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Ivy League schools drop 'culturally biased' standardized test requirement to increase "diversity"
Campus Reform ^ | 11/15/2019 | Celine Ryan

Posted on 11/15/2019 7:40:06 PM PST by SeekAndFind

Two Ivy League universities have announced that many graduate programs will no longer require the traditional standardized Graduate Records Examination testing requirements for applications, citing reasons pertaining to "diversity" and concerns that such tests are "biased" against minority and low-income students.

Both Princeton University and Brown University recently announced that they are moving away from standardized testing requirements for graduate admission in the name of creating a more diverse student body.

"there is concern that standardized tests are culturally biased in favor of certain groups"   

Princeton announced its decision to do away with the standardized test for 14 different graduate programs in September, calling the Graduate Records Examination (GRE) biased against minority groups.

[RELATED: College ditches SAT/ACT requirement to ‘increase the diversity’ of students]

Princeton Graduate School associate dean for access, diversity, and inclusion Renita Miller cited a need for "intellectual diversity" within graduate programs, as well as the importance of "demographic diversity." She insists that doing away with the requirement will help Princeton to achieve its goal "to identify, attract and develop the most promising individuals from as many segments of society as possible."

“Universities like Princeton have done a good job at expanding and diversifying their undergraduate populations,” Miller added. “If we want to make similar strides on the graduate level, we must find new ways to recruit and enroll graduate students who may be the first in their families to attend college, and from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds.”

The assertion is that one way to do this is to do away with standardized testing, because, as Princeton director of graduate studies for classics Johannes Haubold puts it, "there is concern that standardized tests are culturally biased in favor of certain groups; and that they end up testing primarily how good one is at taking tests." Haubold also brought up resource concerns, noting that some students can afford coaching for standardized tests while others cannot.

[RELATED: SAT spikes social justice-themed 'adversity scores'...kind of]

Brown University announced a similar initiative earlier in October, eliminating GRE requirements for 24 doctoral programs. The university reasoned that doing so would "attract a wider pool of applicants" and "reduce barriers that discourage some students from groups historically underrepresented in higher education and from low-income backgrounds from applying for admission."

Brown Graduate School Dean Andrew G. Campbell insisted that “by removing the Graduate School’s GRE requirement and allowing programs to decide whether to require the exam, we will broaden the talent pool of students who apply to and have access to graduate education at Brown.”

Both universities' new policies will go into effect for applications for programs starting in fall 2020. Among programs with modified requirements are both universities’ neuroscience programs, as well as Princeton's molecular biology graduate program and Brown's biomedical engineering and biotechnology programs.

The moves by Princeton and Brown to drop GRE requirements for some graduate programs comes just months after another Ivy League school, Cornell University, dropped the same requirement from its biomedical engineering program over concerns that such requirements "can be biased against" women, minorities.



TOPICS: Education; Society
KEYWORDS: gre; princeton; testing; university
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1 posted on 11/15/2019 7:40:06 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

It was hard enough to deal with tokens years ago when there was at least a show of pretending they were qualified; that’s all out the window now. Who would use these tokens for anything besides yardwork?


2 posted on 11/15/2019 7:41:54 PM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: SeekAndFind

Classic liberal insanity at its very finest.


3 posted on 11/15/2019 7:43:28 PM PST by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Don’t hire people from the Ivy League! Arrogant SOB’s will ruin your company. My consulting Co. round filed their resume’s followed by those from Lawyers.


4 posted on 11/15/2019 7:44:05 PM PST by stubernx98 (cranky, but reasonable)
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To: stubernx98

All one has to do is to get a volume of the Harvard Law Review, one volume, and read it cover to cover. You will never again consider a Harvard educated lawyer for any task. Their best and brightest spew pure gibberish. Nonsensical pointless crap.


5 posted on 11/15/2019 7:47:01 PM PST by anton
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To: SeekAndFind

Once these loons all affirmative action themselves into all the position of power it’s all over. They’ll never return the favor.


6 posted on 11/15/2019 7:48:13 PM PST by Phillyred
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To: SeekAndFind
...Renita Miller cited a need for "intellectual diversity" within graduate programs...

What the hell is "intellectual diversity"?

