Website Lets You Bet On Your Grades 204
crimeandpunishment writes "College students who expect to get good grades can get a good payoff, if they're willing to put their money where their mouse is. A website is taking wagers on grades from students at 36 American colleges. Students have to register, upload their schedule, and give the site access to official school records. The site, called Ultrinsic, then calculates odds and the students decide whether to place their bets. Ultrinsic's CEO Steven Woldf insists it's not online gambling, since these wagers involve skill. He says 'The students have 100 percent control over it, over how they do. Other people's stuff you bet on — your own stuff you invest in.'"
Skill? (Score:5, Funny)
When the course list says, "Staff" instead of a professor, luck factors in heavily here.
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You go to school to buy a piece of paper to impress employers. Learning plays no factor in so-called modern education.
Re:Skill? (Score:5, Insightful)
Before I went to college for computer science, I knew everything. Then I learned otherwise. Now I owe my success to the skills I gained in college. You can't prove that with a piece of paper like a diploma, but there's some pretty damn good correlation, and I'll keep playing the odds with my hiring decisions, but thanks.
Are large numbers of stupid people graduating who don't deserve their degrees? Yes. Has higher education, to some degree, become commoditized and devalued?
Yes, but it does not follow that no learning occurs at universities.
some people don't have the cash for degrees or don (Score:4, Interesting)
some people don't have the cash for degrees or don't want the loans.
how about people who went to tech schools / on line?
room and board is like $8000-$10000 a year now at some places.
so what about people who did the job and did not go to big 4 year school? Why should they get passed over for a JOB?
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He said nothing about what school you went to or how you got your degree. I can get a BS in many things from respectable online schools that are just as legit as actually being on campus. The only things that are sometimes hard to do are practical application but many programs offer ways to do that too. The Vet Tech school my wife is looking at lets her do her practicals at many local or at least relatively local practicing vets.
But they got passed over because they obvious either are unqualified or they
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I can get a BS in many things from respectable online schools that are just as legit as actually being on campus.
Roflmao. I have attempted to try this myself. I got good grades (because I called the "instructors" on their bullshit), but found myself teaching the teacher and taking the teachers part in the online discussion, because all they did was cut and paste crappy discussion questions from past classes that didn't even pertain to what was being discussed. They would grade hard at the beginning of the class ( often counting things wrong that were not wrong, such as when a teacher tried to tell me that drivers and
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Around 1997 a friend asked me to install Windows95 on his girlfriend's computer for her. I thought this was an odd request, since she had graduated from Computer Science at the University of Western Ontario that week...
I thought that was nuts. And then during the Y2K upgrade boom, I was asked to install a bunch of new machines for 15 (newly graduated, but from where I don't know) programmers hired to work at a government office. I was asked to set up the development environment as well because - wait for it
Re:some people don't have the cash for degrees or (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer Science:
It is not what you think it is. They were learning algorithms and theory, mathematics and data structures.
You were doing MIS based things.
What if they were using IRIX or Solaris? Would you have been at home on those systems?
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Typical problem of universities (I've also studied at a university myself): they teach how/why stuff works from a highly theoretical pov, not how it is used in practice. This gives a great basis for deeper understanding but most practical things are not learned in university but in real life.
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Typical problem of universities (I've also studied at a university myself): they teach how/why stuff works from a highly theoretical pov, not how it is used in practice. This gives a great basis for deeper understanding but most practical things are not learned in university but in real life.
There is no way that a University can teach the practical skills for the wide variety of jobs available. Either you would end up so specialized that you would have to go get another 'degree' if you wanted to move into
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When you get into higher and higher education, you always feel that the previous educational level was much easier than the current one. You learn more in Primary School than in Kindergarten, you learn more in High School than in Primary School and then you learn more in University than in High School.
Now it is not at all surprising, that you may learn more at your first job than at your University. Learning process accelerates (at least you feel so).
Also, take into consideration that when you learn purely
Re:some people don't have the cash for degrees or (Score:4, Insightful)
Practical stuff is learned on the job because one employer's method is different from another employer's method.
