next it will be High School Diplomas OPTIONAL tooo...
Posted on 06/29/2008 12:48:26 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Last month, Wake Forest dropped the SAT and ACT as an entrance requirement, becoming the only top-30 national university with a test-optional policy. This step away from standardized tests will help us and other institutions of higher education move closer to the goals of greater educational quality and opportunity.
Our decision to reevaluate our admissions policy grew out of a close look at the state of higher education and some long, hard thinking about the kind of university we want Wake Forest to be. For several years, a growing body of research has made clear that America's top colleges and universities are doing a poor job of helping some young people realize a critical part of the American dream: that anyone, no matter where he or she begins in life, has the chance to rise to the top.
For example, students from the top quarter of the socioeconomic hierarchy are 25 times more likely to attend a "top tier" college than students from the bottom quarter. In 1970, only 6 percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor's degree by age 24. More than 30 years later, the figure was still only 6 percent.
Research has indicated that one of the major reasons equal opportunity is lacking is universities' reliance on standardized tests, such as the SAT. Analyses show clearly that performance on the SAT is closely correlated with family income. Two scholars recently found that top colleges and universities could increase the enrollment of low-income students simply by giving greater weight to admissions criteria other than standardized tests.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Incidentally, IQ correlates with income and the bell curve has been demonstrated for over 100 years.
These people are running our centers of higher learning. No wonder men are increasingly rare. Being the subject of egalitarian wish fullfillment at 40k a year is not really all that appealing.
Liberals, to an extraordinary degree, refuse to see biological differences between people, sexes and races as determining anything. There is some mystical environmental manipulation, to their way of thinking, that can change both God and nature.
Are you kidding? I know many, many people who chose the safety net of public (gobmint) jobs over the risk of private sector despite their many, many talents. Some people are simply risk averse, and even though they have many talents that would ensure they would never starve they prefer the floors and ceilings vs the high potential rewards/risk.
The single best predictor of success in college, law school, and medical school?
The SAT, the LSAT, and the MCAT, respectively. As to why Wake Forest chose to ignore that trend and opted towards social engineering, well, the reasons are quite clear.
There’s only one score that matters after college, and you don’t need to test students for it.
What’s the median income, adjusted by age and major, for the school’s graduates?
Any college that flunks the money test will not be in the Top 30 for long, no matter what its entrance requirements are.
I agree with you. Plus, in my opinion - there’s more to life than money for a lot of people. I have friends who are teachers - don’t make a lot - but they don’t want to sacrifice other parts of their life to get a bigger house or the latest iphone/HD tv. I respect them more than any tort lawyer or politician - not because of their profession - just because they live how they want and are self sufficient.
I can say few jobs are as cush as being a lawyer for the federal government. Forty-hour work weeks, benefits, working your way up to 110k pay. 26-days of vacation a year.
You can make more in private practice, but you’re going to work a lot more. And you’re not going to have that kind of freedom or that kind of time off.
IQ also correlates with health and longevity.
In Britain, where virtually all government employees receive the same medical care, good health and longevity are dramatically higher for the best paid employees, and dramatically lower for the lowest paid.
No surprise that smoking, drinking, diet, exercise, and obesity are key issues.
Sorry for the ignorance here but what and who says a certain college is a top 30 or even a bottom 10?
What makes a top 30 could that be based on the number of frat houses, number of rich dudes able to afford overpriced book learnin fees, what?
Where can I find a list of the worst colleges.
I believe that Billy Gates was a drop out and he did not do to bad with Microsoft.
Obama was a Harvard grad and all he could get for a job was a low paying community organizer for the communist inspired Saul Alinsky.
Complaints about low achievement in K-12 are absolutely legitimate. Yet, universities, instead of insisting on higher standards, crater to these lower standards. What a travesty!
I certainly won't ever be choosing a Wake Forest educated M.D.!
Well, it's better than paying inheritance taxes on that money.
Universities that utilize this system will see the program fail, just as the Affirm. Action enrollment system failed.....there was a very high percentage of those admitted via lower standards flunking out of college, because their basic education was so sub-par that university work was beyond their capabilities.
