Another thing that really bugged me about this talk was that for a talk that was based on numbers, they were really hard to see. I went back and double checked. He claims that for STEM students, math SAT scores are Harvard top third: 753 middle third: 674 bottom third: 581 Hartwick top third: 569 middle third: 472 bottom third: 407 (this last number was blurry) I don't know anything about Hartwick, but I still don't believe these numbers at all for Harvard. In fact, I would be surprised if there are any students admitted to Harvard with a 581 Math SAT.

I can't believe how many things I find wrong with the presentation. Let me just start with one. Mr. Gladwell claims that the bottom 33% of all STEM students at Harvard have a Math SAT score of 581 (or below? or is this the average of the bottom 33%?). I find this difficult to believe. I can't find verification of the SAT scores for the STEM (whatever _that_ is) cohort, but about.com says that the for the entire admissions class of 2013 at Harvard's 25th percentile Math SAT score is 710. The 75th percentile, is, of course, 800.

ATC can close an airport (temporarily), but they can't cancel the flight. That's on the airlines. Again, Airlines differ tremendously in how they deal with these problems. For example, some family friends chose to fly on a heavily discounted bargain airline that flies from our airport to a popular vacation city just twice a week. Guess what happens when there's a mechnical problem with their plane?

I don't think the FAA cancels flights. They make rules which the airlines have to follow, and if the airlines don't have any slack in their systems, flights can end up canceled. And while it rains equally on every airline, I think the way the different airlines handle problems can vary tremendously. I understand that weather happens, and planes occasionally have problems that ground them. However, if you take 200 people off of a cancelled flight, and force them all to queue up in front of one gate agent to handle rebooking, and it takes 10 minutes per passenger, well, that's a problem that is under the control of the airline. Switching airlines may not change the number of problems he experiences, but if a weather delay on the new airline turns into a 30 minute total delay, instead of a cancelled flight and a drive home, I would think everyone would be happier.

I'm sorry. I know this is no fun. I'm curious if it is just his flights home that have the problems, or the flights out as well? I've found that the earlier in the day you fly, the less likely there are to be cascading problems.

So.... you don't have any evidence to claim that he wanted to join the Taliban. The Congress has nothing to complain about, they are just spouting off to seek political gains. This deal, with the same 5 taliban prisoners has been on the table for two years (source), with Congressional awareness. As others have said, the proper place to litigate this in in a court martial.

For the groups I'm involved with, there may be a buyout, but we really don't want your money. We need workers. The buyout is just a strong encouragement to get people to work. Take Margaret in CO's case above -- the scouts needed someone to schlep heavy drinks to a campsite (and probably a zillion other tasks). If everyone bought out their volunteering shifts, who are you really going to be able to hire to do the work? Even if you could find someone at minimum wage, that's going to add up fast.

Note this link was for the 2012 College Bound Seniors, and the tests do change every year: I don't think the 2014 results are posted yet, but the 2013 ones were pretty different: in 2013, 12% of the French students received an 800, and 19% (!) of the German SAT II takers earned an 800. In 2012 the mean score on the French exam was 3 points higher than the German, but in 2013, the mean score on the French exam was 13 points higher than the German one. Now, there's 10 times as many French students taking this test as German, so the statistics may be a bit funky. Who knows what the 2014 test results will bring. Moreover, the 200-800 range is not a raw score, and is scaled by difficulty in a way that I don't understand. One would think if it were really scaled correctly, the percentile numbers would always map more closely to the cooked score. This chart doesn't show what the raw score needed to get these cooked scores would be. However, the result at the top end, I believe, have more to do with the number of "native" speakers taking the test, than the test itself. Chinese is a notoriously difficult language, but 35% of the students who took the Chinese language SAT II in 2013 got an 800, and the mean score was 759! I'll just take a flyer here, and assume that result was not because this test is so easy. So, I still contend that a student can feel like a particular standardized test was easy or hard, but that doesn't necessarily correlate to what their percentile score will be.

Does it matter much if the German SAT II is harder than the French one? Presumably, colleges care more about percentiles than raw score, so if the German test is equally difficult for all takers, and the French test is equally easy for all takers, than your DD's percentile results should correctly reflect her position with respect to all the other test takers, regardless of test difficulty. Now, if she found the French test easier because she's better at French, we'll, that's another story.

