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Comment by SlyShy | Hacker News Reader

In reality, most teachers accept late work from students they like. Still, I suppose the example was specifically for economics professors. ;)

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Pure anecdote, but there was one class where I turned almost every assignment late in for. That class required work to be done in the computer lab on campus and my work schedule limited when I could get there, so virtually every assignment was late.

I worked it out with the professor and I got docked 10% on every assignment, but he also added a bonus question for everyone and that let me stay in the A range regardless.

At least in my admittedly anecodtal experience, most professors are willing to work with you if you are making an effort in the class and have a genuine reason besides laziness.

Because grading a work by student you like gives you positive utility :).

Yes; generally, quality of work and how much a professor likes a student are positively correlated. So, if a professor likes grading good papers, ey will accept papers from late students ey likes.

Excellent use of Spivak pronouns

You are probably also more inclined to believe excuses from people you like, which also plays a fairly sized role in the article.

So true. I remember that girl who had a nice smile and were pretty cute. Every teacher loved her and she always could give her homeworks late. More than that, she were always copying homework from her older-sister which had saved all papers. When it didn't work out, she started to cry a little bit and it always finally worked.

To be honest, crying would very likely work for an ugly dude too. With a few exceptions, nobody wants to have to sit and watch anybody cry.

This seems to vary a lot by college. Professors at elite colleges tend to cut breaks, under the belief that it's better to grade a couple of papers late than to risk messing up a student's future. So Ivy League schools tend to be pretty tolerant of late work. I've heard of professors accepting work as much as a year late.

The lower you go on the academic totem pole, the less tolerance there is. Extensions are hard to get at state schools-- even the really good ones-- and practically nonexistent at community colleges.

It may be unfair, but it makes sense. Teacher:student ratios are lower at elite colleges, and late work is rarer, so it's not really a burden. Also, professors at elite colleges are generally happier and have cushier lives, whereas teachers at CCs are usually underpaid and overworked already, so late work is an intolerable addition. Finally, many of the students in middling schools shouldn't be in college at all, while the assumption at an elite college is that the person who's late is a good student with a good reason. That assumption's not always true, of course, but elite colleges would rather make one type of error.

The Ivy League/State distinction is a little more subtle than professors' regard for students' futures.

At private schools, tuition is much higher, parents are wealthier, and alumni contributions are important. So the utility function of the professor is actually linked to the grade of the student (also why you see more grade inflation at the more expensive schools, se, e.g., - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_inflation#Princeton_Unive...).

In state schools, class sizes run much larger; granting an exception with a 200 person class is not likely to remain a secret for long. This means the penalty to professors for not following tit-for-tat is much greater.

Also, professors at state schools just don't have the time available to even consider the excuses - it's easier to consider 4 unique cases (out of 20 students) at a private school vs. 40 unique cases (out of 200) at a public school.

Professors at elite colleges tend to cut breaks under the belief that if they don't, parents will complain to the dean who will order them to cut a break.

They hold that belief because it is true.

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