Elite College Admissions Jonathan R. Cole writes the article “Why Elite- College Admissions Need an Overhaul” with the vision that undergraduate admissions should be overlooked. Going into the application process, Cole claims that the administration system is broken. Putting the blame on the fact that administration officers are often a group of young people who are trained in this field by an admission director, instead of having, for example, a faculty committee, take over the process. He reminds us of how institutions have certain guidelines such as gender, race and geographic distribution. Also that the GPA and ACT scores are way over looked and they don’t give the best representation of a student as a whole.
I agree with Cole that the higher education admissions process is unjust because it admits students solely based on standardized testing and other certain unfair guidelines. The admissions committee should be a group of individuals with professional experience that are suitable for deciding who is most eligible for their university. When it comes to a student’s GPA or ACT scores, Cole argues that the sole decision
How are their grades in their everyday classes? Do they regularly turn in their homework? Do their tests score in the high range of percentages? I truly believe that the college admissions committee should focus more on the student’s pattern throughout high school and not at the standardized tests. Even the students with low GPA’s. It is possible that in they had a rough beginning to high school, causing their GPA to lower, and then realize half way through that they need to get their act together. Anyone that has had their GPA drop can agree that it’s easy to drop it, but it much harder to raise it. Anyone that can show that they have made a mistake and taking action to learn from them should be given a
... a tedious process, but the change can have immense, positive effects for the future college student. The ACT and SAT that supposedly measure a student's learning potential through multiple-choice questions should be replaced by a test of a student's desire to learn determined through the analysis of essays, recommendation letters, and school or community involvement. This change can result in a more academically motivated freshman class. Standardized testing in its current form does not accurately measure most students' learning potential. It does not allow for diversity and creates a huge hurdle for many potential academic achievers. An adjustment to a diverse, open testing format of the ACT or SAT and a stress on the student's other academic accomplishments can accurately measure the student's desire to learn, therefore measuring the student's learning potential.
In our undergraduate admission system, fully 110 points out of 150 are given for academic factors including grades, test scores, and curriculum. We only count 12 points for test scores, but that is because we value high school grades to a much greater extent--- they can earn up to 80 points. We consider many other factors as well. Race is one of those, but a student who is socioeconomically disadvantaged also can earn 20 points (students cannot earn 20 points for both factors, however). Geographic diversity is also important, and a student from Michigan’s upper peninsula, for example, earns 16 points.
Imagine, your walking down the street looking for a job. You see a sign in the window that says, “Whites encouraged to apply.” Imagine the period in time when just being white got you into a college, without any other considerations of grades or athletic ability. Those were the days of the Jim Crow laws. Now these instances have happened in the past 20 years, through new laws called Affirmative Action. The big argument is over these few years of affirmative action. Have they alleviated the pain of the Jim Crow laws? The answer to that question is no. Especially, in the case of the University of Michigan‘s use of Affirmative Action in the acceptance of students. Using race as a factor of admission is wrong and is reverse discrimination.
One of the central struggles among college students today is that they are required to compete against one another to appear exceptional. In frequent cases, students are trying so vigorously to appear favorable on paper in order to be accepted into a prestigious school or to be hired for a higher-paying job. Additionally, students are required
Applying to college in the United States of America can be a long process consisting of many requirements. College admission requirements have been changing for centuries “in order to ensure that the full range of talent that an institution is capable of developing is properly represented in the student body” according to Andrew Beale in his article “The Evolution of College Admission Requirements.” During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries admission was granted based on ones “ability to read and translate Latin and Greek.” By the time the 1950s surfaced, there was an increase in standardized exams which soon adopted environmental and nonintellectual factors by the 1960s, Beale writes. As we know, there should be a fair playing field
...es And Affirmative Action In Making Admission Decisions At A Predominantly White University.” College Student Journal 39.4 (2005): 734-748. Academic Search Premier. Web. 27 Feb. 2014
"I think our students are just doing too much, ' ' said Stu Schmill the Dean of Admissions at MIT. "They feel like they have to do too much, and they really don 't. We want to send this message that they can pull back on that a little bit." Changing this standardized testing method relieves some of the pressure off of students who already have a high enough GPA for admissions, and makes it an additional criterion for students who have a lower GPA but could still succeed within the college level curriculum. The SAT/ACT scores would still be accepted for all students willing to take the tests, but just may not be weighed as heavily in the decision-making process. The purpose of this possible change would be to broaden the spectrum of students brought into each university and make the admissions process less about standardized test
