For the composition requirement, they say:
I guess AP credit is okay, then, as it doesn’t count as “testing out” but rather as credit. I’m not exactly sure why that’s the distinction (what’s the difference between testing out of a requirement out of your AP Literature score vs a departmental test?)
I think it’s a stupid distinction, but I also think it’s a stupid website.
Maybe they think it’s important to have the experience of a class rather than just magically knowing how to write and passing a department test. Dunno. I passed some AP tests in english or lit or something, but my highschool english classes were not “writing class[es] focusing on grammar, style, clarity, and argument”. Also, I don’t think you actually have to take a class to take the AP test, although I did for all of mine (although two were online independent study sorts of classes.)
They DON’T require econ. Here is their core curriculum: http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf/CURR.pdf
I don’t see anything saying all students must take econ. Do you? Did you even look before making the assertion?
And where is the podunk school they are wrong about? Name it. Oh, my bad … you’re just making that up, too.
The trouble with this is, it badly misdefines “value added”. Institutions of higher education always have to strike a balance between breadth and depth of learning. On the one hand, you can force students to take a bunch of classes that aren’t relevant to their majors/minors/etc., which gives them a very broad education but gives them less time to really master their focuses field of study. On the other hand, you can require very few courses, which means they can really go in depth on their major, but of course they may be missing some general-level knowledge. Schools balance this differently, but what balance they strike does not indicate the quality or amount of education given to students. Much as you make fun of “Gynecology in the Ancient World” classes, the students who take them may be learning a lot. Certainly, the skills learned from specialized courses are no less transmissible to real-world jobs than the skills learned in general courses. Often, going to higher-level, specialized courses forces you to really solidify your knowledge —unlike in an entry-level course, you can’t just fake it. Hence, this grading scheme is based entirelyon a single, not-entirely-convincing philosophical judgment. Not exactly stellar.
Even if we accept that breadth is more important than depth, how is it useful to tell people how “good” an education the school will force on them rather than how “good” an education the school will let them receive?
Finally, what makes this type of grading particularly stupid is, there may or may not be a reason for the top universities to make their students take those requirements that low-level colleges require. There is actually a fair bit of curriculum-sharing between community colleges and high schools —for example, both might use International Baccalaureate materials. But if a school (like mine, not in the United States*) requires that you have done IB or an equivalent before you even get there, why would they make you do it over again? You may as well get on to other things sooner, rather than later.
*I’m fairly certain it would get an F, if anyone’s keeping track.
You forgot
Chicago got dinged in the rating for NOT requiring econ - which was what my rolleyes was about. I know all about Chicago - I paid for a Chicago degree (for my kid) and it was worth every penny.
Chicago got a B to Harvard’s F not because of the quality of their instruction, or faculty, or facilities, but just because Chicago for historical reasons requires a broader range of courses, ones that seem to fit in with the preconceptions of those making these ratings.
And don’t think anyone is disputing the accuracy of their data - just the utility of it, and the correlation of their scores to anything worth measuring.
I think some people are disputing the accuracy of their data. But I think that’s actually a minor issue. The major issue is that their premise is, IMO, utterly flawed.
(Should this thread be in GD, rather than GQ?)
The purpose of college is, IMO, to teach in-depth knowledge. Not for the purpose of training for a profession (though there’s nothing wrong with that), but just so that we continue to produce people who are experts on academic subjects.
Now there’s nothing wrong with a lower-division core curriculum that teaches everyone a basic set of lessons, depending on the college’s philosophy. But that isn’t the main point of going to college. So it’s foolish to rate colleges based on that.
That is ONE purpose of college. But at $40,000+ a year, the main purpose of college is to get a fucking job when you graduate.
F
We should make a poll out of this.
When I went to the school, they had domains that needed to be filled, so that while it was not required to take a lit class per se, you still needed to take an equivalent under Qualitative Somethingorother. Same with math except that domain was quantitative reasoning.
Either way, the purpose isn’t to force everyone to take U.S. History.
Well, again, they aren’t rating the entire college; they very explicitly are rating only one aspect of it. You may not think it’s very important, but most colleges do. Most of them describe their GE program as a key part, sometimes THE key part of their, whole school.
And the whole idea that your major is the only thing that counts does not account for the reality of students or the workplace. I work in higher ed, and the figures I’ve seen have something like 50% of students changing their majors before graduation. And mind you, that’s just in school – that doesn’t account for the enormous number of students who wind up in careers that have nothing to do with the degree they ended up with.
And yet, none of them have backed it up.
I was correcting Voyager. Not making a comment on whether they are right or not. I didn’t go to any of the schools the website graded, so I have no opinion about their accuracy. Just their premise.
I guess I’m biased because I went to a technical college with no traditional GE program (although we had to take a few humanities courses) and I think I got a fantastic education. It’s served me well in my life, both professionally and personally.
I repeat once more: they are not rating “one aspect of [colleges]”; they are rating how well the colleges’ curricula adhere to their slightly odd ideas of what higher education should be.
I also take issue with your second paragraph; liberal arts degrees can be used for purposes other than themselves, as the skills built in getting them are eminently transmissible, even if the actual subject matter is not.
Hah. The college I’m attending right now received an F.
The rankings didn’t credit requiring math because our Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning requirement could also be fulfilled with science courses, and no credit for requiring science because the Natural World requirement could be fulfilled with math courses.
Sorry; wasn’t implying you were. I was just pointing out those who had asserted it (are you out there, Monty?) did not name their schools and check.
Gen ed is one aspect of a college, and it is the only one they look at. US News is based primarily on 1) “reputation” 2) selectivity and 3) other things that all work out to “how much money the school spends.” Other rankings look at all sorts of other things. AFAIK, this is the only one focused on curricula.
I couldn’t agree more, and that was my point in the paragraph you quoted: You can’t be at all sure that your eventual career will be the same as what you thought you wanted it to be when you were picking a major at 18; that’s why it’s foolish for anyone to insist that the quality of the classes in their major is all that count. A good, broad liberal arts background prepares you for many possibilities.
I would simply argue that the goal of a “good broad liberal arts education” does not benefit from an extremely prescriptive approach to coursework – which is the only system this ranking rewards.
For example, my College (same as Fretful’s) allowed great flexibility while requiring coursework throughout the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. I think it got a C or a D because it esstially requires “3 credits of History” but does not require “US History 101.” That’s just stupid, as is the problem noted by ludabris – where if requirements can be met by more than one type of class, they don’t “count.”
So in the sense that the ranking evaluates colleges & universities for incredibly narrow, pointless, and unbending requirements, I’m glad my college scored so low!