both well, of course.

As long Asians and Orientals aren't around to ruin the curve you'll manage by studying with your sisters and brothers and teammates. The Athletic Department Academic Advisor or Academic Director will be monitoring your progress and will hook you up with tutors so you can maintain (so that Alumni money keeps flowing in). You'd be killed running and studying where my cousin went (UC Berkeley 2001) or where I went (UCSD 2006) with 2/3rds Asians/Orientals on campus.