| >No I don't. The center of the curve ('C') doesn't need to be calibrated around the median. 'F' can be chosen as the median, or you can choose an objective scale (this did happen) rather than a subjective curve.
What do you mean F is chosen as the median. The median is not chosen it's determined by events. The curve isn't subjective. It's a probability distribution determined by scores from students. Nothing can be calibrated or adjusted here. >Because you made a false assertion everyone couldn't be failed, when in fact at least in the institution it was REQUIRED that everyone be failed if everyone fails to meet ABET designated criteria. It supports that your claim is specious. ABET requires it in name, but no institution does this. Think of ABET like the FDA. It has some oversight but there's also holes everywhere. School rarely fail an entire class. If a curriculum causes an entire class to fail the curriculum will be toned down otherwise students complain, launch lawsuits and eventually nobody attends the school. You need to work some common sense into your argument here, just because ABET has a stupid rule in name doesn't mean that rule is followed to the letter. >False. Again you depend on the fallacy the curves can't be calibrated around something like 'the average student fails and the course follows the difficulty of <selective school>.' If I give an IQ test to a cohort to a group of lower intelligence people, the 'curve' looks bent and biased towards lower score. If I give it to people of upper intelligence, the curve 'looks' bent towards biased towards higher score. But in the end it is the curve that is objective across cohorts (schools), despite higher intelligence in one cohort ('school') than another. The difficulty is unchanged, even though selectivity is introduced. First off the curve looks the same, it's not bent in anyway, it's usually symmetric, especially with student scores. The only difference is an offset of where the hump is. Second your not understanding the argument. Imagine two groups of people. A high IQ group and a low IQ group. Both groups are given the exact same test. However both tests are graded differently based off a curve generated by the probability distribution of scores for each test. The High IQ group has a mean score of 95. The low IQ group as a mean score of 50. So taking the same test among the high IQ group getting a 95 gets you a C taking the exact same test among the low IQ group and scoring the SAME score of 95 gets you an A. So by logic it's EASIER to get an A among a group of lower IQ people (aka a group of the same people from a less selective school). The test is harder among the high IQ group. This is definitive man. >Fallacious reasoning, the two schools could have the exact same cirricula, teacher, everything and merely different students and when graded against objective criteria, or appropriately calibrated (shifted down/up) shaped curves, they can have both equal difficulty and grade parity for performance. The university I went to is NOTORIOUS for having the least grade inflation, much lower than many 'selective' schools, which also helps fix the exact problem you are worried about. Fallacious reasoning my ass, your introducing qualitative speculation on specific attributes of your individual school and thinking that's enough data to generate a broad conclusion. That's the most fallacious style of reasoning in existence. I'm just axiomatically going off the law of averages. On average a less selective school will be easier. It's probability. >Not at all. They just didn't give a fuck. So they fail everyone in the class and the angry students take their outrage to the media? Then the parents come in and start a lawsuit which leads to a PR nightmare. Less students join the next year because nobody wants to be part of a school that failed an entire class. Of course they give a fuck man. Don't be unreasonable. Schools are businesses and while they have to have a certain level of integrity when grading they ALSO need to be reasonable or they don't get business. If this type of failing a majority of a class ever happens at all, it would be super rare. The subsequent class will for sure will be adjusted and the professor changed or reprimanded. >Having higher performers doesn't change the curriculum or necessary even the grading, You understand that curving a grade is based on average scores right? You realize that this is the topic and what I mean by easier? A curve. Higher performers score higher and influence the average making the curve higher. Basic math. The curriculum becomes harder because math works in this reality. Here's some resources if you never dealt with this concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
https://michaelminn.net/tutorials/normal-curve-grading/index... The difficulty rises not in the test itself, but in the grading of the test. To pass the class you need to perform much better. So given your NFL player example. Let's say on average they do 20 pullups and regular people on average do 8. The grading for NFL players is much more strict as 20 pullups is an average score. So an NFL player who does 10 pullups which is above average for the normal crew fails because he's below average for the NFL crew. >I'm not terribly familiar with Georgia Tech or your school, and it's possible, I dare say probably even likely, your school was more challenging than both mine and Georgia Tech, but we can't say the delta in difficulty was BECAUSE of the selectivity. That's not the point. The point is on average, selectivity influences difficulty and by difficulty I mean grading on a curve. If all else is held exactly the same selectivity fucks up the curve by making it harder for everyone. >I thought we were talking about engineering. I guess we can stop here. At the school I attended, CS is not engineering but rather science (which is in the name) so we don't even have a basis for comparison. It's a bit pedantic on face but it drastically changes everything to be in college of science instead of engineering from the bottom up where I went to university. Are you sure CS was in the college of engineering where you attended? Doesn't matter. CS or engineering... the bell curve and the rules of probability don't change when you change majors. I thought we were talking about CS because my original post is saying "anyone can program." >Having more qualified people attempt to complete the degree is not same as being more difficult. It is if the school grades on a curve. Most schools do grade on a curve especially the harder schools. The curve makes sure that only a small percentage of people get an A and guarantees a percentage of people fail. > Moreover, attrition could be so high at the 'anybody with a pulse' institution that by the time junior year comes around the quality of cohort looks the same as at the selective school. Except I just did the math that shows this does not occur when comparing my school to Georgia Tech. Like I said assuming everything else is roughly the same, out of all the people who applied to my school, only 10% graduate. In Georgia Tech 45% of people who applied graduate. This is assuming both groups that applied have the same talent distribution for engineering or CS or whatever. This means 35% of people of the SAME LEVEL of TALENT who would've graduated at Georgia Tech couldn't even get into UCLA. Look even with the raw numbers there's a lot of fuzziness and leeway here. The story could go either way with a more detailed and well thought out measurement. But given the available quantitative data, this is the best possible estimation we have so far: Selectivity influences difficulty. Period. |
This is the source of your confusion.
