Reworking_College_Admissions

Knowledge is essential to the survival of any living organism. As children, we learn how to walk, talk, and go to the bathroom by ourselves. As we grow older, the basics we have learned are the building blocks for new additions and complexities to what we have already discovered and mastered. School becomes more significant in our everyday lives as we move from childhood to adulthood, and the means of attaining this knowledge comes in many forms. Different types of schools, teachers, and resources allow more options for families to decide what is best for their children given their own circumstances. Colleges have now become the institutional equivalent to parents. It is up to them to choose from the prospective student pool the right fits for their own community of scholars and do what is right for both parties. The college admissions process needs to focus more on the individual than the numbers on their transcripts. There is an old adage that you learn something new every day and that can’t be any truer than in today’s information age. Some parents choose to home school their kids, feeling that public schooling is not good enough for their child, and doesn’t teach them what they see as important. Private schooling may offer what public schooling lacks but parents must pay for their child’s education. Home school is ideal for those families, but is not the best fit for everyone. After high school, there is a decision to be made. Do you attend college or go straight into the work force and avoid the debt that comes with secondary education. More and more, high school students are deciding to go to college than straight to work because they need the knowledge to become successful in the future. A high school diploma doesn’t go as far as it used to, and a college degree is almost becoming a necessity. Applications to the United States’ largest public university system, California State, saw a 28% increase for the fall semester of 2010. (Chea) With an increase in number of applicants, educational institutions must be able to separate individuals from one another in order to find who fits their university or college the best. Due to this, a single test score is not enough to determine the success of a prospective student. Standardized tests are not the most important indicator for future success in college or the workplace. These tests began early in the twentieth century more as IQ tests than comprehensive exams that test a student’s aptitude. (Miller) They evolved in the nineteen twenties to become more of a test to determine what the students had learned. The Scholastic Aptitude Test, or simply the SAT was created for that very purpose in 1926, and by the end of World War II, it had become the standard for any student who wished to apply themselves to schools of secondary education. (Miller) The ACT, and formerly an acronym for American College Testing, acts as a similar measuring stick for high school students and has not changed much since the sixties. This test is more involved with measuring accumulated knowledge, whereas the SAT is more testing the student’s logical thinking skills. (Miller) Both tests were more vital to students decades ago because there were fewer applicants to choose from and it was a great way to weed out those who were not meant for higher education. In the fifties and sixties there were not as many applicants. According to U.S. Department of Commerce statistics, only 41.6 percent of high school graduates in 1960 attended college the term following the spring of their graduation. (Folger) Money was tighter then, and many families could not afford to send their son or daughter for more schooling. Often time’s education was sacrificed in order for the child to enter into the labor force and help support the family. In America today, 68.6 percent of high school graduates attend college the following term. (“College…”) These statistics are most of the reason why standardized tests should and will soon, become obsolete in the application process for high school graduates. All people are different, and test taking is no exception. There are those who have money and have tutors or take courses to help. Then there are those who don’t even have the number two pencil required to take the tests. The tests don’t accurately tell you the entirety of each student and their capabilities as a learner. I know a student who did better on the SAT when he took naps through parts of sections than he did trying to complete every problem because you get penalized for guessing. There was also a student who, “once took the SAT and scored a 485 out of 800 on his verbal test. Later on, that same student graduated from Princeton with honors, became a Rhodes Scholar and later was elected to the United States Senate. His name' Bill Bradley.” (Aberman) Bill Bradley is a Hall of Fame basketball player as well as serving as a United States Senator, and running for president in 2000. In today’s nitpicky application processes there is no doubt in my mind that Bill Bradley wouldn’t have been accepted to Princeton with an SAT score like that. Standardized tests also don’t take into account the wealth advantage that comes with taking these tests as well as preparing kids for college. Trying to get in to the school you want most is more important than ever. There is so much in a name that if people don’t have their children in excellent colleges and universities than they’ve failed as parents. In Alina Tugend’s article about rethinking college prep costs during times of a recession she tells of a friend who, “estimates she spent more than $10,000 before [her son] even started college.” Not only that but more specifically in regards to testing itself she paid $300 a week for about five months on her child’s SAT prep. This was for just two hours of tutoring a week. This only further proves the fact that it should be thrown out because the wealthy students have a far greater chance of doing well because of the tutoring their wealthy parents are able to buy that not all kids have the