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It's Bastille Day...
Jul. 14th, 2004 08:03 amand I'm celebrating, as usual, by listening to the soundtrack of Les Miserables. I suppose it would be better, thematically, to watch "A Tale of Two Cities", but I prefer it this way.
One of my departmental committee assignments is the Graduate Committee. Among other things, we're responsible for making admission recommendations for applicants to our graduate program. It's not too onerous a task; there's usually a flood of files to go over in spring and a second wave in summer, but even then it doesn't take too much time. Except... We get a lot of applicants from India. Don't get me wrong; India is a rising power, and they produce a lot of outstanding mathematicians and scientists. The problem is that most Indian universities record students' class grades as numbers. Sometimes they're nice enough to indicate the possible points as well: 75 out of 100, or 56 out of 70. Most of the time they aren't. So (name) scored 58 in (class), and passed; is that good? How should I know? (I can compare to numerical scores in other courses, I suppose; if he got a 58 in a math class and scored in the 80s in other classes, that's not good, but there's only so much that can be done with that.)
There's more. Many of these universities offer courses with informative titles like "Mathematics IV". We have to poke around in their other courses and make guesses. ("Okay, (name) took advanced courses in civil engineering. He's probably had some differential equations, then...")
It's frustrating.
One of my departmental committee assignments is the Graduate Committee. Among other things, we're responsible for making admission recommendations for applicants to our graduate program. It's not too onerous a task; there's usually a flood of files to go over in spring and a second wave in summer, but even then it doesn't take too much time. Except... We get a lot of applicants from India. Don't get me wrong; India is a rising power, and they produce a lot of outstanding mathematicians and scientists. The problem is that most Indian universities record students' class grades as numbers. Sometimes they're nice enough to indicate the possible points as well: 75 out of 100, or 56 out of 70. Most of the time they aren't. So (name) scored 58 in (class), and passed; is that good? How should I know? (I can compare to numerical scores in other courses, I suppose; if he got a 58 in a math class and scored in the 80s in other classes, that's not good, but there's only so much that can be done with that.)
There's more. Many of these universities offer courses with informative titles like "Mathematics IV". We have to poke around in their other courses and make guesses. ("Okay, (name) took advanced courses in civil engineering. He's probably had some differential equations, then...")
It's frustrating.