Perhaps a good example would be a simple job of "programmer". If you want a code monkey to crank out code based on your designs and existing codebase, someone from college/university wouldn't fit. You'd want someone from a trade school who's basically trained in whatever lanugage you want to do it.
The college/university student will handle codemonkey, but will take longer as they'll have to learn the language first (very rarely do they come out with more than one of C/C++, Java or .NET, while your trade school graduate can come out with a combination of C/C++, Java, .NET, PHP, Perl, Python, etc.).
Perhaps a car analogy is more appropriate. If you want a mechanic to work on your car, you hire someone who's gone to a trade school and become a certified mechanic. However, if you want a new type of car, you have to hire automotive engineers who can design a car and understand all the physics and the like of cars to make a safe, fuel-efficient etc car. That automotive engineer probably can't rebuild an engine, but he'll know all the parts and what they do. Just like the mechanic can rebuild the engine, but won't have insight into why things are done the way they are (e.g., why the engine has so many sensors and is completely computer-controlled).
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CS vs. IT (Score:2)
It doesn't surprise me much. I went to school from EE & CmpE, but the department had absorbed the CS program and I knew/worked with most of those students as well. I would say that 50% of the CS grads were one-trick ponies. They could hack together a program in MFC and that was it. They've probably gone on to be managers :-) Day to day IT work (building computers, installing software, setting up networks, etc) is not taught in a CS program -- it is IT, not CS, after all -- but one does kind of expect
Shouldn't boggle your mind (Score:4, Insightful)
It boggled my mind that people who have no idea how to use a computer were getting degrees in computer science.
"Computer Science is as much about computers as Astronomy is about telescopes." --Edsger Dijkstra
(something you might know if you'd taken more CS courses)
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Which is to say (albeit inadvertently), a HUGE fscking part. Please show me an expert astronomer who doesn't know a shitload about telescopes -- not the least of which is how to use them -- because I'm pretty sure there's no such creature.
At any rate, ignorance should be neither encouraged nor excused. Most CS grads are trying to become *programmers*, not computer scientists, and not understanding how to install software is, at the very least, indicative of either gross incompetence, or an utter disregard
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Around 1997 a friend asked me to install Windows95 on his girlfriend's computer for her. I thought this was an odd request, since she had graduated from Computer Science at the University of Western Ontario that week...
I thought that was nuts. And then during the Y2K upgrade boom, I was asked to install a bunch of new machines for 15 (newly graduated, but from where I don't know) programmers hired to work at a government office. I was asked to set up the development environment as well because - wait for it
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I think the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights [wikipedia.org] says it best: "No person may be forced to install or have installed on any machine Microsoft Windows 95 or any derivative of it under any circumstance, no matter what they have done". There is also a special declaration of suggested physical punishment for Windows ME...
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so what about people who did the job and did not go to big 4 year school? Why should they get passed over for a JOB?
Because they type like you and still expect to be taken seriously?
Re:Skill? (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who makes hiring decisions, you've proven the OPs point.
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+5 insightful for a complete lack of reading comprehension skills? Neato.
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So, even if the
Re:Skill? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Skill? (Score:5, Informative)
I went into college knowing a lot, and also knowing that there was more out there I didn't know. During college, I increased the first quantity.
The most important skills I learned, in order:
I suppose I also learned how to win a programming contest. That accomplishment, more or less by itself, got me my last job interview.
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I think what he's saying (or at least what I'm saying now) is that you don't necessarily have to have met a very high standard to receive a degree from a number of programs. Similarly, those without degrees can, in fact, be hot shit.
The absolute best and brightest programmers I've worked with have been decorated as follows:
- GED, dropped out of college.
- Almost finished college.
- BS Math.
- BA Music.
- PhD Econ, PhD Physics.
That's from brightest down. That's right, the most rock-star coder (and Director/VP/
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And Bill Gates, a college dropout, became the richest man in the world, so therefore any formal education is just going to make you poor, so isn't it great that I failed high school and, although currently working at McDonalds, fully expect to be the CEO of my own billion dollar company very very soon.
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As someone who makes hiring decisions and interviews prospects, I'm going to call bullshit.
(Deleted stuff)
Are large numbers of stupid people graduating who don't deserve their degrees? Yes. Has higher education, to some degree, become commoditized and devalued?