opportunity to have. (Tugend) Students stress for weeks, months, and even years about taking standardized tests like the SAT, ACT, and Advanced Placement exams. In addition, time and money is going to waste on testing strategies that are only good for inflating the true knowledge of the person taking the test. It is similar to someone getting a higher score on a classroom test because they had access to some of the answers. The student who cheats may get a better score but are they really know more about the subject' Money is buying kids better test scores that do not show an accurate comparison to those students who do not have those same privileges. But students aren’t the only people misusing their efforts. Discontinuity in grading systems creates misinformed acceptances and ambiguity regarding actual expertise of students. Teachers spend misguided time writing curricula for their students that are focused on doing well on these tests rather than learning the materials that would be most beneficial. As Rodney Lebrecque put it in his 2006 article “Unfair Advancement”, the advanced placement classes in American high schools, “ha[ve] become another form of standardized, high-stakes testing that limits high school curriculum development and points up the enormous gap between the offerings of schools for the affluent and those for the less privileged.” (Lebrecque) Advanced placement used to be a challenging course for students who were not pushed by the regular curriculum. It could be in any school, affluent or not, and would benefit all of the students. However, in today’s society, extra work must be rewarded or it is deemed unnecessary. Kids don’t use AP courses simply because other classes weren’t challenging enough, they are hoping to boost their resume for college. In my high school I knew numerous people that took AP courses just so they could put it on their transcript. On the other end of the spectrum there were many who didn’t for the exact same reasoning. It sounds counterintuitive to some, but when putting the grades into perspective it makes sense. My high school’s graduating class salutatorian is a very intelligent young woman. In fact, she is a good friend of mine and actually attends Bentley University. Salutatorian looks great on a college application, especially when you also graduate summa cum laude. However, when delving into the transcripts of her compared to our valedictorian, as well as some other students in the top ten of our class, there are some stark differences. Our school did not weigh our grades. If you got a B in an advanced or AP course, that is what you got on your transcript and averaged into your GPA. In some schools that grade would be bumped up to an A perhaps because the course was more rigorous and you get a little bit of a reprieve for taking a more difficult course. In this case, a student who had taken four AP courses her senior year alone had a worse GPA than our salutatorian, who took just one her entire four years of high school. She could have done the work for the AP courses but she wasn’t willing to risk receiving a worse grade on her transcript to take the more challenging courses. The same can be said for schools as a whole. Just like the students who attend them, schools and school districts vary. Some weigh advanced and AP courses, while others don’t. Curriculums vary as well as the resources and teachers. Nothing about comparing grades between two schools is completely objective. Yes, a GPA of a 4.0 is better than that of a 3.9, but when the apparent perfect grade point average is on a scale of five, than the 3.9 is the better grade. This problem can be solved by one unified grading system that all schools must use, whether it be percentage grading, four point scale, five point scale, or some other form. This is only one solution to the problem. There is still no objective way of comparing the actual criteria used by the teachers to come up with in grading each student. Some teachers may grade harder than others, or give harder tests. In 1988, the U.S. Department of Education conducted a study called the National Educational Longitudinal Study that was used to compare English and math grades using two short tests. (Boston) In the study is was found that, “Students in high-poverty schools (schools where more than 75 percent of students received free or reduced-price lunches) who received mostly A's in English got about the same reading scores as the "C" and "D" students in the most affluent schools. The students who received A's in math in the high-poverty schools scored about the same on the math test as the "D" students in the most affluent schools did.” (Boston) Due to the inability of colleges and universities to accurately compare the grades of two individuals unless from they are from the same school and took the same courses with the same teachers, they should weigh them less than they do today. One thing that can be compared is the personality and community involvement of individuals. Extra-curricular activities are more important in the learning process than most classes. Secondary education institutions are meant to teach. In no student handbook does it say the only things you will learn at this school are in the classroom. That is why it is important for the admissions board to use the applicants’ scores as guidelines but not the most important aspect of their prospective students’ application. Learning is not always done from a textbook or lecture. Extra-curricular activities have done more to shape my life than which General won a battle in 1850. If colleges and universities want to have the characteristics that they want, they need to look past the numbers and see what the students have done to help their communities and help themselves develop into productive members of society. Creating or being a part of any club teaches life lessons. It teaches how to work with others, solve problems, and responsibility. As an athlete, I understand the value of these activities. Captaining my high school soccer and tennis teams taught me how to be