Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Watch the college admission dominos fall
(Harvard University’s Memorial Church)
Last week, there was a ton of buzz in the blogosphere about Harvard’s decision to stop early admissions, a process by which some students can get a yea, nay or maybe in October from their top choice school. Some believe this gives an advantage to weatlhy, informed, aggressive elites. And last year nearly a third of Harvard’s class was granted early admission.
Today Princeton followed suit, also dumping early admissions. You can expect other Ivies to follow, and then probably most colleges.
This is an interesting example of the power of top schools to change the admissions process. Which made me wonder … what if Harvard decided to dump the SAT?
Did you know there already is something of a movement in this direction by smaller colleges? You can find a list here of 700 colleges that have made the SAT or ACT optional.
What would happen if Harvard did the same?
They certainly don’t need the SAT to make admissions decisions at Harvard. Most of the kids who apply have such high scores that the school’s selections almost always come down to other factors anyway. If elite schools abandoned the SAT, it might lead to more holistic applicant screening nationwide.
What do you think? Should Harvard lead this fight too?
(Image Credit: www.asergeev.com)
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Colleges and Universities, Testing
Comments
By superdestroyer
September 27, 2006 9:27 AM | Link to this
Eliminating SAT scores and encourging a “Holistic” approach is the best way for the elite to maintain themselves. In todays world, hard working Asian kids from middle class families are taking hard class and scoring high on the SAT. A Holistic approach reward wealth families who can fund summer travel, volunteer work, and resume building. If SAT are not particularly good then how good is volunteer work or extra-cirriculars are predicting college performance. Also, the best predictors are a combination of grades and SAT scores. A kid with very high grades but a low SAT score should be viewed with great scepticism. My guess is that such a student avoid the hardest classes but has a charming personality. A charming personality and volunteer work my be enough to major in sociologiy but is not enough to major in chemical engineering.By Mary
September 21, 2006 8:26 PM | Link to this
Well, since SAT scores are more an indicator of aptitude/ability/IQ than class rank or GPA, we should ask why are higher ability students being groomed into perpetual low achievers throughout all levels of our educational system. Reference the recent Gates Foundation study and other studies (See also www.nationdeceived.org about the Templeton study on “How schools hold back its brightest students” and the Davidson Institute which was included in the CNN special about genius last Sunday. A large percentage of high school drop outs test in the gifted range - they are bored and underchallenged in school. Around 50% of gifted students are considered to be chronic underachievers - probably because of being chronically underchallenged by the education system. If the best and brightest are dropping out of, or turned off to, the education system, then they never get to college or are never encouraged to become professors smart enough to teach the best and brightest. We might be seeing the results of dumbed down colleges and high schools with “old prof’s” correlations. Best and brightest are not welcome or interested or engaged in this education system. Is this success? Mediocrity rules.By Oldprof
September 21, 2006 8:57 AM | Link to this
I try to make decisions based on what works. SAT scores have been shown to be, at best, weak predictors of success only in the first year of college. Other long-term studies suggest that they’re useless even for that small prediction. From what I’ve seen, class rank is the best indicator—and if we want a credential that cuts through income disparities, that’s a good one. The student who rises to the top in the worst school system is most motivated to keep working hard and to succeed at college, more so than the wealthy student who rode the family’s success to a comfortable high score on a standardized test.By Mary
September 19, 2006 4:25 PM | Link to this
Actually, it might be better to dump GPA, class rank, resume building, etc and keep the SAT. Some newspapers last week, maybe Dayton Daily News was one of them, had articles and commentary about the class system, and how the system is stacked against lower income and middle class groups. Standardized tests are not necessarily a friend of the wealthy class and an enemy of middle and lower income class. One of the commentaries pointed out smarter kids were being excluded from colleges, not because of scores, but because of costs. Less intelligent, but wealthier children are going to college, while smarter but, less wealthy students are being shut out.