Tag Archive for 'college admissions'

Did I Say I Got an A? My Bad!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 9, 2008 in Higher Education. 0 Comments

Rutgers University in New Jersey is no longer asking applicants to submit high school transcripts starting this fall.  Instead, high school students will enter their own grades in an online application form, Inside Higher Ed reports.  An official transcript will be required for every student who is admitted and plans to enroll, however.

As New Jersey high schools learned of the change, the question everyone has been asking is: Will this lead to a new variety of grade inflation, as applicants (accidentally of course…) somehow transcribe themselves into honors students? Rutgers officials say that won’t happen because the transcript checks of accepted applicants who plan to enroll will cover every single student. If you inflate your grades, your admission offer will be revoked — period.

College Admissions While-U-Wait!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 22, 2008 in Higher Education. 0 Comments

Mercy College in New York is creating an “Immediate Decision Week,” an instant, on-the-spot evaluation that allows students to learn whether they have been admitted 24 hours after showing their high school transcripts, the New York Sun reports. The paper says admissions officers will also be canvassing local beaches and malls in “roving vans” in the New Yorks five boroughs and Westchester in search of instant applicants.

The beach?? “Dude, you are, like, so totally accepted!”

The Sun’s ed reporter Elizabeth Green says appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, it’s not an act of desperation (Mercy’s enrollment numbers are up strongly) but attempt to improve customer service — and to make sure that everyone who is qualified for the college knows that it is available.

“For the sophisticated middle class, the dignified and genteel ways of higher education do not constitute a barrier,” notes Barmak Nassirian, American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. “Now imagine the unsophisticated, low-income student who doesn’t have a cooperative adult in their life, for whom the very knowledge that you have to get admitted to go to college is news. What’s wrong with their running into a desk at a mall, where somebody grabs their best instincts and makes them act on it? That’s a fabulously good thing.”

The Unlived Life Is Not Worth Examining

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 21, 2008 in Curriculum and Higher Education. 7 Comments

Why do colleges insist on personal essays with applications?  Could changing the requirement create better prepared students?

The Associated Press ran a piece about college admissions essays over the weekend and the sturm und drang associated with them.  Since the die is already cast on SAT scores and grades, the essay gets a disproportionate amount of attention from students and families, the AP notes, spawning a veritable industry with books and counseling and editing services.

Does it matter?  “Applicants and their families have somewhat of a belief in the redemptive value of the essay,” Barmak Nassirian, of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers said. “It’s an urban myth that a student who has goofed off his whole academic career can get in with a come-from-behind epic struggle in which the essay serves as the primary tool. It’s not a substitute for a rigorous curriculum, good grades and evidence that you’re going to do well,” he said.

What if applicants were asked to write or submit a research paper instead?  Which is more predictive of college success, past academic work, or a personal essay, where students labor to make themselves seem well-rounded, fascinating and irresistible to schools?

Dropping personal essays could have an interesting trickle-down effect as far down as elementary schools.  The “curriculum” in my elementary school (the tedious and content-free Teacher’s College Writer’s Workshop), forces children as young as third grade to grind out endless personal essays, “small moment” stories and memoirs (!) designed to plumb the depths of their eight-year old souls.  But it seldom, if ever, called for kids to write anything approaching a simple five-paragraph expository essay, let alone a research paper.  That might change if doing so became a requirement for college admissions. 

Last year’s common application, used by scores of colleges and universities around the country, asked students to discuss an issue of personal concern, a person, fictional character or historic figure who influenced them, a life experience or a topic of their choice, the AP notes.  At the risk of sounding churlish, the unlived life is not worth examining.  Rather than require 17 year old to unburden themselves of their life experiences, how about three pieces of actual academic work, graded by the student’s high school teachers?