responsible for my actions. Not only did I have to lead my team by example, but I had to be a role model in the community. Playing sports lead me to volunteer for youth sports, help with Special Olympics, road races, and many other community events and fundraisers. Athletes also bring money to schools. As much as schools are meant for education, they must pay for their resources and community activities. In 2007 the University of Texas football program brought in profits exceeding $46 million. (Gaul) It had a profit margin of seventy-two percent which was more than many fortune 500 companies. This was the football team alone. Athletics in college help keep the student body together as well as allow for entertainment and revenues for the school. However, some feel that this is preposterous and that college is meant for scholastics and not athletics. Those people feel that there is a lessening importance on grades and test scores. The college admissions process has become one based upon what students do outside of the classroom rather than in it. In recent years colleges have seen a rise in applications. In order for them to determine which students are the best fit for their institution, they must flip through thousands of applications. By taking standardized test scores and grade point averages as serious credentials for an applicant they can quickly weed out students they know will not be able to keep up with their challenging courses. The ability to do this saves them both time and money. In addition to the increased speed of the process is not the only improvement that would be made to the process. One of the problems with the current admissions process is that it is racially biased, whether it be good or bad. Schools don’t have quotas any more but they do have other less objective, initiatives to make themselves equal opportunity institutions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give qualified students an equal opportunity. Some might believe that only white students are being victimized by adding their race to the applications they submit. In a study of seven of America’s elite universities, evidence was found that race and income affected the odds of someone getting into one of the schools. Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade discovered in his study that, “African-Americans who achieved 1150 scores on the two original SAT tests had the same chances of getting accepted to top private colleges as whites who scored 1460s and Asians who scored perfect 1600s.” (Clark) His study also delved into the topic of wealth and found that although rich kids are the vast majority of students, those with equal scores but lower income were more likely to be successful in their efforts to be accepted to these elite universities. (Clark) Some of these minority students are athletes that are given leniency due to their abilities on the field instead of the classroom. Although some athletes provide large sums of money to colleges and universities across the country, these are academic institutions first and foremost. Nobody deserves special privileges because they can run faster than everyone else. This teaches our children that instead of trying hard in school just play sports all the time and get really good, than you never have to learn anything. The real problem is that kids are being denied an education at the school they want so that an athlete, who may not deserve it or really want to go to the school, he or she just happened to get the best offer, gets in. The Associated Press did a study of most of the 120 top football programs and found that in at least twenty seven schools athletes are ten times more likely to get in than their fellow non-athletes. (Greer) To add to that, “At California, one of the country's most selective public universities, Golden Bear football players were 43 times more likely to gain special admissions than non-athletes from 2002-04.” (Greer) These statistics are absurd. So the schools are saying that if you are a genius and are active in the community, but can’t run a 4.4 in the 40 yard dash, you might not get in to the school you wanted. Student-Athletes are great and it is wonderful that they get to play sports for their schools but some schools are taking it too far. At the University of Florida, the football players averaged 356 points fewer on their SATs than the rest of the student body. (“Public…”) If these athletes we active learners once they arrived on campus than maybe none of these statistics would matter but the universities are not doing what they have told their students they would, give them the best education possible. According to University of California professor Murray Sperber, “The problem is there's a huge world of Mickey Mouse courses and special curriculums that athletes are steered into… the problem is there are many athletes graduating from schools who are semiliterate.” (Public) Even in high school, athletes are treated like royalty. Teaches bump grades so that they are academically eligible and then they move on to college where they still don’t need to know anything or do the work. The admissions need to focus more on the academics. Finally, wealthy students have connections and advantages that others don’t. Their parents can afford to send them to preparatory schools that provide a better chance to be accepted, as well as paying for other advantages. There are now programs that tell kids what to do that will separate them from the rest of the competition. In some cases, parents pay anywhere from $18,000 to $28,500 for these programs. (Jones) In one particular case, a boy was shown how to start an organization that helped with childhood literacy and received a lot of attention for it and got to add that to his resume. (Jones) It is reasons like this that further prove the necessity of grades and standardized testing scores as the primary criterion for college applicants instead of subjective activities that give wealthier students an advantage. But filled in bubbles do not tell the diligence, understanding, and lessons learned