Standardized testing has been proven to be biased towards those of ethnic and socioeconomic disadvantaged groups. Wealthy students become more prepared for standardized tests through better life experiences, such as top-quality schools and test prep tutors. Steven Syverson implies that students with high SAT scores are presumed to be “bright” and encouraged to consider the most selective colleges, with no regard to their academic performance in high school (57). Those students that were considered elite, but did not perform well their parents suggested to admission counselors that they were “not challenged” in high school (Syverson 57). According to Marchant and Paulson, race, parent education, and family income were found to account as much as 94% of the variance in scores among states (85:62). Students that belong to multiple disadvantage categories suffered greatly in the scoring criteria. The majority of students with socioeconomic disadvantages are discouraged from attending college. However, those that choose to further their education are more than likely the first ones in their family to attend college. Due to the large debate involving the admissions process using the SAT score, more colleges have adopted the SAT Optional policy because it is “consistent with their institutional mission and
For example, two high school graduates from Cincinnati, Ohio of the class of 2017 scored a 1560 out of a 1600 on the SAT and the other scored a 35 out of 36 on the ACT, in addition, both of these students were National Merit Commended Finalists. Surprisingly, they were rejected from both Massachusetts Institute of Technology during Early Action and Northwestern University after being wait-listed. However, if you were to look the College Board’s website, BigFuture, you would find the ranges of SAT scores for Northwestern are between 1450-1570 and the ACT ranges are 32-34. The ranges of SAT scores for Massachusetts Institute of Technology are between 1500-1600 and the ACT ranges are 33-35. Another example of this phenomenon took place in Toledo, Ohio. Nathan Card a graduate of the 2017 class of Ottawa Hills, received a 35 ACT, but was rejected by schools such as Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell. All of these students met or exceed the requirements for both of these schools yet they were somehow reject even with High test scores. These are not the only students that have come across this issue, countless students across this Nation have experienced these similar issues.
Standardized testing is a type of test usually serve to determine how well you understand a concept which is often used for placement. These types of test include questions in a form of an essay, short answers, multiple choices, or a combination of these together and are given out as early as in kindergarten. This practice has been used for so long that it has become a part of the American culture. Every year, high school juniors and seniors worldwide take the SAT or the ACT in the hope that they score high enough to get into their dream school. However, there has been a lot of ongoing debates revolving around the idea of the use of standardized testing in college admission and the whether or not they are effective in determining a student’s
Education has always been a current issue due to the fact that it is seen as an economic cure-all. However, the perception of college is ill-conceived and there are multiple debates on how to improve it. College universities believe that having open admissions will increase the amount of matriculations, but the fact is the amount of students being enrolled into a four-year university has no relationship to the amount of students with academic aspirations. W.J. Reeves, an English professor at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York, gives a few examples of how open admissions has changed education methods and student abilities. Reeves wrote this opinion piece to convince everyone, especially parents, that schools are in need of reform
The college application process is one of the hardest parts of a high school career.
First of all, I heartily believe in a situation where a student is sincerely willing and determined to excel in all aspects of their education, they deserve to have every opportunity that anybody interested in attending college has, no exceptions. In August, President Obama made a proposal to rate colleges based on qualifications. Qu...
Every spring, high school students around the country anxiously check their mailboxes, hoping to receive letters of acceptance to their dream colleges. Typically, in perfect world, acceptance to college should be based on grades, SAT scores, letters of recommendation, character, extra-curricular activities, and personal statements. Recently, however, another factor in the admission process has become more and more accepted; race based admission. This new policy has been made in order to give minority students a better opportunity to gain acceptance into better colleges. In the 1960’s, President Lynden B. Johnson trying to bring diversity to higher education in the United States and serve as a peace offering for past discriminatory treatment, the use of race in the application process is supported by some and opposed by others. Supporters of the affirmative action claim that it is necessary to achieve diversity in education, which in their opinion should be sought above all else, while the opponents say race based admission actually promote racism and discrimination by the use of skin color in the admission policy. Since the introduction of race is a factor in acceptance, many people have challenged the legality of affirmative action. The Supreme Court has heard many cases related to race based admission and this continues today. Furthermore, this essay will look into the different opinions as to whether or not race should factor into university enrollment policies.
Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since it was established in the 1960s to right past wrongs against minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The goal of affirmative action is to integrate minorities into public institutions, like universities, who have historically been discriminated against in such environments. Proponents claim that it is necessary in order to give minorities representation in these institutions, while opponents say that it is reverse discrimination. Newsweek has a story on this same debate which has hit the nation spotlight once more with a case being brought against the University of Michigan by some white students who claimed that the University’s admissions policies accepted minority students over them, even though they had better grades than the minority students. William Symonds of Business Week, however, thinks that it does not really matter. He claims that minority status is more or less irrelevant in college admissions and that class is the determining factor.