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There are always two sides to every story, but when you have outright fraudulent claims I don't think you can say that the article is simply painting the school

by raiyu 7y ago

There are always two sides to every story, but when you have outright fraudulent claims I don't think you can say that the article is simply painting the school as "Satan" If you stated that you have an 86% placement record and in reality it is 50%, that is a pretty large discrepancy. If the original 86% placement was from the first 70-ish students and now you are over 2500 students, that seems a bit fraudulent. If placement rates aren't critical to you getting students, then you can say it is 50% publicly and see if that affects your enrollment numbers or not. Otherwise, it would stand to reason that stating a higher placement rate gets you more students. Also, this isn't run a a non-profit organization, its a for-profit enterprise. So they have a financial incentive to get more students because that equates to more value for them.

pembrook 7y ago
Cherry picking a strong cohort and using it to create a narrative is the same thing as cherry picking a weak cohort and doing the opposite. This is my point. Journalists are picking a narrative first, then seeking out facts to justify that position. When they thought lambda was going to fix education they were more than happy to report the 86% number without any research. Now that lambda is “evil” they look for the lowest number they can find. I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle.
- raiyu 7y ago
  The other wasn't a weak cohort. It was the most recent data. Also if you were an institution interested in disclosing information fairly you would simply list all cohorts and let the consumer decide. But they aren't doing that and instead claim a single number. By the way, having had recent experiences with a number of bootcamps through friends I would say that the 50% number anecdotally is accurate. That's also not taking in to account the drop out rate. If you look at people starting the bootcamp to placement it would be even lower. If you have 465,000 customers and you want to round that up to 500k - ok, not exactly true, but whether you have 465k or 500k isn't going to change my decision about using your product. Telling me you place 80% of your students and actually placing 50% is a big deal. 80% means I have a 4 out of 5 chance of being successful. 50% means I have a 1 out of 2 chance of being successful. Those odds are very different and certainly part of the marketing push to get people to sign up.

by raiyu 7y ago

pembrook 7y ago

Cherry picking a strong cohort and using it to create a narrative is the same thing as cherry picking a weak cohort and doing the opposite. This is my point. Journalists are picking a narrative first, then seeking out facts to justify that position. When they thought lambda was going to fix education they were more than happy to report the 86% number without any research. Now that lambda is “evil” they look for the lowest number they can find. I’m sure the truth is somewhere in the middle.

raiyu 7y ago
The other wasn't a weak cohort. It was the most recent data. Also if you were an institution interested in disclosing information fairly you would simply list all cohorts and let the consumer decide. But they aren't doing that and instead claim a single number. By the way, having had recent experiences with a number of bootcamps through friends I would say that the 50% number anecdotally is accurate. That's also not taking in to account the drop out rate. If you look at people starting the bootcamp to placement it would be even lower. If you have 465,000 customers and you want to round that up to 500k - ok, not exactly true, but whether you have 465k or 500k isn't going to change my decision about using your product. Telling me you place 80% of your students and actually placing 50% is a big deal. 80% means I have a 4 out of 5 chance of being successful. 50% means I have a 1 out of 2 chance of being successful. Those odds are very different and certainly part of the marketing push to get people to sign up.