Yes, but it does not follow that no learning occurs at universities.
By your own admission, it does follow that you have a challenging job because you have to look for people like yourself among devalued degrees and undeserving candidates. Your personal experience at university is the minority case.
Anyway, you work in HR, so if you're not ineffectual or full of buzz-word rubbish, have a cookie.
I have both taught in university and worked in a university administration. I've been offered bribes by students to pass them. I've seen the laziness and cheating that is "group work".
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Going to college makes a person no more educated than going to a garage makes them a car.
One of my classmates literally paid his way through school, he bought all the assignments. At the end of the day, we have the same degree. How does learning to cheat yourself factor into a successful career?
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I won't hire people who think they're hot shit but haven't gone to college to get the ignorance schooled out of them. .
Talk about bullshit. Yeah, you're management all right.
So you will hire people who are humble and have practical experience? That is inferred from your statement, however I somehow seriously doubt that is the case. In the last ten years I have seen companies fall over themselves to hire college graduates who think they're hot shit and have no practical knowledge or experience. The employee is clearly useless, and has to have their hand held and trained by someone with practical experience, then the trainer
Re:Skill? (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is from the perspective of somebody who went into University pursuing interests in the first place. And I'm glad I did. Maybe you'd have been happier if you did the same thing.
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I would mod you up if I could. Far too many people go to school with the idea that anything that they could learn that isn't directly applicable to what they perceive as being their dream job isn't worth learning. In actuality, learning new and different things exposes you to the possibility of pursuing a career doing something truly exciting.
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I... I'm gonna call bullshit. Depending on your institution, teacher, and personal disposition, you may or may not learn the curriculum. But that's still different than learning nothing. If nothing else, you need to learn how to give the professor what he or she wants to see. That involves reading people. Some profs like sycophants, some like contrarians, some like big words being used, some value class participation. You need to learn how to give people what they want, how they want it, and in how obvious
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You go to school to buy a piece of paper to impress employers. Learning plays no factor in so-called modern education.
I assume you majored in popsicle stick collection, then. In the sciences, a college education is absolutely necessary and conveys an enormous body of information. Looking at recent hires in my organization, GPA and the number of relevant courses completed correlates quite well with job performance. I'm confident that's due to a causative mechanism. Why hire people who'd need a year of background training before they can understand the job-specific training, especially when you don't know whether they'll
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You go to school to buy a piece of paper to impress employers. Learning plays no factor in so-called modern education.
I'm sorry your college career sucked so much. What a waste of time.
People who want to learn in college have no problem doing so. If you don't get anything from it, it's because you suck as much as anything else. Seriously, if you're going to sit through hours of a biology class or a math class, why not take the time to learn something? If you sit there ignoring the professor and surfing facebook that's your own stupid fault.
Re:Skill? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying it's absolutely crucial for everyone to attend college, but it's mandatory for certain professions. For example, a mechanical engineer will have to know calculus, physics, and a lot of design principals. Are you seriously suggesting that this can be taught on the job? If so, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. There is a lot of stuff that you need to know before you can actually do certain jobs, just because you don't have one of these jobs doesn't mean no one else does either.
I find that most people that rail against college are one of two types of people:
1. People that dropped out of college because they weren't smart enough or because they couldn't manage their time properly.
2. People with a job that doesn't require any college education.
The first type of person is just bitter that they couldn't handle it, the second type of person is too short sighted to see that there are jobs that require more book learning than theirs. They assume that because they learned how to wire a house on the job that an engineer can learn how to build a bridge on the job.
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People who say things like this generally got poor grades at college but think they're fucking geniuses.
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You go to school to buy a piece of paper to impress employers. Learning plays no factor in so-called modern education.
And I assume you visit your local witch doctor when you need medical care...?
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While there are some fields (computer programming being one of the few) that can be readily learned outside of formal education, there are many more that really can't. I certainly wouldn't want to ride in an airplane that had been designed by people who hadn't learned what's taught in accredited engineering programs, for example... Just because you can go get a business degree without learning anything doesn't mean that learning isn't the goal of modern education in general.
