>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.