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Notes -
Students get renowned NYU professor fired for giving low grades
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/us/nyu-organic-chemistry-petition.html
A quarter of students signed a petition that an organic chemistry class was too hard, and the professor teaching it was fired. The professor, Maitland Jones, had taught organic chemistry for decades, at NYU and Princeton before it. He had also written a widely used textbook on it. Causes cited include MJ being an asshole; COVID educational policies; and a general downward trend in student quality preceding COVID. One thing that isn't mentioned is that NYU adopted an SAT-optional test policy for the class entering in 2020.
This is why educational policies matter at every level. As a cohort degrades in quality, downstream institutions face pressure to adapt curricula and policies to satisfy those students. The next downstream organization then faces the same pressure. If the student was good enough to graduate high school, shouldn't they be good enough to go to college? If a student got into a university, shouldn't they be good enough to pass all their classes? If a student graduated from undergrad, shouldn't they have a shot at doctoral and professional degrees? If they got into med school, shouldn't they be able to graduate? If they got an MD, shouldn't they able to be a practicing surgeon?
obligatory archive link https://archive.ph/AuxNg
Ridiculous...they made every possible accommodation and people still got zeros and were too lazy to put in the minimal effort. How did they even get in?
A fair number of high-achieving high-school students fall apart in college, sometimes from being overwhelmed or temporary mental illness or because they no longer have their parents pushing them or because they now have the freedom to smoke dope all day (maybe those last two are the same thing).
I think the most important factor is knowing that they have to put in the work. Tell anyone they keep getting paid or keep getting the grade if they stop working and most will stop. Once they see the light in the tunnel of "do no work and still succeed" many will go for it even if the expected value is worse than studying and/or dropping the class.
I don't think you are sufficiently answering the question. Your answer would apply just as equally now as it would for past decades. Yet it is now that we are seeing this change. So what gives? Why the change now and not earlier?
The immediate question was "how did they get in???".
The larger question you are want answered is "why are so many more failing now and compared to before?". And given the four explanations I laid out (plus my comment on the other sub-thread, I think #3 explains a lot of it. These are kids who were pushed the most through the rat race, not the ones who have intrinsic desires to study and learn stuff.
And you didn't answer the immediate question and you do not answer the context relevant question in this post either. The answers you propose are not time specific so there is no reason to assume that they are more relevant now than any other time.
Oh okay sorry for wasting your time.
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