Keep in mind that "volunteering" for many US college-bound teens is seen as almost mandatory, for several reasons. Several high schools here have required "Community Service" hours that teens must log, especially the parochial schools. I had a disagreement with a babysitter, who didn't want to take any money, because she was desperate to get enough volunteer hours for her school before the term ended. I think IB does the same -- is this true internationally? Personally, I find it distasteful that volunteer hours must be scrupulously written down, logged and counted. Also, I think many students here view volunteering and working as important experiences to put down on a college application, and feel that candidates without such experiences are less likely to be accepted into college. Many view this as their "hook", which they are told is key to being admitted. From what I've read, Europe college entrance isn't predicated on work or volunteer experience.

Well, looks like you've got enough good recommendations to cover you even if you take a slow boat to Europe, but I'll add Connie Willis' "Blackout/All Clear", a pair of time traveling novels set mostly during the Blitz of London. For Paris, how about Adam Gopnik's series of essays about living in Paris, titled "Paris to the Moon".

Where are you going? Perhaps it would be fun to read something set in your destination? Les Mis for Paris, Dickens for London, etc.

While I agree that a broad education is important, even it it has no immediate utility, I see conflicting signals about American opinion on this subject, especially at the college level. Again, and again, I see college students being told to follow their dream, and major in what they love, regardless of job potential. This, I think, is naive. That's not to say that they should major in something they hate, just because there's a good job market for it. But, if a person is an above-average flute player and also an above-average computer programmer, one should be realistic in the number of career placements for flute players in the entire country. For me, K-12 is the time to teach many varied disciplines, regardless of future immediate utility: foreign languages, literature, history, arts, etc. I hope that this knowledge and love of this kind of learning will serve them for life. But, college is the time to narrow down and make difficult choices.

Frankly, I don't believe the data in this chart. It doesn't pass the sniff test. Astronomy has a 0.0% unemployment rate? Maybe some of these numbers are not statistically significant. History majors have 6%, but US History majors have 15% unemployment rate? That just doesn't seem right. Moreover, it doesn't speak to whether these jobs are relevant to their major. I could equally point you to this Forbes article, which says "“Today’s best advice, then, is that high school students who can go on to college should do so— with one caveat. They should do their homework before picking a major because, when it comes to employment prospects and compensation, not all college degrees are created equal.â€

Can you put a finer point on "reputable"?-- I can understand if you aren't willing to name this particular school, but is it Private? Public? Expensive? Difficult to get into?

Laura would know better than I, for all of my knowledge of the UK education system stems from Harry Potter, but these are the things I had in mind; Essentially all universities are publicly funded, and much less expensive than US private schools, although this has been changing a bit in recent years. Isn't tuition roughly the same at all UK universities? Many people in the US encourage students not to go the most prestigious, "best fit" University, but to one of the least expensive. I get the feeling that choosing a school mostly based on tuition is less common in the UK. Admissions to UK universities are based on many factors, but the scores you get (and the exams you choose to take) on national subject exams play a huge role. These are nothing like the FCAT, if anything, they are like the AP exams on steroids, multiple day and mostly essay. In this regard, the FCAT is not "high stakes" at all, at least for the student, as it is pass-fail, and designed for the overwhelming majority of students to pass. Again, my impression is that because of the two things above, UK Universities are much more stratified than US ones. That is, for any given discipline, there are universities which are clearly the top tier for that field, clearly the next tier, etc. US big state Universities can have a very wide range of student aptitudes within any given department, because some students have chosen mainly for cost. Because of the above, some of the best Universities, like Oxford and Cambridge, are filled with superstar students in every department. Historically, UK businesses have been delighted to hire graduates from these top tier Universities, regardless of major. So, if you can get into one of these top tier Universities, your major doesn't impact your career as much. Perhaps this is true in the US to a lesser extent, and (say) a classics major at an Ivy doesn't have the hiring stigma that the same student at her big state U would have?

I think the situation in the UK is so different from the US in this regard that it isn't worth comparing. Having almost all universities be what the US would call "public", having the NHS, the way in which Universities choose their students, all these things change the game so much on your side of the Atlantic.