from other activities and experiences. Test scores and grades are not the only representation of any one person’s knowledge. An accumulation of numbers and other information are needed to make an educated assessment of a student’s ability to succeed in the environment of higher education. However, the world is not the same place that it used to be. At one point in history, it was legal to beat your wife with a stick, so long as it was no wider than your thumb. Years pass and laws must adjust to changes in social norms. The same can be said for the admissions process. We are in an age of information, where sending mail is instantaneous and you can see the person you are talking to on your computer. Debt financing by families has become acceptable leading more people to attend college in hopes that their investment in themselves and their education will accumulate more wealth than if they had not. These factors make it obvious that these scores are beginning to become less important in the admissions process, making way for more personal aspects of the prospective students in the form of essays and extra-curricular activities. The most influential part of my life thus far has been my experiences as a dietary worker at the local nursing home in my town. It was a job, and besides the obvious advantages of having more money, I was able to gain more from the people I worked with than the money I made. One of the essays I wrote for my college applications was about the influence of my time serving those older folks who have Alzheimer’s and dementia, two crippling diseases. My patience was tested almost every day, but I came to accept their little quirks, and took away with me a new appreciation both for the residents of the home and those who were there to help them when they needed it. The essays in the application process give students the opportunity to express themselves in a way that a test score doesn’t. It allows the admissions board to see what kind of person they are, not just how well they did filling in bubbles. Colleges are starting to realize the error of their ways in the past and are dropping standardized tests as a requirement for applicants to supply in the admissions process. University of Florida Provost David Colburn said, “Among the materials we ask students to submit are high school grades and activities, volunteer work, a response to two essay questions, and their SAT scores.” (Aberman) The scores may be taken into consideration, but blindly accepting the numbers as the final truth, schools will be accepting students who may have better scores due to their personal circumstances. Although the College Board, which administers the SAT, denies the “coachability” of their exam, they offer tutoring to help students boost their scores. (Aberman) This inflation of intelligence is precisely why numbers cannot be taken seriously today. There are simply too many factors that create better opportunities for affluent families to consider these test scores. In conclusion, no student can be characterized by one singular accomplishment or score, and because of this the admissions process needs to acknowledge that. One four hour test should not be the most important piece of data on a transcript. As we learned from cases like Bill Bradley, numbers can be deceiving and don’t always tell the whole story. Who you are as a person is more important, and when colleges decide who to accept, the credentials that give insight into who this person is, not just student, are essential. These credentials are what make us unique in this increasingly competitive and globalized world, and those are what shape the people we will be in the future. Works Cited Aberman, Samara. "NewsHour Extra: SAT Revision - March 7, 2001." PBS. 7 Mar. 2001. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . Boston, Carol. "High School Report Cards. ERIC Digest." ERICDigests.Org - Providing Full-text Access to ERIC Digests. June 2003. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . Chea, Terence. "College Applications Rise, but Budget Cuts Cap Enrollment - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. 14 Jan. 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2010. . Clark, Kim. "Do Elite Private Colleges Discriminate Against Asian Students' - US News and World Report." US News & World Report - Breaking News, World News, Business News, and America's Best Colleges - USNews.com. 7 Oct. 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . College Enrollment and Work Activity of 2008 High School Graduates. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 28 Apr. 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2010. . Fletcher, Dan. "A Brief History of Standardized Testing - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. 11 Dec. 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . Folger, John K., and Charles B. Nam. Education of the American Population. New York: Arno, 1976. Print Gaul, Gilbert M. "Washington Post Investigations." College Sports, Inc. Washington Post, 8 Jan. 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2010. . Greer, Jeff. "Report: Admissions Rules Bent for Athletes - The Paper Trail (usnews.com)." US News & World Report - Breaking News, World News, Business News, and America's Best Colleges - USNews.com. 31 Dec. 2009. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . Jones, Roland. "Making the Grade for College Admission - School Inc.- Msnbc.com." Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News- Msnbc.com. 2 Aug. 2006. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . Labrecque, Rodney. "Unfair Advancement." NY Times. 21 Sept. 2006. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . "Public University Athletes Score Far below Classmates on SATs - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. 30 Dec. 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2010. . Tugend, Alina. "Rethinking College Prep Costs in Tough Times." The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 27 Feb. 2009. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. .