Further, if you're just looking
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When the course list says, "Staff" instead of a professor, luck factors in heavily here.
I would say the opposite. If you get a professor, they have tenure and don't give a shit if students appeal grades. If you get academic staff, they have to grade you as accurately and objectively as they possibly can, because if they mess up their job is potentially on the line.
Good idea or bad idea... (Score:2, Interesting)
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I'm more torn as to the idea that I make the "safe" bet that I get a B and then I get an A. If this means I 'lose' the bet, what'll I do?
If I know that I'll be getting an A, but if I bomb my final I'll get a B BUT also gain $200, I might bomb my final for the strict purpose of winning the bet. This is due to the fact that immediate pleasure, ie $200 right at the end, is far more desirable by most people then some ambiguous future benefit due to having an A over a B.
Hopefully, the way the system works is tha
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Anyhow, this just means I'd have put into a ton of cake classes for extra money and to fulfill core requirements. Sup Phil 100, Math 100, Eng 100, etc. Little too late for me though.
If it is worth it to you to pay money for the class that will teach you nothing, just so you can get a good grade and win your bet, well, you will probably lose in the end. I've just enrolled at Regis University, and at $350-$450/credit hour I most certainly would prefer to avoid the remedial classes. $1050 for a class just to win a bet, well I still had to pay for the class and didn't even learn anything.
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Yep, make my school records public. (Score:2)
Is it proper for a school to, or appear to, allow a third party automated access to student records where this third party is not playing a role in providing education services.
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When the student must explicitly permit it, yeah sure, why not?
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And you should have learned (Score:2)
You should have learned in your studies, when you permit external access security is compromised.
Not to say that school has good security, but it creates another potential attack vector.
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In other words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now cheating pays two-fold.
Smart (Score:3, Interesting)
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I think it's because the scale was so screwed up. If you got 1 B mark in any of yor courses, to bring your average up to an 8, you would have to get an A in 2 courses
Yes, this is how averages work!
I doubt it was supposed to be 'easy' since there's money on the line. If everyone was supposed to get the scholarship, then it ceases being a scholarship and instead becomes a welfare system.
I'm sure there are a number of people here who would easily have met the 8/10 requirement.
Unless the Bell Curve is there (Score:2)
Fine (Score:2, Insightful)
Bet $1Billion you will get an F, then don't show up for the exam. For that kind of sum I won't bother repeating the year - in fact, I won't bother even going back to school.
Re:Fine (Score:5, Funny)
I bet $1 Billion you didn't RTFA.
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Right.. because if you go to the track, you can put money that the horse with the highest odds of winning comes in last.
Oh wait.. you can't.
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Bet $1Billion you will get an F, then don't show up for the exam.
Gee, I wonder what they've set the odds on someone betting they'd get an F and then going and getting an F.
If it were me I'd make it 1:1.
On second thought... if you really thought this was clever I'll set the payout odds at 1:10. (That's right 1:10 not 10:1 -- so if you are dumb enough to place that bet I'll keep 90% of your cash if you win, and all of it if you manage to lose.)
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Odds are given as win ratios. So 1:10 means you get paid your initial bet plus 10%. I'm assuming you used this service in your probability class.
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Odds are given as win ratios. So 1:10 means you get paid your initial bet plus 10%. I'm assuming you used this service in your probability class.
Lol. Quite Right. Not sure where my head was just now. I actually did well in statistics. :)
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Gee, I wonder what they've set the odds on someone betting they'd get an F and then going and getting an F.
If it were me I'd make it 1:1.
On second thought... if you really thought this was clever I'll set the payout odds at 1:10. (That's right 1:10 not 10:1 -- so if you are dumb enough to place that bet I'll keep 90% of your cash if you win, and all of it if you manage to lose.)
With 1:10 odds, a bet of $100 would yield a $110 payout.
Re:Fine (Score:4, Funny)
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We hoped you enjoyed studying Media and Advertising!"
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Bet $1Billion you will get an F, then don't show up for the exam. For that kind of sum I won't bother repeating the year - in fact, I won't bother even going back to school.
That was my first thought, until I RTFA. They have capped bets. The limit increases the more you use the system, but I doubt it ever increases to the point where a single statistical anomaly (aka a forced F) would bankrupt them.
