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Podunk U vs. Harvard vs. Happiness in Life

Reading List, Year 8

Good read this morning, via Gallup, by way of NPR:

Poll: Prestigious Colleges Won’t Make You Happier In Life Or Work

The opening paragraph:

There’s plenty of anxiety in the U.S. over getting into a top college. But a new Gallup poll suggests that, later in life, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as we think. In fact, when you ask college graduates whether they’re “engaged” with their work or “thriving” in all aspects of their lives, their responses don’t vary one bit whether they went to a prestigious college or not.

The following blurb from the end of that read made me smile (emphasis mine):

In the meantime, the take-home message for students is clear, says Brandon Busteed, who leads Gallup’s education work: “If you can go to Podunk U debt free vs. Harvard for $100,000, go to Podunk.12 And concentrate on what you do when you get there.”

  1. There’s an in-joke somewhere in there for my current and former AP Stat students [↩]
  2. On the other hand, if you can go to Harvard for free……… [↩]
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Kids these days…

Can't make this stuff up, Year 8

Our school’s prom was this weekend. As such, some of my students felt compelled to dig into the details of my youth:

Divas:1 Mister Youn, what kind of kid were you?
Diva #1: Did you go to prom in high school?
Me: Yes.
Diva #1: Okay, that was [Diva #2]… she thought you didn’t.
Me: ?!?
Diva #2: Were you bullied as a kid?
Me: What? No…
Divas #1 and #2: Okay, that was [Diva #3].2

SMH…

  1. Yes, same divas divaz [↩]
  2. “Diva #3” was conveniently not present in class this day to explain herself. [↩]
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Random “Guessing”

Year 8

Today in Statistics, we investigated the following scenario:

A mathematics competition uses the following scoring procedure to discourage students from guessing (choosing an answer randomly) on the multiple-choice questions. For each correct response, the score is 13. For each question left unanswered, the score is 4. For each incorrect response, the score is 0. If there are 5 choices for each question, what is the minimum number of choices that the student must eliminate before it is advantageous to guess among the rest?1

I gave students about 20 minutes to tackle this question (along with another probability question) in groups. The following was a humorous exchange I overheard:

Guy: It might be 4 choices…
Girl: Uh… If you can eliminate 4 choices, then you’re not guessing!

Of course, the practical analogy is the SAT, on which students earn 1 point for each correct response, and lose 0.25 points for each incorrect response (while netting zero points for every question they skip).2

Based on the earlier exchange, I felt the need to emphasize:

Yeah, if you can eliminate 4 choices on an SAT question, then you should DEFINITELY answer the question.

  1. If you’re curious, the answer is: Two choices. [↩]
  2. At least until Spring 2016, when College Board eliminates the penalty for incorrect responses on the SAT. [↩]
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