Is who gets admitted to one of America's coveted universities each year mostly a numbers process that is badly flawed? You are more likely to have success at LOTTO.
Depending on the college, admissions people like to think that they have set the bar at the right level to screen out only those applicants that meet the colleges' requirements. Some look closely at the personal letter, if required, to find the young man or woman who offers the creativity the college demands, or the empathy or the passion. But this only comes after the combined scores are tailed and the cut offs are applied.
The truth is that most schools, particularly given the sheer number of applications, rely on GPA and SAT scores. According to the New York Times, Harvard received a record 27,278 applicants "for its next freshman class, a 19 percent increase over last year. Other campuses reporting double-digit increases included the University of Chicago (18 percent), Amherst College (17 percent), Northwestern (14 percent) and Dartmouth (10 percent)."
The problem is that GPAs vary school to school. The SAT, formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test, is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. It doesn't vary as much, but is increasingly being discounted by colleges because, many critics have accused, has a cultural bias toward the white and wealthy kids.
According to one well known study using data from California, "test-takers with family incomes of less than $20,000 a year had a mean score of 1310 while test-takers with family incomes of over $200,000 had a mean score of 1715, a difference of 405 points."
The former president of the University of California, Richard Atkinson, urged dropping the SAT Test as a college admissions requirement almost ten years ago. He said, "Anyone involved in education should be concerned about how overemphasis on the SAT is distorting educational priorities and practices, how the test is perceived by many as unfair, and how it can have a devastating impact on the self-esteem and aspirations of young students. There is widespread agreement that overemphasis on the SAT harms American education."
Using GPAs however, is worse.
"High schools don't use the same GPA scale,' according to Peterson College Search, 'and even when they do, many use weighted systems (perhaps giving extra "points" to grades from honors, accelerated, International Baccalaureate, or Advanced Placement classes), and employ varying methods of calculating a cumulative GPA. The trouble is that the GPA measure is terribly imprecise and hard to compare" Thus Peterson says, "Your GPA is very much dependent upon your high school setting and grading policies and the classes you have taken."
These is of course another flaw -- fatal really -- made even worse by No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which has schools across the nation tied in knots trying to insure kids score high on federally mandated tests of their prowess in math and science. The emphasis on testing, to the exclusion of all else is having a disastrous impact on teachers, educators, parents, and children.
To what end?
The film circulating to schools now called The Race to Nowhere, is about the stress kids are under to get into a "good college," to get a "good job," to succeed. There is clearly a serious flaw in College Admissions and it trickles all the way down to kindergarten, maybe preschool. While there is no silver bullet, there must be other ways to make the admissions judgment.
Follow John M. Eger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeger62
I agree with Elizabeth that the extra-curricular competition is killing childhood and adolescence. A lot of this is driven by the loss of standards in high school grading coupled to the whinging about standardized tests. If you can't be bothered to see that your kid reads accessible and available literature, you are missing more than money. There are free practice exams on line, and you can take them at most libraries. Amazon sells SAT prep books for less than $10.
Yes, during the process, there were essays SSAT (BS) testing, interviews, they asked about clubs, sports and community service... already in catholic school so we were more prepared but a kid coming from public... if they do not have parents like you in the Ed field or research nerd like me; the kids are behind before they even get the chance.
And, Mr. Eger, it’s 2011…your argument is hardly new. Ever since the early days of the SAT, there have been complaints that the test is discriminatory. In fact, questions that test-takers of various ethnicities might construe differently were carefully examined and removed. For instance, an analogy like “club: waggle” would not appear on any recent version of the SAT. Why? Because depending on your background, one might associate the word “club” with a bar, a weapon, or golfing equipment. While the term “waggle” is a back-and-forth motion of the hands and wrist typically associated with golfing, this would give an unfair advantage to wealthy kids whose parents bought them golf lessons or took them out for nine holes on a weekend day.
As for your argument that colleges are “increasingly discounting” the SAT (or ACT), you happen to be wrong again. Read more at...
http://www.theivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/deciding-on-a-college-to-attend/college-admissions-flaws/
I don't doubt there is some advantage to kids whose parents make more money, but pretending that this is the main factor is a scam and a lie. I grew up the son of a construction worker, but my parents paid attention to me. You don't need $200,000 a year or $40,000, for that matter, to read to your kids.I have seen plenty of kids who got 1500 on the new SATs that were very smart but poor test takers, but most who get scores like that are of average ability. I have yet to see a student who got 2000+ who wasn't very able. The tests aren't perfect, but HS grades are nearly worthless. Do you really think most of these kids even write their own college essays?
Parents that make more money do offer advantage ... it is nice to have a conversation about traveling to euro land at an interview as opposed to a kid that may have never even left his home state.
as one above mentioned some words that may be on the vocab section of the test never come up in a 40k household ... things like fore, mast, keel... really small words but without the exposure ....these parents are not likely to even take on Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, To Kill a Mockingbird just this year was challenged as was tom sawyer.... my kid had to read Chew On This... many parents complained'; teachers live in fear because at the first sign of hot water.. the higher ups run for cover.