Smells bad to me. (Score:2)
Real gambling involves skill too. I know an amateur who is very good at poker, and he can make money with it (not alot, but when you regularly come out ahead, that's skill).
This is gambling. Whether or not it's ok is another question, but the fact that this guy s
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Real gambling involves skill too.
So does investing in the stock market, but that isn't considered gambling by most people. What's the difference? Where do you draw the line?
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Many people would say that poker isn't gambling either, specifically because you can be "good" at it, and because you can throw a hand. I dare you to be "good" at Keno or "throw" a spin of roulette. Even if you don't agree with that definition you probably shouldn't use poker as an example of what is or is not gambling unless you want your argument to be overshadowed by the comparison.
Academic History Information (Score:2)
If this does go forward, how long will it be before we hear about their new Academic History Database, now available to employers for a hefty annual subscription or by a per usage fee.
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Employers that care about grade already ask for grades, sometimes even requiring applicants to provide official transcripts at their own cost. There's no reason employers would pay for such a service when they can get it for free.
That's not to say that this information won't be sold, just that the particular business model you propose is unlikely.
get your professor involved (Score:2)
Easiest way to make a sure buck ever: just convince the professor to fix your grades and give him/her part of the profit.
You don't even have to be that pernicious-- just ask the professor how many points you'd have to lose to get a sure B or C, and then ensure you get a B or C.
Bet enough and you won't even care what grades you decide to give yourself since you won't have to work.
Get your professor a cut (Score:2)
Pretty sure you are wagering against "B or better" and not "B- to B+", otherwise someone with good grades could wager heavily against getting and F get good odds and 'take a dive' for a huge payout.
Still, profs are human too, and can be bribed like anyone else. I would guess that you are wagering against you total GPA though.
21 (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Attend college on list for a few semesters, fail most classes, but not enough to get kicked out.
2. Bet double your accumulated tuition cost, and then overload on your mickey mouse degree classes.
3. No xxxxxxxx step, just straight profit
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Game the system. If there are not betting limits, heres what you do. 1. Attend college on list for a few semesters, fail most classes, but not enough to get kicked out. 2. Bet double your accumulated tuition cost, and then overload on your mickey mouse degree classes. 3. No xxxxxxxx step, just straight profit
If you RTFA you'd see that they have limits on your bets. You can't bet enough to make it worthwhile to flush your tuition down the drain or to throw a few semesters.
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Game the system. If there are not betting limits, heres what you do. 1. Attend college on list for a few semesters, fail most classes, but not enough to get kicked out. 2. Bet double your accumulated tuition cost, and then overload on your mickey mouse degree classes. 3. No xxxxxxxx step, just straight profit
If you RTFA you'd see that they have limits on your bets. You can't bet enough to make it worthwhile to flush your tuition down the drain or to throw a few semesters.
Who says your tuition was flushed down the drain? You're allowed to learn all the material, just pretend you don't for the exam.
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"Game the system. If there are not [sic] betting limits, heres [sic] what you do..."
FTA: "The student decides how much to wager up to a cap that starts at $25 and increases with use."
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"Game the system. If there are not [sic] betting limits, heres [sic] what you do..."
FTA: "The student decides how much to wager up to a cap that starts at $25 and increases with use."
On that note, I still didn't read the full article, but could a progressive system work for this grade casino? Mathematicians?
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Short answer: No.
Long answer: Technically "not enough information", because the article doesn't specify details on what "increases with use" means. The company does not release details on its exact algorithm. But presumably, like any casino or insurance company, their calculations don't allow for any such thing.
Pithy answer: As I overheard the pizzeria guy say to the bum tonight asking for a free slice, "Yeah sure, sure -- 'cuz I'm in business to just give stuff away."
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2. Bet double your accumulated tuition cost, and then overload on your mickey mouse degree classes.
Did you miss the part where you have to submit your schedule as well as your transcripts? Unless their system sucks, it'll notice that you're taking mickey mouse crap and give you bad odds so that you won't make much.
Brilliant! But... (Score:2)
2. Bet double your accumulated tuition cost, and then overload on your mickey mouse degree classes.
...why stop at double?
