Posted on 12/03/2010 5:14:08 AM PST by econjack
Edited on 12/03/2010 11:44:38 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
You are very fortunate.
Thanks for saying that. What I was going to say wasn't as polite.
The Ivy bashing really pisses me off.
My experience is that the Ivies demand a lot of their students. Kids who have gone to private schools, like Obama, have been well prepped in their study habits and can work more efficiently or can get passing grades with less work because they have been taught to give the professor just what he/she wants.
Congratulations to your hard-working successful children. You have a right to be proud of them.
I should have added - talk to any one who works in the office of the president or provost at a private university. If they are willing to divulge they’ll tell you they get calls at least once a week from parents and their lawyers about grades.
BUT --- knowing of affirmtive action, certainly many, many blacks with, let us say LSATS in the 160-165 range (which isn't chicken feed) would apply to Harvard, and he had to beat out a good number of those, many of whom probably had good grades where they were. Thus, again just a reasonable hypothesis, is that his LSATs were stronger than his grades.
The real issue is that HLS does not give out magnas like popcorn, and not especially to blacks. If you peruse the list for any year, you will see that there are very few blacks among the magnas -- and, as others have pointed out, all first year, and many later, courses are blind graded. Thus, you can't attribute his magna to general favoritism for Blacks, and it pushes the limits of conspitracy theory to divine why HE, way back then, would get a completely unearned magna when other blacks did not.
Is there a link to an official HLS document stating that was Magna in 1991? I googled and couldn't find any official documents.
I don’t think I was fortunate. I think it was because no student complained about the grade they received. On average, I ended up giving about 5-10% F’s in the Principles course using the absolute scoring method. If you take the time to talk with the students doing poorly during the semester before it’s too late, most respond with greater effort. The key is to encourage them to work harder early in the semester or drop the course.
For an interesting article about Obama’s intelligence, see:
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/05/obama-mythical.html
an undergraduate degree at a state school and a master’s degree at MIT or Stanford for the same cost as an undergraduate degree at one of those “top” engineering schools.”
That is a great point.
Exactly
This piece from Hillbuzz wasn’t, as best as I can tell, actually written by Jennifer Rubin. Ms. Rubin has a piece in Commentary that is quoted in this article, but she doesn’t address the questions of the Kenyan anti-Christ’s college grades in it - at least as far as I could see.
This Hillbuzz article appears to be unsigned.
Admin Moderator - Is it possible to change the author’s attribution? Ms. Rubin is a moderately-well-known columnist with a good reputation. This piece offers no substantiation of its headlines and thus, I’m not sure that Ms. Rubin would appreciate her name being affixed to it.
Thanks.
The Ivy League is different from the world most of America in habits. Consider the size and yield of Ivy League endowments. Using Harvard as an example, if the Harvard Medical College, which has the most expensive tuition in the world, were to charge no, repeat “NO” tuition, the only impact on the endowment would be that said endowment would grow at a somewhat slower rate.
Money means different things in the Ivy League world. Grade inflation exists there, but cash flow is not part of the reason as even if Bill Gates were a Harvard ‘legacy’ grad, his potential donations would neither make nor break Harvard’s endowment.
After all, if one computes the value of investments for one or two hundred years, one realizes “Compound Interest IS YOUR FRIEND!” And, there is the small matter of real estate donations, which become tax exempt upon donation.
Harvard now owns a goodly part of Cambridge, Mass. 250 years of donations can do that. Ditto for other Ivy League schools.
I agree. It sure hit home to me (and my parents) when I was a high school student.
That’s a good point, but I’m not sure why the education process for medical doctors would have more in common with the B.S. nonsense of lawyers than the objective standards of engineers.
Affirmative action begins where the Peter Principle ends.
Money and prestige. Two things lacking in engineering.
Yes, there was a scandal while I was there about affirmative action on law review. Apparently some people thought the leadership positions should be just given away on the basis of merit. Sheesh...that’s just crazy talk. /sarcasm
Obama and the MSM did indeed hide his college records but I don’t believe a word of speculation from Hillbuzz.
Just a note on the LSAT score format. When I took it back in 1984, the max score was 50. I don’t know when the scoring format changed, but Obama’s score would have been between 0 and 50. (I was fortunate to get a 44 because the reading comprehension and logic puzzle sections came pretty easy to me. Good thing, too, because my undergrad GPA was something like 3.2— but I had been out of college for 4 years when I applied.) There were a number of affirmative action students there when I was there (UNC) and they mostly stuck out like sore thumbs. But there were many minority students who did very well, judging from class performance. My view has always been, know the stats regarding Aff. Action folks, but assess each person on his own merits.
Assessing Obama— he stinks.
Exactly....if anyone doubts it check out the Obama Timeline.
With the right professors cocaine induced students make superior students.
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