Posted on 06/29/2008 12:48:26 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Last month, Wake Forest dropped the SAT and ACT as an entrance requirement, becoming the only top-30 national university with a test-optional policy. This step away from standardized tests will help us and other institutions of higher education move closer to the goals of greater educational quality and opportunity.
Our decision to reevaluate our admissions policy grew out of a close look at the state of higher education and some long, hard thinking about the kind of university we want Wake Forest to be. For several years, a growing body of research has made clear that America's top colleges and universities are doing a poor job of helping some young people realize a critical part of the American dream: that anyone, no matter where he or she begins in life, has the chance to rise to the top.
For example, students from the top quarter of the socioeconomic hierarchy are 25 times more likely to attend a "top tier" college than students from the bottom quarter. In 1970, only 6 percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor's degree by age 24. More than 30 years later, the figure was still only 6 percent.
Research has indicated that one of the major reasons equal opportunity is lacking is universities' reliance on standardized tests, such as the SAT. Analyses show clearly that performance on the SAT is closely correlated with family income. Two scholars recently found that top colleges and universities could increase the enrollment of low-income students simply by giving greater weight to admissions criteria other than standardized tests.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Incidentally, IQ correlates with income and the bell curve has been demonstrated for over 100 years.
These people are running our centers of higher learning. No wonder men are increasingly rare. Being the subject of egalitarian wish fullfillment at 40k a year is not really all that appealing.
Liberals, to an extraordinary degree, refuse to see biological differences between people, sexes and races as determining anything. There is some mystical environmental manipulation, to their way of thinking, that can change both God and nature.
Are you kidding? I know many, many people who chose the safety net of public (gobmint) jobs over the risk of private sector despite their many, many talents. Some people are simply risk averse, and even though they have many talents that would ensure they would never starve they prefer the floors and ceilings vs the high potential rewards/risk.
The single best predictor of success in college, law school, and medical school?
The SAT, the LSAT, and the MCAT, respectively. As to why Wake Forest chose to ignore that trend and opted towards social engineering, well, the reasons are quite clear.
There’s only one score that matters after college, and you don’t need to test students for it.
What’s the median income, adjusted by age and major, for the school’s graduates?
Any college that flunks the money test will not be in the Top 30 for long, no matter what its entrance requirements are.
I agree with you. Plus, in my opinion - there’s more to life than money for a lot of people. I have friends who are teachers - don’t make a lot - but they don’t want to sacrifice other parts of their life to get a bigger house or the latest iphone/HD tv. I respect them more than any tort lawyer or politician - not because of their profession - just because they live how they want and are self sufficient.
I can say few jobs are as cush as being a lawyer for the federal government. Forty-hour work weeks, benefits, working your way up to 110k pay. 26-days of vacation a year.
You can make more in private practice, but you’re going to work a lot more. And you’re not going to have that kind of freedom or that kind of time off.
IQ also correlates with health and longevity.
In Britain, where virtually all government employees receive the same medical care, good health and longevity are dramatically higher for the best paid employees, and dramatically lower for the lowest paid.
No surprise that smoking, drinking, diet, exercise, and obesity are key issues.
Sorry for the ignorance here but what and who says a certain college is a top 30 or even a bottom 10?
What makes a top 30 could that be based on the number of frat houses, number of rich dudes able to afford overpriced book learnin fees, what?
Where can I find a list of the worst colleges.
I believe that Billy Gates was a drop out and he did not do to bad with Microsoft.
Obama was a Harvard grad and all he could get for a job was a low paying community organizer for the communist inspired Saul Alinsky.
Complaints about low achievement in K-12 are absolutely legitimate. Yet, universities, instead of insisting on higher standards, crater to these lower standards. What a travesty!
I certainly won't ever be choosing a Wake Forest educated M.D.!
Well, it's better than paying inheritance taxes on that money.
Universities that utilize this system will see the program fail, just as the Affirm. Action enrollment system failed.....there was a very high percentage of those admitted via lower standards flunking out of college, because their basic education was so sub-par that university work was beyond their capabilities.
So, IMHO, Wake Forest’s efforts will be unsuccessful in attaining the results it hopes for. The article doesn’t say, but I wonder if the student applicant’s race will be part of the process.
Affirm. Action did turn out many blacks that did take advantage of the opportunities and attain high-level jobs.
Assuming Wake Forest (et al) doesn’t lower it’s standards for academic class results (grades), it will be paying a ton for scholarships for students who can’t cut it in college, and will flunk out or quit on their own because they can’t compete.
I believe people who take government jobs for the most part are simply afraid to compete and want the security of the union. They just can’t take very well the idea of losing so they accept mediocrity.
quite clear, and I doubt that they will be a top 30 school for long. In fact, I doubt that they are a top 300 school anyway.
Being the subject of egalitarian wish fullfillment at 40k a year is not really all that appealing.
Being the subject of slavery to a giant student loan at overwhelming rates is also not appealing.
Do you think that these schools want to enslave the brightest of the middle and lower classes?
Expect Wake to fall drastically from that list of top 30 schools. The top 30 is made by USNews & World Report. They create rankings of schools based on entering GPAs, SAT scores, endowment, acceptance rates, what percentage of admitted students choose to enroll, student to teacher ratio, and alumni satisfaction rates.
With Wake not submitting SAT scores, they’re going to fall completely out of the rankings, as is well deserved.
Here they are, if you’re curious.
1. Princeton University (NJ)
2. Harvard University (MA)
3. Yale University(CT)
4. Stanford University(CA)
5. University of Pennsylvania
5. California Institute of Technology
7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8. Duke University(NC)
9. Columbia University(NY)
9. University of Chicago
11. Dartmouth College(NH)
12. Washington University in St. Louis
12. Cornell University(NY)
14. Brown University(RI)
14. Northwestern University(IL)
14. Johns Hopkins University(MD)
17. Rice University(TX)
17. Emory University(GA)
19. Vanderbilt University(TN)
19. University of Notre Dame(IN)
21. University of California—Berkeley *
22. Carnegie Mellon University(PA)
23. University of Virginia *
23. Georgetown University(DC)
25. University of California—Los Angeles *
25. University of Michigan—Ann Arbor *
27. University of Southern California
28. University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill *
28. Tufts University(MA)
30. Wake Forest University(NC)
“I certainly won’t ever be choosing a Wake Forest educated M.D.!”
Oh, the med school will still be weighing the MCAT. And their med school has about a 3-5% acceptance rate.
http://www.medschoolready.com/app/schooldetails.asp?ID=39&DH=29
Med school is brutally hard to get into across the board—no matter what school you’re looking at. I was interviewed at Wake and held on the waitlist forever without getting in with a 3.78 GPA and an MCAT at the 94th-percentile.
By means of comparison, Wake’s undgraduate school has a 42% acceptance rate with a far less competitive applicant pool.
If you want my humble opinion, you really shouldn’t base your choice in a doctor on where he or she went to school, especially if they graduated from a US medical school. It’s competitive enough that the quality of physician produced is going to be fairly uniform. Rather, I’d go with who seems to be giving you the best, the most personable, and most thorough care.
I doubt it. My bet would be that Obama WANTED that job badly. It fits his attitude toward creating a new "russia" complete with a totalitarian president.
This will make Wake better or it will make it worse.
How will one tell?...by the state and nature of their ongoing program and by the product they turn out (students and research.)
That can only be seen over time.
I know, Casper, I was merely making a point. I just think it is a shame anytime a university, for the stated purpose of “diversity”, forsakes any of their standards. Our universities need, if anything, to be more selective. Hopefully, then high schools will step up and improve their quality.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.