Special spots reserved for stupid people?

7 posted on 11/15/2019 7:53:50 PM PST by CurlyDave
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To: SeekAndFind

University statement: We are dumbing down the requirements to get into the school and raising the tuition at the same time.
Ka-ching $!


8 posted on 11/15/2019 7:56:28 PM PST by minnesota_bound (homeless guy. He just has more money....)
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To: SeekAndFind

I would never hire anyone from these garbage Ivy League universities. They don’t teach anything of value anymore.


9 posted on 11/15/2019 8:00:58 PM PST by david1292
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To: SeekAndFind

As this Insanity progresses the actual Aptitude of graduates from these Universities declines.
The declination of the “graduates” whose families pay out big bucks for Sub-Standard “education” will eventually destroy these Universities.
Right now they are surviving on endowments from decades of alumni donations.
My wife and I DO NOT any longer donate a single penny to OUR Alumni or our University. Not one penny.


10 posted on 11/15/2019 8:01:16 PM PST by ocrp1982
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To: SeekAndFind

The problem isn’t that the tests are culturally biased, it’s that they are intelligence biased.


11 posted on 11/15/2019 8:04:08 PM PST by Brooklyn Attitude (Civil War II has begun, but only one side is fighting.)
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To: SeekAndFind

They are going to become the Jivy League.


12 posted on 11/15/2019 8:06:22 PM PST by Migraine
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To: SeekAndFind
you'd think at the graduate level they'd of caught up and could stand on their own two feet...

guess not

13 posted on 11/15/2019 8:09:30 PM PST by Chode (Send bachelors and come heavily armed.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The race to the bottom picks up speed.


14 posted on 11/15/2019 8:33:16 PM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you care!)
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To: SeekAndFind

“...concerns that such tests are “biased” against minority and low-income students....”
*****************************************************
As far as I know, they’re only biased as against the less intelligent.


15 posted on 11/15/2019 9:07:11 PM PST by House Atreides (Boycott the NFL 100% — PERMANENTLY)
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To: SeekAndFind

Guess companies will have to fight to bring in more foreign students - our colleges think they’re social experiments in ‘diversity training’... Tuition at these places should be cut in half... or more.


16 posted on 11/15/2019 9:19:45 PM PST by GOPJ (Term limit the bureaucracy... NOT elected officials.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Pretty soon they’ll be offering remedial reading classes - and other colleges will follow. It’s one way to keep the money rolling into the education factories.

Lower standards - fight for taxpayers to pick up the financial burden of teaching 11th grade material for $60,000 a year.

What a rip off... for all of us - minority kids who will be true to what Malcolm Gladwell discovered, middle class kids who will feel inferior, and loser kids of ‘elites’ who will be pampered while daddy pays for a new ‘diversity chair’...

Vomit.


17 posted on 11/15/2019 9:25:57 PM PST by GOPJ (Term limit the bureaucracy... NOT elected officials.)
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To: SeekAndFind

They should apply the same rule to their sports teams. Stop things like “tryouts” and stuff like that. Make acceptance based on things other than skill levels. Gotta give those with all levels of sports ability a chance to participate in the school’s renowned teams.

Fans and alumni will love it. Will pay big bucks to see a “leveled” sports team fooling around, competing with other such teams.
And throw out the sports statistics. They make players nervous and depressed.


18 posted on 11/15/2019 9:36:24 PM PST by RAldrich (I)
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To: SeekAndFind
Here are some GRE sample quantitative reasoning questions: Multiple-choice Questions — Select One Answer Choice Sample Questions. I’m 50 years out of high school math, but all of these were easy to solve via inspection and mental math. I see ZERO “cultural bias” in any of these sample questions.

This is just further dumbing down of everything.

Well, maybe the car cost of gasoline and jelly bean examples ARE biased because foreign students may not have cars or jelly beans. JK folks!

19 posted on 11/15/2019 10:10:59 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: SeekAndFind

Its not needed! there curriculum consist of
radicalism,
activism
diversity
sexual orientation,
racism,
white privilege,
equality,
islam,
communism,
socialism
facism
white supremacy and gender based courses


20 posted on 11/16/2019 3:28:47 AM PST by ronnie raygun (nic dip.com)
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