Posted on 01/09/2008 8:40:53 AM PST by reaganaut1
The world gets more competitive every day, so why would California's education elites want to dumb down their public university admissions standards? The answer is to serve the modern liberal piety known as "diversity" while potentially thwarting the will of the voters.
The University of California Board of Admissions is proposing to lower to 2.8 from 3.0 the minimum grade point average for admission to a UC school. That 3.0 GPA standard has been in place for 40 years. Students would also no longer be required to take the SAT exams that test for knowledge of specific subjects, such as history and science.
UC Board of Admissions Chairman Mark Rashid says that, under this new system of "comprehensive review," the schools "can make a better and more fair determination of academic merit by looking at all the students' achievements." And it is true that test scores and grades do not take full account of the special talents of certain students. But the current system already leaves slots for students with specific skills, so if you think this change is about admitting more linebackers or piccolo players, you don't understand modern academic politics.
The plan would grant admissions officers more discretion to evade the ban on race and gender preferences imposed by California voters. Those limits became law when voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996, and state officials have been looking for ways around them ever since. "This appears to be a blatant attempt to subvert the law," says Ward Connerly, a former member of the University of California Board of Regents, who led the drive for 209. "Subjective admissions standards allow schools to substitute race and diversity for academic achievement."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Grade inflation just is not keeping up with today’s lower expectations.
The UC folks get $300,000 to $400,000/year for thinking big like this.
My daughter’s friend is an affirmative action student at a top law school, and she told me that they(I presume she was referring to all the affirmative action enrollees)could not receive any grade than a B+, so she wasn’t really working that hard in school. She was just letting the other kids compete for the A’s and class ranking. She thought that class ranking didn’t really make that much difference if you are a civil rights lawyer, anyway.
That's easy. The dumber they are, the easier they are to manipulate and brainwash them into the liberal mold. Lefty elistists don't want people who can think for themselves. They want people who will think and do what they are to do.
There are highschools where you can graduate with a 3.0 or better without writing a cogent paragraph. OTOH, where my kids went to school, it was not easy to get all B’s or better.
Tsk tsk. I attended one of the finest primary schools in the country, and went to a private, Jesuit high school. I did not maintain a B average at high school. I didn't maintain a cumulative B average at college until my last semester (when I decided to do some work in order to polish my grad school resume). By and large, I thought the work to be boring and largely below my skill level.
After college, I attended graduate school at one of the highest ranked schools in the nation, based largely on very high standardized test scores. I found work that interested me and I graduated with high honors. You can't lump low GPA people into one category. We're not all the same.
Out of 24 students our grade breakdown was as follows:
A - 0
B - 1 (a lazy slacker who dressed like a bum and shaved once a month but was actually a phenomenal engineer)
C - 6 (I was one of these stars)
D - 8
F/Incomplete - 9
Special Talents = skin pigmentation.
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I passed both of my state licensing exams on the first attempt, too -- and I think the average professional engineer fails at least 2-3 times before passing.
Maintaining a B average in high school is not difficult, and someone who cannot do it is probably not college material, regardless of his or her race.”
Not to mention a “B” today is the equivalent of a “C” from the 70s going back in time.
“You can’t lump low GPA people into one category. We’re not all the same.”
I have served 4 years on admissions committees to professional schools and you are dead on target with your assessment. This makes the clear and present case for standardized tests to determine what has been retained and can be applied. Standardized tests also tend to level the field across multiple undergrad institutions where awarded grades for the same work differ greatly. A grade of “A” from one institution may equate to a “C+” from a more rigorous institution.
What the hell is an 'affirmative action student?' Just because you are a minority doesn't make you an affirmative action admittee. And unless your daughter is the same race as her friend, I doubt your daughter was told any such thing. I can only speak for blacks, but black students aren't about to tell some white chick that they aren't competing for grades. This is why affirmative action is so hurtful to minorities. It makes majorities think that none of them got there, whether it is school or a job, on their own merits. They just assume that because someone is different than they are, that they are less qualified and admitted or hired soley based on race.
Did it occur to you that these 'affirmative action students' obtained B+ grades on their own?
I have a law degree (2 of them, actually) and worked in law school admissions. I currently work at a university where a number of my associates are faculty at the law school. I know a little something about law school, admissions, and retention. I am currently engaged in a research project involving first year law students. I also happen to be black. Nobody is giving any grades away to blacks.
You can satisfy yourself with this - there's no affirmative action on the bar exam. You either pass it or you don't; race doesn't get you any brownie points. If the student isn't intellectually qualified, s/he won't pass.
An affirmative action student is one who was admitted to the school, given a full ride plus expenses, even though she did not meet minimum requirements for admittance, solely on the basis of her essay.
The girl’s own mother told me this was the case. She bragged about it.
The degradation of our educational system continues. The Asian nations look upon this type of thing with utter amazement, and in the case of the ChiComs, with glee.
It’ll only get worse, because Political Correctness demands certain outcomes, and a competitive world in which excellence is the goal doesn’t produce those results.
Yeah, she’ll get some cushy affirmative action job with government, or big firms will hire her to keep the “diversity” heat off. Then when the low productivity/client complaints happen, she’ll quietly leave and get hired by government or another desperate firm. The process continues ad infinitum as she gets passed around like a cheap whore.
You are absolutely right: GPAs do not reflect the fact that those who take hard classes frequently have lower GPAs. I was one of them, but through no fault of my own...
I was a “B-” student in high school, and in the lower half of my class graduating. I was also taking higher math and science courses during my senior year, and was struggling with physics especially. My counselors even asked me if I could drop some of those tougher courses just to save my GPA, which had been a pretty solid 3.5 until then.
But my father, an aerospace engineer who worked on many notable missions, (including the Saturn V project) insisted that I take the more difficult courses just because “I might need them someday”. In his heart of hearts, I think he really hoped that I might become an engineer someday. He never could comprehend how even simple algebraic equations really fried my brain, and he just knew if I kept at it, I’d be able to finally understand and build a rocket to take us to Mars...
So I stayed the course, finished in the bottom half of my class, and watched as the “easy A” kids who took nothing but journalism and basketweaving got lauded for their high GPAs. Meanwhile, I was that girl keeping her head down in the back trying to figure out the trajectory on some distant object, and making Cs while doing so.
Still, it didn’t affect me too much regarding college - I got a near perfect score on my ACT and got a top score on the PSAT, and went to college to become an elementary school teacher. Still, it always made me a little upset at my father, because I felt humilitated by my GPA - I just HAD to take those difficult courses I felt I would never use in my chosen profession...
That is, until I started homeschooling my son - and wouldn’t you know it, he’s in fourth grade and he’s studying to be an engineer? Physics. Chemistry. The whole nine yards! And now I’m thanking God that I took those courses that blew my GPA to bits, because now I’m able to teach physics and higher math to a boy who swears that HE will be the one; the one to build the rocket to take us to Mars - and beyond.
I wish I could tell my father “thank you”. He never got to meet my son, but I know he believed in his heart of hearts that the world needs a good engineer - and a good teacher to teach them...
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