WOW, Kathy Kroeger has a 3.96 GPA in math & computational science at Stanford

well-educated plebe wrote:

http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofhumanitiesandsciences/mathematicalandcomputationalscience/#text

In some sense a joke major. Run by the humanities department. The true baller students are in majors in the "school of engineering"

Math major here. Looking at these classes a majority of them are math classes, which can be difficult (group theory, anyone?). Kathy Kroeger has my respect.

well-educated plebe wrote:

http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofhumanitiesandsciences/mathematicalandcomputationalscience/#text

In some sense a joke major. Run by the humanities department. The true baller students are in majors in the "school of engineering"

You're a joke, as well as this entire thread. What was initially posted to acknowledge the achievement of a more than deserving individual turned into a Stanford bashing circus. Maybe you should educate yourself before you post, as your ignorance is revolting. Good day.

runnerdnerd wrote:

OP: surely you are aware of how extremely generous Stanford professors historically have been with their grading? Where I work HR has correction factors for each school's GPA. 3.96 at Stanford would be worth about a 3.3 at Cal or UCLA in an engineering/science field.

Still a solid GPA, but not something to get all worked up about. We aren't talking about a top NCAA runner who is also starting their PHD program 3 years into college or something unheard of like that.

Yes, surely Cal and other UC's must be more selective in their grading than lowly Stanford...oh wait...

At least Stanford holds their athletes to similar standards as the non-athletes. Something you only see in a few other schools around the NCAA.

MathMajor wrote:

well-educated plebe wrote:http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofhumanitiesandsciences/mathematicalandcomputationalscience/#text

In some sense a joke major. Run by the humanities department. The true baller students are in majors in the "school of engineering"

Math major here. Looking at these classes a majority of them are math classes, which can be difficult (group theory, anyone?). Kathy Kroeger has my respect.

^ Exactly!

myth buster bomb wrote:

I have no doubt that it includes some hard math and science courses, but wtf kind of major is "math & computational science". The name alone sounds very interdisciplinary/bullshtty. But hey it's Stanford and she'll probably get a high paid job on the school's name alone.

Also, grade inflation is rampant there.

Computability is a field of math and/or CS study. I've done some.

well-educated plebe wrote:

http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofhumanitiesandsciences/mathematicalandcomputationalscience/#text

In some sense a joke major. Run by the humanities department. The true baller students are in majors in the "school of engineering"

I'm an engineering student at a top 20 school, and this has my approval as a legit major. Also looks pretty interesting and very employable.

I'm an engineering student at a top 20 school, and this has my approval as a legit major. Also looks pretty interesting and very employable.

Funny, so are 99% of posters on letsrun.com engineers from Top 20 universities. Welcome aboard.

another well-educated plebe wrote:

I'm an engineering student at a top 20 school, and this has my approval as a legit major. Also looks pretty interesting and very employable.

What does you being an engineering student at a top 20 school have to do with ANYTHING? Why does your approval matter?

djdud wrote:

another well-educated plebe wrote:

I'm an engineering student at a top 20 school, and this has my approval as a legit major. Also looks pretty interesting and very employable.

What does you being an engineering student at a top 20 school have to do with ANYTHING? Why does your approval matter?

Because I know a thing or two about what majors are legit and what majors are BS easy majors.

Another well-educated plebe wrote:

djdud wrote:

What does you being an engineering student at a top 20 school have to do with ANYTHING? Why does your approval matter?

Because I know a thing or two about what majors are legit and what majors are BS easy majors.

Engineers from Top 20 schools make my coffee in the morning.

Another well-educated plebe wrote:

djdud wrote:

What does you being an engineering student at a top 20 school have to do with ANYTHING? Why does your approval matter?

Because I know a thing or two about what majors are legit and what majors are BS easy majors.

Wow good job at reading comprehension.

Good lord... wrote:

well-educated plebe wrote:http://exploredegrees.stanford.edu/schoolofhumanitiesandsciences/mathematicalandcomputationalscience/#text

In some sense a joke major. Run by the humanities department. The true baller students are in majors in the "school of engineering"

You're a joke, as well as this entire thread. What was initially posted to acknowledge the achievement of a more than deserving individual turned into a Stanford bashing circus. Maybe you should educate yourself before you post, as your ignorance is revolting. Good day.

Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate to society's constant fawning over Stanford..."ZOMG...look how smart she is". Of course she's smart, but I could find all sorts of kids all over California, even in the community colleges that could post up GPAs like that in those classes no problem. Where's their letsrun thread?

As an engineer I stand by man assertion that this major at Stanford is no more difficult than any engineering major at a decent state school. Engineers take all that same math, a couple intro comp sci classes, and a couple intro stats classes. But then on top of that, engineers learn how to be real computer scientists, or design bridges, or synthesize prescription drugs. And at Stanford, your hand is held. It's a well-known fact. At a state school where class sizes are 100+, if you fall behind...well, tough sh*t.

So props to Kathy Kroeger (not that she needs it as she'll probably get a job in consulting making bank because here degree says "Stanford" on it), but let's not get carried away.

runnerdnerd wrote:

OP: surely you are aware of how extremely generous Stanford professors historically have been with their grading? Where I work HR has correction factors for each school's GPA. 3.96 at Stanford would be worth about a 3.3 at Cal or UCLA in an engineering/science field.

Still a solid GPA, but not something to get all worked up about. We aren't talking about a top NCAA runner who is also starting their PHD program 3 years into college or something unheard of like that.

You can spout all you want but you do not really know what you are talking about. The CS classes are very competitive, probably the hardest at Stanford, with the possible exception of math and physics.

If you think getting 'A's as a math major at Stanford is easy then you are very much deluded and I would not place much credibility in anything you say (my wife went to Stanford with applied math and then got a PhD in OR/risk at MIT and she did not get straight 'A's at Stanford. The son of my co-workers [with quality PhDs] is graduating this year, has done great work and found the CS class difficult and very competitive. A 3.96 from Stanford in either of those two fields is excellent; when doing both it is better than that.

well-educated plebe wrote:

As an engineer I stand by man assertion that this major at Stanford is no more difficult than any engineering major at a decent state school. Engineers take all that same math, a couple intro comp sci classes, and a couple intro stats classes. But then on top of that, engineers learn how to be real computer scientists, or design bridges, or synthesize prescription drugs. And at Stanford, your hand is held. It's a well-known fact. At a state school where class sizes are 100+, if you fall behind...well, tough sh*t.

And you are completely out of your league and out of your depth. Stanford was the most difficult school in the country this year in terms of the proportion admitted, I think that they have have been under 5% and a lot of pretty strong students have given up applying there because they know that they will not get in.

The individual I cited above that found the CS classes very hard was an engineering major and was comparing those classes to his engineering studies. They were not easier, they were substantially harder. Now, another person has illustrated that they do not know what they are talking about and have no personal knowledge relevant to the question at hand.

So I am someone who double-majored in History and Biomedical Engineering and I stand by the liberal arts as a respected major. It's a matter of the types of classes...all of my upper level courses were challenging in BOTH majors. However, the ALL of my lower level courses were easy! The reason people assume liberal arts classes are easy is because they do not get involved in upper-level courses. I found my upper level history courses to be just as, if not more challenging than my upper level BME courses. People who make unjustified claims, stating that liberal arts courses are easy have clearly never taken upper level courses at a prestigious university. For Kathy's sake, a 3.96 is amazing in any major and at any university. I would like to challenge those "liberal arts haters" to get a 4.0 in History at a respected university.

Kathy Kroeger has a 2.96 at a California college that has Asians. Yo do know that Stanford was founded with a "No Chinese allowed" clause in the charter.

Sorry, I have not read all these posts. Is Kathy still running?

26mi235 wrote:

And you are completely out of your league and out of your depth. Stanford was the most difficult school in the country this year in terms of the proportion admitted, I think that they have have been under 5% and a lot of pretty strong students have given up applying there because they know that they will not get in.

Admittance rate has nothing to do with anything. The fact that perfect score SAT test takers don't get into these schools is evidence of that. It has nothing to do with difficulty. It has to do with being what the admitting committee wants to let in the school.

Furthermore, Stanford is a tiny school. To compare it's admittance rate to schools with 30,000+ students is idiotic. Of course a smaller school is going to have fewer people admitted.