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I think it's pretty well known that Ivy League schools are much harder to get into than they are to get out of, at least among college-aged people. That's by de

I think it's pretty well known that Ivy League schools are much harder to get into than they are to get out of, at least among college-aged people. That's by design, but also partly out of necessity; it's not possible to design a curriculum so difficult that only 2,000 students in the country can graduate, and then accurately select those 2,000 students from 50,000 applicants.

barry-cotter 8y ago
Reliably picking the top 4% and tailoring the curriculum to them sounds very difficult. With a large enough potential student body and a small enough enrolment a sufficiently prestigious institution can have any kind of student population it wants. Cal Tech students are admitted purely on academic merit and they’re the only elite university in the US with a significant drop out rate. I doubt they have any graduates who aren’t in the top percentile. In practice you’re mostly right. Look at schools like Yale Law or France’s École Nationale d’Administration[1] where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administra...
- ummonk 8y ago
  >where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. Is that unusual?
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Yes. If you give an average class of 15 year olds high school textbooks and past exam papers and tell them you’ll give them lots of money if they get a good grade they won’t do it. Given expert instruction, dedicated time to learn and every support plenty fail. If being able to learn independently from a textbook was normal boot camps would not exist.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Even students who are able to learn independently need credentials. And is your statement about the average class of 15 year olds based on research or is it pure speculation?
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        Credentials are very helpful but none of the boot camps gives credentials worth a damn and plenty of their graduates get good jobs. Credentials are not always bad everywhere necessary. My statement about the average class of 15 year olds is based on my exposure to the children I tutor, having been a 15 year old myself, observation and a certain amount of reading in the psychological literature, mostly the monotonic increase in conscientiousness that goes at least into the late twenties. I actually have great respect for the capacity of teenagers to learn and achieve; I just think very little of their discipline. I’ve no doubt at least a third of the average high school class could do lambdaschool’s front end or data science course. Given a similar level of support, scheduling and structure I’m sure at least a quarter could complete the curriculum of many Master’s degrees. But the average college student is older, more conscientious and smarter than the average 15 year old. Twenty percent drop out. More graduate in six years than in four. The average 15 year old is in no way prepared to self study given just text books and a syllsbus.
- deleted 8y ago
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- whymauri 8y ago
  I always say CalTech has the smartest undergrads in the US. My friends there and the curriculum blow my mind
m0zg 8y ago
This problem is commonly solved in a somewhat more meritocratic fashion by having entrance exams. My alma mater had them (not in the US), and problems in the exams spanned a range from "quite hard" to "insane". You were not expected to solve everything. Then they'd grade the results anonymously, and pick the top N, where N was capacity for that year. To have a chance of passing the exam you could sign up for their prep school for a very nominal fee that only covered postage (it was by mail), and many of us did.

barry-cotter 8y ago

Reliably picking the top 4% and tailoring the curriculum to them sounds very difficult. With a large enough potential student body and a small enough enrolment a sufficiently prestigious institution can have any kind of student population it wants. Cal Tech students are admitted purely on academic merit and they’re the only elite university in the US with a significant drop out rate. I doubt they have any graduates who aren’t in the top percentile. In practice you’re mostly right. Look at schools like Yale Law or France’s École Nationale d’Administration[1] where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administra...

ummonk 8y ago
>where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. Is that unusual?
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Yes. If you give an average class of 15 year olds high school textbooks and past exam papers and tell them you’ll give them lots of money if they get a good grade they won’t do it. Given expert instruction, dedicated time to learn and every support plenty fail. If being able to learn independently from a textbook was normal boot camps would not exist.
  - leereeves 8y ago
    Even students who are able to learn independently need credentials. And is your statement about the average class of 15 year olds based on research or is it pure speculation?
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Credentials are very helpful but none of the boot camps gives credentials worth a damn and plenty of their graduates get good jobs. Credentials are not always bad everywhere necessary. My statement about the average class of 15 year olds is based on my exposure to the children I tutor, having been a 15 year old myself, observation and a certain amount of reading in the psychological literature, mostly the monotonic increase in conscientiousness that goes at least into the late twenties. I actually have great respect for the capacity of teenagers to learn and achieve; I just think very little of their discipline. I’ve no doubt at least a third of the average high school class could do lambdaschool’s front end or data science course. Given a similar level of support, scheduling and structure I’m sure at least a quarter could complete the curriculum of many Master’s degrees. But the average college student is older, more conscientious and smarter than the average 15 year old. Twenty percent drop out. More graduate in six years than in four. The average 15 year old is in no way prepared to self study given just text books and a syllsbus.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
whymauri 8y ago
I always say CalTech has the smartest undergrads in the US. My friends there and the curriculum blow my mind

m0zg 8y ago

This problem is commonly solved in a somewhat more meritocratic fashion by having entrance exams. My alma mater had them (not in the US), and problems in the exams spanned a range from "quite hard" to "insane". You were not expected to solve everything. Then they'd grade the results anonymously, and pick the top N, where N was capacity for that year. To have a chance of passing the exam you could sign up for their prep school for a very nominal fee that only covered postage (it was by mail), and many of us did.