3 ms·

I'm only somewhat familiar with their primary and secondary education (based on observation, not experience). If that is any indication, then their university c

I'm only somewhat familiar with their primary and secondary education (based on observation, not experience). If that is any indication, then their university courses are likely harder or at least as hard at a comparable level of institution prestige. (Harder doesn't always mean better. It's a characteristics of education that may/may not help with real-world applications.) One reason for that: It could be harder for a Chinese student to get into Tsinghua than a US student to get into MIT. The same likely holds for a range of other institutions as well. This is based on corresponding admission rates. Also, on average, Chinese students have better math background than American students. Obviously, MIT, Stanford, etc. currently have higher prestige in the world's eyes. It doesn't mean though that the education there is always more rigorous than top-level institutions in China.

PakG1 9y ago
I'm working as a manager in Shenzhen. I have a guy on my team who's studying to do his IELTS so that he can get accepted into a foreign university to do his masters in computer science. He says that he can't get into Tsinghua (or any Chinese university at that tier) because the competition's too fierce, and all the universities a step below are not well enough respected. Hence studying for IELTS. He's targeting University of Toronto or something at that level. For what it's worth, it's only one anecdote from one Chinese guy.
- netheril96 9y ago
  The admission standards for master's degree for the same school is usually lower than that for an undergraduate degree. At least in US, Canada, Britain and China itself.
aje403 9y ago
Would guess that it is at MIT/Stanford. A key thing to remember is that the top minds of the world aren't really emigrating to go to China to study or bring their family and that isn't going to change anytime soon. All roads still do not lead to China, and for good reason. Another important thing to take into consideration is having your trig identities memorized slightly better doesn't equivocate even remotely to higher intellectual output.
- nopinsight 9y ago
  By harder, I meant problems more intellectually challenging to solve. Compare hard questions in Chinese Gaokao exam to the hardest questions in SAT Math: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-hard-Chinese-Gaokao-math-questions https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-hard-Chinese... By the way, SAT Math questions are generally considered a piece of cake by most good students in East Asia (and they often get 800 or close without much extra preparation), which says something about the level of average American high school math education.
  - aje403 9y ago
    Wow, that is a huge leap in difficulty. The SATs are simple math. The GREs are as simple, which is presumably four years farther along than the SATs. However, it's hard answering all those questions correctly in the given time frame (presumably). You'd need a randomly sampled set of chinese kids taking the SATs to see where they fit against our distribution of scores to draw further conclusions. Bear in mind, too, top american students are studying advanced math in high school (advanced meaning, enough to reasonably answer the questions on the quora page, with time to practice and get used to things like the proof questions) Note: I'm not trying to justify the american education system, just providing commentary and trying to level the comparison a bit.
    - nopinsight 9y ago
      Check out PISA 2015 which tests Chinese students from 4 provinces (200+ million population). They are on average above Massachusetts, the top scoring American state, in math. Note that fewer percentage of Chinese youths attend high school than American, so that might skew the comparison.
      - aje403 9y ago
        I think I've heard of that. Went ahead and looked at the charts and it looks like the only mention of China were Taipei, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. That's kinda biased. For example, we could equivalently grab all the students from stuyvesant high school or phillips exeter academy, make sure they know some set theory and basic calculus and what not, then make them take the exam. Anyway, don't mean to argue - it does appear on the news a lot "the chinese are out mathing us! America sucks!" with some political finger pointing, and my reaction is usually a facepalm coupled with wondering how controlled the comparison is.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
It really depends on your hukou given China’s residency system. Each province has a small quota, though some get much more than others, it isn’t has hard as a Beijinger to get into Qinghua as a person from Henan. Many richer Chinese choose abroad for better educational opportunities, even those that are obviously going to get into Qinghua or PKU (e.g. Beijing’s top gaokao scorer a few years back went to HKU). On average, Chinese from the big cities have better math background than all Americans, not on average for the entire country. Compulsory education in china stops at 9th grade, and small city/rural schools are incredibly underfunded compared to PISA-record beating shanghai.

PakG1 9y ago

I'm working as a manager in Shenzhen. I have a guy on my team who's studying to do his IELTS so that he can get accepted into a foreign university to do his masters in computer science. He says that he can't get into Tsinghua (or any Chinese university at that tier) because the competition's too fierce, and all the universities a step below are not well enough respected. Hence studying for IELTS. He's targeting University of Toronto or something at that level. For what it's worth, it's only one anecdote from one Chinese guy.

netheril96 9y ago
The admission standards for master's degree for the same school is usually lower than that for an undergraduate degree. At least in US, Canada, Britain and China itself.

aje403 9y ago

Would guess that it is at MIT/Stanford. A key thing to remember is that the top minds of the world aren't really emigrating to go to China to study or bring their family and that isn't going to change anytime soon. All roads still do not lead to China, and for good reason. Another important thing to take into consideration is having your trig identities memorized slightly better doesn't equivocate even remotely to higher intellectual output.

nopinsight 9y ago
By harder, I meant problems more intellectually challenging to solve. Compare hard questions in Chinese Gaokao exam to the hardest questions in SAT Math: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-hard-Chinese-Gaokao-math-questions https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-examples-of-hard-Chinese... By the way, SAT Math questions are generally considered a piece of cake by most good students in East Asia (and they often get 800 or close without much extra preparation), which says something about the level of average American high school math education.
- aje403 9y ago
  Wow, that is a huge leap in difficulty. The SATs are simple math. The GREs are as simple, which is presumably four years farther along than the SATs. However, it's hard answering all those questions correctly in the given time frame (presumably). You'd need a randomly sampled set of chinese kids taking the SATs to see where they fit against our distribution of scores to draw further conclusions. Bear in mind, too, top american students are studying advanced math in high school (advanced meaning, enough to reasonably answer the questions on the quora page, with time to practice and get used to things like the proof questions) Note: I'm not trying to justify the american education system, just providing commentary and trying to level the comparison a bit.
  - nopinsight 9y ago
    Check out PISA 2015 which tests Chinese students from 4 provinces (200+ million population). They are on average above Massachusetts, the top scoring American state, in math. Note that fewer percentage of Chinese youths attend high school than American, so that might skew the comparison.
    - aje403 9y ago
      I think I've heard of that. Went ahead and looked at the charts and it looks like the only mention of China were Taipei, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. That's kinda biased. For example, we could equivalently grab all the students from stuyvesant high school or phillips exeter academy, make sure they know some set theory and basic calculus and what not, then make them take the exam. Anyway, don't mean to argue - it does appear on the news a lot "the chinese are out mathing us! America sucks!" with some political finger pointing, and my reaction is usually a facepalm coupled with wondering how controlled the comparison is.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

It really depends on your hukou given China’s residency system. Each province has a small quota, though some get much more than others, it isn’t has hard as a Beijinger to get into Qinghua as a person from Henan. Many richer Chinese choose abroad for better educational opportunities, even those that are obviously going to get into Qinghua or PKU (e.g. Beijing’s top gaokao scorer a few years back went to HKU). On average, Chinese from the big cities have better math background than all Americans, not on average for the entire country. Compulsory education in china stops at 9th grade, and small city/rural schools are incredibly underfunded compared to PISA-record beating shanghai.