So, IMHO, Wake Forest’s efforts will be unsuccessful in attaining the results it hopes for. The article doesn’t say, but I wonder if the student applicant’s race will be part of the process.
Affirm. Action did turn out many blacks that did take advantage of the opportunities and attain high-level jobs.
Assuming Wake Forest (et al) doesn’t lower it’s standards for academic class results (grades), it will be paying a ton for scholarships for students who can’t cut it in college, and will flunk out or quit on their own because they can’t compete.
I believe people who take government jobs for the most part are simply afraid to compete and want the security of the union. They just can’t take very well the idea of losing so they accept mediocrity.
quite clear, and I doubt that they will be a top 30 school for long. In fact, I doubt that they are a top 300 school anyway.
Being the subject of egalitarian wish fullfillment at 40k a year is not really all that appealing.
Being the subject of slavery to a giant student loan at overwhelming rates is also not appealing.
Do you think that these schools want to enslave the brightest of the middle and lower classes?
Expect Wake to fall drastically from that list of top 30 schools. The top 30 is made by USNews & World Report. They create rankings of schools based on entering GPAs, SAT scores, endowment, acceptance rates, what percentage of admitted students choose to enroll, student to teacher ratio, and alumni satisfaction rates.
With Wake not submitting SAT scores, they’re going to fall completely out of the rankings, as is well deserved.
Here they are, if you’re curious.
1. Princeton University (NJ)
2. Harvard University (MA)
3. Yale University(CT)
4. Stanford University(CA)
5. University of Pennsylvania
5. California Institute of Technology
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. Duke University(NC)
9. Columbia University(NY)
9. University of Chicago
11. Dartmouth College(NH)
12. Washington University in St. Louis
12. Cornell University(NY)
14. Brown University(RI)
14. Northwestern University(IL)
14. Johns Hopkins University(MD)
17. Rice University(TX)
17. Emory University(GA)
19. Vanderbilt University(TN)
19. University of Notre Dame(IN)
21. University of California—Berkeley *
22. Carnegie Mellon University(PA)
23. University of Virginia *
23. Georgetown University(DC)
25. University of California—Los Angeles *
25. University of Michigan—Ann Arbor *
27. University of Southern California
28. University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill *
28. Tufts University(MA)
30. Wake Forest University(NC)
“I certainly won’t ever be choosing a Wake Forest educated M.D.!”
Oh, the med school will still be weighing the MCAT. And their med school has about a 3-5% acceptance rate.
http://www.medschoolready.com/app/schooldetails.asp?ID=39&DH=29
Med school is brutally hard to get into across the board—no matter what school you’re looking at. I was interviewed at Wake and held on the waitlist forever without getting in with a 3.78 GPA and an MCAT at the 94th-percentile.
By means of comparison, Wake’s undgraduate school has a 42% acceptance rate with a far less competitive applicant pool.
If you want my humble opinion, you really shouldn’t base your choice in a doctor on where he or she went to school, especially if they graduated from a US medical school. It’s competitive enough that the quality of physician produced is going to be fairly uniform. Rather, I’d go with who seems to be giving you the best, the most personable, and most thorough care.
I doubt it. My bet would be that Obama WANTED that job badly. It fits his attitude toward creating a new "russia" complete with a totalitarian president.
This will make Wake better or it will make it worse.
How will one tell?...by the state and nature of their ongoing program and by the product they turn out (students and research.)
That can only be seen over time.
I know, Casper, I was merely making a point. I just think it is a shame anytime a university, for the stated purpose of “diversity”, forsakes any of their standards. Our universities need, if anything, to be more selective. Hopefully, then high schools will step up and improve their quality.
My middle son teaches at number 14.
LOL Guess the three degrees I have from football/party schools are worthless as a reused pat of toilet paper in Sherril Crowes environmentally green outhouse.
This article presents compelling evidence that Wake Forest is an inferior institution, if you can judge by the intelligence of its President. He says “A study of 78,000 students in California found that SAT scores correlated with family income but not with college grades”. The explanation for this fact (if it is a fact) is that students who do better on the SAT go to colleges with other high performing students, and so compete for grades with a more talented peer group. Students with low SAT scores go to colleges that have a lower scoring peer group making it easier for them to get “above average” grades. An educator who does not realize this is an idiot, a fraud, or both.
