4 ms·

>It is still very hard to get into elite schools, but it's not at all difficult to graduate. I can't say for all degrees at all elite schools, but in the elite

>It is still very hard to get into elite schools, but it's not at all difficult to graduate. I can't say for all degrees at all elite schools, but in the elite CS program I attended, I worked much harder than I ever did before attending, and much harder than I ever did after graduating. In the weeks immediately following graduation I used to feel guilt if I would spend over an hour on something fun, like a movie or a video game, because over the course of my degree I had conditioned myself to spend every waking moment working.

arethuza 7y ago
"over the course of my degree I had conditioned myself to spend every waking moment working" I'm pretty sure that's not the best way to actually maximise performance - in the same way that even professional athletes don't spend 100% of their time training. You need recovery periods and, I find, breaks for stuff to actually sink in.
- helen___keller 7y ago
  Sure, I don't disagree. I learned a lot about working more efficiently after graduating and forcing myself to work strictly 9-5. Fact is, when you have weekly assignments in 4 classes that each require many hours to complete, it's easy to find yourself in a cycle of coding until 3 am only to realize you have to do it again the next day to finish a math problem set. My point is just that "hard to get in, easy to graduate" does not meet my experience at all.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    It wasn't my experience either, but my wife certainly had that experience at the UK law school she went to - which was rather more prestigious then the relatively humble uni we both did our first degrees at.
btilly 7y ago
Right after the admission scandal broke, I saw a Cal Tech grad point out that it probably wasn't a coincidence that none of the parents tried to get their kids into Cal Tech, given its deserved reputation for making students work hard. Which data point confirms your observation that this varies widely by school and there are hard programs out there.
- tanderson92 7y ago
  Despite the Chronicle's attempt to lump Caltech in with other elite schools in not explicitly having policies which forbid this from occurring, it is nonetheless impossible as pointed out in a Q&A done by the Chronicle with various institutions. See: https://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Asked-20-Elite-College/245920 https://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Asked-20-Elite-College/... > Q. Will your university exert more oversight over how students are designated as athletic recruits in the admissions process? If so, how? > A. Caltech does not reserve admission spots for our athletic department nor do we take into account legacy status or family wealth. The main criteria in our evaluation process focuses on academic and personal performance/potential as well as demonstrated STEM passion and achievement. > Q. Does "Operation Varsity Blues" show a broader need for reform in selective admissions? > A. This case is an important reminder how hypervigilant selective admission offices need to be in evaluating candidates and their credentials.
  - Anechoic 7y ago
    nor do we take into account legacy status Caltech's CDS says otherwise - http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/537-cds2019.pdf http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/537-cds2019.pdf section C7
    - tanderson92 7y ago
      Very interesting, thank you! This discrepancy I cannot explain, and will have to investigate further. It appears the answer changed in the 2005 CDS, see: http://finance.caltech.edu/Resources/cds http://finance.caltech.edu/Resources/cds (of course, for those following along, this very interesting point is unrelated to the college admissions scandal)
chasd00 7y ago
i didn't go to an elite school by any stretch (being a country boy first in the family going to college) but i know what you mean. After graduation, I felt like a hardened and bloodied gladiator standing alone in a stadium with the sun going down. Without a seemingly impossible task to face i didn't know what to do with myself, it was kind of scary.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
I went to a state school that had a particularly crappy CS program and it was the same. I don't think busyness is an indication of the "eliteness" of a program. You can just be working hard but not actually learning much because the tasks you're working on are not efficient at teaching.

arethuza 7y ago

"over the course of my degree I had conditioned myself to spend every waking moment working" I'm pretty sure that's not the best way to actually maximise performance - in the same way that even professional athletes don't spend 100% of their time training. You need recovery periods and, I find, breaks for stuff to actually sink in.

helen___keller 7y ago
Sure, I don't disagree. I learned a lot about working more efficiently after graduating and forcing myself to work strictly 9-5. Fact is, when you have weekly assignments in 4 classes that each require many hours to complete, it's easy to find yourself in a cycle of coding until 3 am only to realize you have to do it again the next day to finish a math problem set. My point is just that "hard to get in, easy to graduate" does not meet my experience at all.
- arethuza 7y ago
  It wasn't my experience either, but my wife certainly had that experience at the UK law school she went to - which was rather more prestigious then the relatively humble uni we both did our first degrees at.

btilly 7y ago

Right after the admission scandal broke, I saw a Cal Tech grad point out that it probably wasn't a coincidence that none of the parents tried to get their kids into Cal Tech, given its deserved reputation for making students work hard. Which data point confirms your observation that this varies widely by school and there are hard programs out there.

tanderson92 7y ago
Despite the Chronicle's attempt to lump Caltech in with other elite schools in not explicitly having policies which forbid this from occurring, it is nonetheless impossible as pointed out in a Q&A done by the Chronicle with various institutions. See: https://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Asked-20-Elite-College/245920 https://www.chronicle.com/article/We-Asked-20-Elite-College/... > Q. Will your university exert more oversight over how students are designated as athletic recruits in the admissions process? If so, how? > A. Caltech does not reserve admission spots for our athletic department nor do we take into account legacy status or family wealth. The main criteria in our evaluation process focuses on academic and personal performance/potential as well as demonstrated STEM passion and achievement. > Q. Does "Operation Varsity Blues" show a broader need for reform in selective admissions? > A. This case is an important reminder how hypervigilant selective admission offices need to be in evaluating candidates and their credentials.
- Anechoic 7y ago
  nor do we take into account legacy status Caltech's CDS says otherwise - http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/537-cds2019.pdf http://finance.caltech.edu/documents/537-cds2019.pdf section C7
  - tanderson92 7y ago
    Very interesting, thank you! This discrepancy I cannot explain, and will have to investigate further. It appears the answer changed in the 2005 CDS, see: http://finance.caltech.edu/Resources/cds http://finance.caltech.edu/Resources/cds (of course, for those following along, this very interesting point is unrelated to the college admissions scandal)

chasd00 7y ago

i didn't go to an elite school by any stretch (being a country boy first in the family going to college) but i know what you mean. After graduation, I felt like a hardened and bloodied gladiator standing alone in a stadium with the sun going down. Without a seemingly impossible task to face i didn't know what to do with myself, it was kind of scary.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

I went to a state school that had a particularly crappy CS program and it was the same. I don't think busyness is an indication of the "eliteness" of a program. You can just be working hard but not actually learning much because the tasks you're working on are not efficient at teaching.