I don't know that I'm comfortable with it, either. But, I think it is an uncomfortable truth, and if we don't share it with our kids, we are doing them a disservice. I would suspect that all of us WTM'ey folks love education for the sake of education. But, I think I've learned more in my post-college self-educating life than I did in those four quick years: I can't make a career out of reading literature, but I can sure enjoy doing in it my free time. I was just reading that for many years running, in the US, there have been five times as many classics PhDs granted each year as jobs openings for classics professors. And worse, these students who have put ten years of their lives, and who knows how much debt into getting this degree haven't realized just how bad these numbers are. They get told the usual platitudes "Do you you love", and "The cream always rises". However, if they didn't get accepted into a tippy-top graduate school, there's basically no hope for a career in the field.

Of course there are no guarantees. But there are statistics. And I think it is incredibly disingenuous to say that a computer science major may not get a job, but someone with a degree in classics may end up the wealthiest private citizen in the UK, even if both are true. Most big state universities offer north of 100 majors. I suspect most students could find more than one that they'd be perfectly happy with. Why not choose one from that set that has good job prospects? Most majors have an undergraduate club. I think it is incredibly valuable for college freshman to attend these clubs, and ask good questions of the seniors in their prospective fields. What professors are the best? Where are you finding interships? What's a good minor with this major, or double major? What's the job market like? What are your job interviews like? Who is going to graduate school? I have unbounded respect for our boardie, elegantlion, who is returning to school and at the same time homeschooling her high schooler. In another post, which I can't link to, she talks about how her preferred major, archaeology, probably isn't going to result in the kind of job she'd like to have. So, she's looking around, thinking about adding on a minor or certificate program to do something that will result in a job she will enjoy, even if it isn't her A #1 choice. Good on her. One aspect I'm particularly aware of is how different the college experience is for our kids than it was for us growing up, in so many different ways. Of course, these kinds of conversations are perfectly fine to have with our own children, but downright rude with others'.

I think we owe our students the truth, even if difficult, and the truth is that there are very different job markets for different majors, and it is naive to say that all majors have equivalent employment possibilities .

The first question you need to ask yourself is if you want to outsource this, or try to teach it independently. If you are outsourcing it, I think there are a dozen factors more important than the text used to consider. These factors include if it is online or in person, the personality match of the teacher, when it is offered, if there is a path to AP, is NLE prep included, etc.

So, sounds like you just want ancient Greco-Roman literature? I don't know that I would classify works like the Aeneid, and Iliad and the Odyssey as Greek Myths, though the Greek/Roman Gods do show up and wreck havoc for the mortals. If you want to read pure mythology, Hesiod, as recommended above is the other major mostly mythological work, but that's just a small slice of their literature. Personally, I have a hard time sitting down and reading the myths cover to cover, as they seem like just one divine rape after another. With that having been said, I might recommend: Sophocles' Oedipus plays. Teens especially get into the conflict between personal responsibility and role of the state in Antigone. Ovid's Heroides might be fun to read after the Orestia, and the trojan war epics. I would also consider ancient non-fiction, which is often overlooked. In ancient times, the letter was considered an important literary form. Seneca's letters about Stoicism are interesting, as are Pliny's letters about life in the Empire. The histories of Thucydides, Tacitus or Livy are each pretty long, but maybe some excerpts might be worth reading.

If the first thing you worry about when unpacking is the books...... You might be a homeschooler.

From "collegeapps.about.com", in 2012 (so, class of 2016?), the 25th and 75th percentiles of SATs were 1860/2150 and 28/32 for composite ACT, with 51% of applicants admitted.. This year's was 2050/2240 and 30/33 with 33% admitted. So, the actual top end of the test scores haven't gone up astronomically, but the low end has risen, and the spread is much smaller. And I totally agree with Creekland's assessment that a college student's peers can have a huge impact on the college experience.

If USNWR keeps their same metrics, and assuming GA Tech's peers haven't changed, yes, this should "improve" their ranking. I have to wonder if every single one of these applications is read by a human being. Or, if they are, how much human time is spent looking at the least-competitive applications.