Let’s not forget that one of the tenets of hillarycare was that the government was going to decide who was admitted to medical school. She was going to pre-determine the specialty as well.
Keeping in mind that her system was to admit more women and minorities, regardless of qualifications.
Eliminating the SAT makes it easier for the University to discriminate in favor of its preferred groups. President Hatch writes “For all of these reasons, some of the nation’s top small liberal arts colleges — Bates, Hamilton, Holy Cross, Middlebury and Bowdoin — have moved away from the SAT and achieved greater diversity and quality in their student bodies. By making the SAT optional at Wake Forest University, we hope to encourage the momentum for change among the nation’s most selective institutions.” This statement would make Goebbels blush. What is the measure of “quality” now that there is no standarized test to compare quality? “Quality” now means “whomever I, as President, want to include in my student body”. The groups the President wants to exclude are wealthy or middle class students, whites, and boys, because these are the groups who score highest on the SAT; the SAT prevents him from being able to rid the school of these odious elements. By the way, Middlebury and Bowdoin accept the ACT rather than the SAT so his claim above is misleading - you have to submit either the ACT or the SAT.
Standardized tests are great equalizers. The test is the same for everyone. But leftists want equal outcome, not equal opportunity. They want to knock down the winners and give special treatment to themselves, the losers, hiding under cover of "helping the poor". That is just wicked and wrong. We should not let them get away with it.
Mixed about this....
Obviously WFU is dropping the SAT because non-whites do not do as well on the test as whites do (lets be honest...this is why)
However...I hate all these type of tests....this testing is either a scam to make someone a lot of money...or allow more government control (the GOP/DNC bipartisan No Child Left Behind is an example)
Best to just get rid of all these tests
Great post.
I doubt it. There are a signifcant number of top tier colleges that have not required SAT scores for a number of years, and yet they still rank highly in the U.S. News & World Report. The "no SAT" colleges include Bard College, Bates College, Bowdin College, Connecticut College, The College of the Holy Cross, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, Hamilton College, Providence College, Texas A & M (College Station), University of Texas (Austin), Dickenson College, Rollins College, Franklin & Marshall College, Gettysburg College, and Union College.
Times they are a changing and not necessarily for the better.
God help this nation.
Hmm. Wake Forest is a basketball power. I wonder how many members of their team come from “the top quarter of the socioeconomic hierarchy.” I think Wake needs to start recruiting short white and Asian nerds to provide balance and diversity to their team.
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I lived in CA briefly in the mid-90s. They had abandoned phonics and a bunch of other things.
Hey, if they’re paying cruel inheritance taxes, they’re not correlating with intelligence! It’s pretty easy to avoid those. :)
They don’t use the SAT to select draft choices for the NBA or the NFL, so why should the Demon Deacons?
The U.S. News & World Report ranking doesn’t carry much weight with me. Our educational system has been watered down throughout.
Now we are getting to the crux of it.
Football, they need better football players. Can't find them in the SAT top 25%.
Bingo. The SAT/ACT will still be used against the students that the social engineers are looking to exclude from important institutions.
By minimizing the importance of the exam, they will more easily justify filling their freshmen seats with whatever group they want, without being forced to justify their decisions.
This gives the schools a screen to hide behind.
We visited WFU to evaluate for my rising junior son. A couple of interesting facts:
Although they clearly have the typical liberal leanings, smoking is still allowed in the dorms. Must make the lefties crazy, but as usual “follow the money” from the tobacco industry.
A huge % of their enrolees get some kind of break on tuition, but they told us if family income is above ~$140K (not alot in these times) you’ll be paying the full ticket of ~$50K per year.
Wanna guess what will happen to their tuition as they accept more people who can’t pay the full bill? Think they just fell off our list.
There have been a few colleges over the years that have been concerned with athlete graduation rates, and also made a big deal if an athlete actually went to regular classes in a difficult field and got good grades.
