Michigan fans laugh: Stanford jocks had an "easy A" list

http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/stanford-athletes-had-access-list-easy-classes-9098

Hilarious, and I'm sure there is quite a bit of twisted tweed on The Farm after this report showing that, well, that Stanford can be as hypocritical about education as all the rest of 'em. Administrators' explanation was naturally that these were the courses that worked into athletes' schedules the best, but even the athletes aren't bothering to say that. The only thing that would make this better would be if this had been a Jim Harbaugh personal initiative, but the report says the list has existed at least since 2001.

Also an interesting reporting method -- this California Watch is a non-profit collective, I believe, and the story was written by a team of Stanford students working for the daily paper.

Not a bad couple of days to be a Michigan fan, all in all.

 

Naturally the list is in Comic Sans.

 

This doesn't just apply to athletes. A lot of the Ivy League or Ivy level schools are set up in a way where you're set up so you can't fail. It might be hard to get an A, but it's damn near impossible to get less than a C.

One of my friends transferred from Cal to Stanford and said Stanford was 10X easier than Cal was.

That's not to say the education is not top notch, it absolutely is, but they (wisely) do not want people who are paying that much money to go there, to fail.

 

I'm a little confused. It doesn't sound like the courses were only publicized on the list - figure they were also in the regular schedule. So yeah - they were publicized to the general student body, and I figure at a place like Stanford, such a resource is certainly available online - if not an official Stanford publication.
I really don't see a problem with this. In season athletes have to meet a certain credit threshold. Most take one or two "regular" classes and then fill out their schedule with 1 or 2 credit gimmees, in addition to taking "Interscholastic Football, Volleyball or whatever."

 

At my previous university, I had to advise undergraduates, and because I wasn't involved directly with a major, I wound up getting more than my share of (non-athlete) knuckleheads. What was interesting was that our advising office had put together a list of what it called GPA boosters for students who were having trouble making the grade. That's right -- we actually had people in advising* recommending certain courses because they were understood to be easy A's.

*It was a bizarre setup. People in the advising office would pull a student's records, go through everything, note must-take and might-take options for that student and then summarize everything for the faculty member. The faculty member would get the folder and, when the student showed up, basically read down the list. Why that was somehow more enriching than the student simply dealing directly with the advising office was beyond me.

 

Stanford uses a lot of breath and energy to say it's different. Clearly that isn't the case. And if there was nothing wrong with it, I can't figure out why, when a professor asked to be taken off the list, they would have lied about the list's existence.

 

Every school does this. All you have to do is open up the media guide and find out which department is completely on board with the athletic department.

"Oh, wow, 70 percent of the football team is majoring in Sociology."

 

When I was at Cornell, there were about 8-10 classes which most of the jocks took. Effective Listenning, Accounting for Hotels, etc.

 

For a school right up there with UNLV in Hotel Administration, what's wrong with Accounting for Hotels, if you feel that way?

 

I can believe that. I had high school friends who were straight A students flunk out of Cal.

 

One of my friends went to Cal for undergrad and Wharton for Business school and he said Wharton was a easy compared to Cal.