Your whole argument about the curve centers around the flawed and bizarre presumption that the curve has to center around a C. It doesn't always work that way, I don't think you understand some curves are different including the median score possibly being an 'F'. You're depending on some standardized curve, when in fact there's no requirement that be the case (and it often isn't). In the example with the footballers, every footballer gets an 'A' and with the random population the average gets an 'F' because the curves are compensated so that effectively there is an objective-like standard to maintain parity across like-performers.
>It's a probability distribution determined by scores from students. Nothing can be calibrated or adjusted here.
Of course something can be adjusted. you can make 'A' top 1%, B next 1%, C next 1%, D Next 1%, and fail the bottom 96% for instance. Not everyone has to grade to make sure most people pass, which apparently was the case at your selective school. At non-selective school the whole point is to fail every unfit person possible; it's even better for the school because engineering program was mostly bait to get these people into broader programs within the university.
You can go to the media, sue, or whatever. In my case it would look like this in the media "middle-class white man slightly less successful after being held to high standards" -- yeah that'll sell great! A few foreign students committed suicide after failing out of engineering paid for with their families 3rd world life savings and even then no one cares. Good luck telling the judge that you didn't like the grade the professor gave you. Maybe your selective school mostly filthy-rich people with money to waste on lawsuits tying up the courts with cases that are meritless but wear down the college enough that they eventually relent.
>You understand that curving a grade is based on average scores right
Your curve may have been based around C being average. I have seen 'curves' where the average was F or D. I have seen courses where there is no curve as well, and isntead an objective system. A non-selective school can introduce a 'curve' where like performers get the same grade as in a selective school.
> The curve makes sure that only a small percentage of people get an A and guarantees a percentage of people fail.
Yeah our 'curves' weren't always like that. They were adjusted to compensate for non-selection present in our program. I.e. all people may fail or in a group of top performers no one may fail.
>Selectivity influences difficulty. Period.
Tell yourself your deranged and confused lie over and over, and tell me more about how you don't understand how different schools may grade differently (to objectively obtain same grade results as 'selective' school) even while maintaining SAME difficulty with a selective school.
> I thought we were talking about CS
Programming isn't equal to CS. Did you even study engineering or CS? Even chemical engineers program. These are all basic concepts you've missed, it's really hard to believe you have any experience at all in ABET accredited engineering program.
>ABET requires it in name, but no institution does this.
Maybe your institution acted fraudulently, but I saw people fail or incomplete a class for failing to meet ABET requirements. You're simply lying on this point to support your pathological obsession with denying selectivity does not confer difficulty.
>So they fail everyone in the class and the angry students take their outrage to the media? Then the parents come in and start a lawsuit which leads to a PR nightmare. Less students join the next year because nobody wants to be part of a school that failed an entire class.
No they fail almost everyone, the engineering rankings go up even further because any survivors are more impressive, and the rest filter into different programs. Everyone wins when almost everyone fails. The school uses engineering program as bait to draw people into other programs as much as anything. Failing almost everyone out is a win-win because it strengthens the bait and feeds money into other programs to broaden the school.
> The test is harder among the high IQ group. This is definitive man.
You have no understanding of an IQ test. It's meant to provide an objective outcome so that no matter the subset in a group taking the test, the measurement of the individual is the same. Taking the test with a group of fellow high-performers doesn't give you a lower IQ score. It's not harder no matter how selective you make the group taking the test. Universities can provide like feedback in grading. back to the analogy, the IQ score is the grade, get it?
>Selectivity influences difficulty. Period.
Selectivity doesn't confer difficulty. Period.