Yeah ... "complete control" ... (Score:2)
FTFA:
Of course, if you happen to take a class with a teacher that NEVER gives A's, then it doesn't matter HOW good you are (unless you're the second coming of Dykstra?), and yes, I had a few of those in Undergrad (for required classes).
Will this end up like the mob with blackmail and p (Score:2)
Will this end up like the mob with blackmail and people taking a dive?
will the site pay professors to lower grades to get out having to make pay outs?
with the colleges put a stop to this?
A better system? (Score:2)
on the other hand... (Score:2)
The site also allows professors to take the other side of the bet.
It might work ... (Score:2)
Nonsense (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously the prejudice of a professor can play heavily upon grades. Most of us have seen it in action. Sometimes it's the old guy who gives great grades to pretty girls and hates anyone on the football team. The next time around may be the opposite. Perhaps only the football team gets a break on grades. The point being that it is flat out bonkers to think that the student is the only one in charge of his grades.
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Obviously the prejudice of a professor can play heavily upon grades. Most of us have seen it in action. Sometimes it's the old guy who gives great grades to pretty girls and hates anyone on the football team. The next time around may be the opposite. Perhaps only the football team gets a break on grades. The point being that it is flat out bonkers to think that the student is the only one in charge of his grades
At my school, papers and exams were anonymized before grading. Is this not standard practice?
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It is at our university (Birmingham, UK). How anonymous they actually are varies strongly as a function of class size.
How about hedging? (Score:2)
Can you sell yourself short?
Actually, the whole thing smells of insider trading.
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This will let teachers troll for payoff kickbacks, a good-size scandal is almost certain.
That was my concern, but it seems like bet limits might not make that worthwhile. It seems like you can only bet a few tens of dollars at first. Even with some of the best odds (100:1 for a 1st year betting that they'll have a 4.0 at the end of four years) you can't stand to win more than 2 or 3 thousand dollars. To ensure winning that bet you'd have to have a bunch of profs in on it. And if you try to ensure a bet where it only takes one prof, the odds are going to be much lower and there won't likely be e
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I'm more thinking that it would open up for a different kind of fraud,, where the student AND teacher corroborate.
The teacher gives a grade C student fifty grand to bet on gettting an A, then gives the student an A, gets his fifty grand back, and the teacher and student splits the rest.
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Professors really don't make enough for that plan.
Or too much material (Score:2)
I've sat an exam once or twice where almost no one finished the exam in the allotted time because there was too much material.
The professors heavily curved the exam grades in that case.
It's not common, but there is a bit of an art to properly designing an exam so that it can be completed by students who have what should be an acceptable level of mastery of the material, in the given time.
Or team based where others can make your grade (Score:2)
Or team based where others can make your grade go up or down.
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I've sat an exam once or twice where almost no one finished the exam in the allotted time because there was too much material.
The professors heavily curved the exam grades in that case.
It's not common, but there is a bit of an art to properly designing an exam so that it can be completed by students who have what should be an acceptable level of mastery of the material, in the given time.
I've taken a class that had 30 exams in the course of a year that weren't finished by more than 2% of the students (always 0 or 1 in a class of ~60) thanks to time constraints. The curve varied wildly from week to week, sometimes giving an A for a 60, sometimes an A for a 30. There was a huge degree of noise in those grades, enough that I'm only confident that a few students got the grades they deserved (the consistent top 10% and bottom 10% of the class).
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First, you should not give them your credentials. You should create their own credentials and grant them access to the appropriate parts of your account. If your grade system does not allow this you shouldn't sign up -- it's not worth the risk. Plus I'm guessing they don't support such systems anyway; most big schools have allowed students to create third-party logins for their employer/parents/etc. for a while now.
Second, while they might intend to mine your account for other information, and the agreement
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Employers who care already can and do ask applicants to provide grades, sometimes even requiring an official transcript at the applicant's expense. Why would employers suddenly be willing to pay some third party for this information when they're already getting it for free. Plus you probably don't want to work someplace that uses grades to make hiring decisions, at least not for anyone other than 0-experience recent graduates, because they obviously have bad HR practices.
The company might be looking to mine