But from what was told to me, most athletes had their own sections of classes, even if those were numbered the same as the non athlete classes. When these athlete classes are graded on a curve, it gives the impression that the athletes were getting better GPAs than they probably deserved. I remember one jock wannabe who was able to find the class sections that the athletes took and get into those, so he wouldn’t have to work as hard to get better grades and have more time for social activities.
So students from low income families, whose parents probably did not attend college go to a state college or university or GASP a community college. What is wrong with that? I was a first generation college students in the 1960’s as were many of my friends. We graduated (unlikely if I had attended even a second tier college) earned good incomes and have had great careers. Our sons and daughters have the background and the skills to go to almost any college.
I noted that the author was somewhat of an elitist-unless you go to a top tier college or university you won’t be successful. Bull Crap. And as been pointed out before-what will be the graduation rates of these students at top tier colleges?
I would bet that students in certain programs, and students who are not in a preferred minority, will be told quietly to take the SAT, because otherwise they will not be admitted. There will be one policy for one group, and another for other groups. It wil be a complete double standard.
Only one of these schools (Bowdoin) is in the top 10 in the US News Rankings. I just checked their site, they do not require that you submit SAT scores, but they do require that you take them, so they can accurately report their average scores. Students who initially do not submit their scores have to report them over the summer if they are admitted.
Standardized testing is the only way to ensure fairness, rather than blatant discrimination according to race, class or gender, in the admissions process. In the past, the lack of standardized testing was a pretext for an old-boy network of WASPs who dominated society and the educational system. Today lack of standarized testing will allow the great discriminators to punish worthy talented youths because they come from groups which are disproportionately successful- because they are boys, or because they are not poor enough, or because they are white.
There is a belief, correct or not, that those who go to elite schools will make the necessary connections to gain power.
There is a widespread belief, at least among those who desire power but who may not have had outstanding success academically and/or economically, that the only reason some people have been successful is that they have been given unfair advantages.
There have been many attempts, under different names, to redirect those advantages and reorder society.
One might again look to the gospel of Saul Alinsky & co. to understand what is going on.
It will be a holistic look at some, but others will have to bring alot of cash, stats, and other goodies to be accepted-no matter how hard they have worked, or how deserving they are.
Yes, it will be a complate double standard. Just look at the ivies, and how they made and announced their decisions this year. They boasted about the stats of the students who applied, but do those application stats match or even closely reflect the stats of those who were accepted?
I went to High School in S. Fla. at what was then a ‘powerhouse football’ school. This was in the late ‘50s.
There were special classes and sympathetic teachers for the football team. They had to maintain a 2.0 avg. in order to stay on the team and the school made sure they did, one way or the other.
College football, for the top teams means TV exposure, Bowl games, alumni contributions, IOW $$$.
next it will be High School Diplomas OPTIONAL tooo...
I’m thinking that the whole “Enormous State University” paradigm of endless growth and unlimited spending is grinding to a halt.
It all comes crashing down when employers realize that all it amounts to is wasting four productive years of their employees while putting them deeply in debt.
Since employers already have to reeducate and certify their new hires, all the ESU has done is impoverish them, and cost the company four prime years at the lower end of the pay scale. While this costs the student perhaps $100,000, it might cost their employer two or three times that much.
And this is not good business.
The first part of this downfall is happening right now, when States have realized that many universities are sitting on multi-billion dollar endowments that are never spent. So they logically ask why the State should spend money when the universities already have it?
But the real zinger will happen when there is a major economic downturn. When the federal government won’t be able to increase its debt, because no one has money to lend. So the universities will have to do with less.
Then they will demand more money from the States, but at that level it will be a choice of giving money to bloated universities or feeding the increasing number of unemployed.
The final straw will be when students can neither get loans nor afford the gigantic tuition.
It will be interesting to see what happens when it all implodes.
Only for some.
I have read some opinions on these SAT-optional schools, that there are TWO interesting results from dropping the SAT:
-More diverse applicant pool, bla, bla, just like the university spokesman says. AND
-A sizeable handful of FULL-PAY (the Holy Grail to some of these colleges) kids that would not have otherwise qualified. Think about a kid with average SAT’s, even after the expensive prep classes, but a good GPA due to Mom and Tutors and Expensive (but not top-drawer) Eastern Prep School.
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