Thread: The privileged need to be worried about *something* related to college admissions. And as it's become increasingly clear that they might not have a chance to take the SAT/ACT, or to only take it once, there's something new.
Now it's "What will replace the SAT?"

wsj.com/articles/colle…
This doesn't mean, of course, "What will replace the SAT at 1500 colleges and universities." That answer is easy: Nothing will. Because it's not necessary.
The question really means, "What will replace the SAT at those 50 colleges the NYT, WSJ and other obsess over because we obsess over?" If you suggest I have cause and effect mixed up, I'll grant that you might be correct.
I suspect that if you go to one of the 400 prep schools that feed the 50 aforementioned colleges, you really have nothing to worry about. Your chances are still slim, but they're not any worse. These schools know your school. They know the counselor. They created the system.
There might be a German word for a phenomenon you hate that benefits you. This is one of those. My wife (who worked in admissions for a decade at two selective institutions) is a college essay tutor.

The requests are coming in fast and heavy.
To make it worse, I tell her to raise her rates, which she won't do. She wants to work with the kids who can afford her more than with the kids who can afford anyone. And she tells me how baffled kids from the other schools are about the essay.
And Jeff Selingo's Atlantic article included this gem. Image
I went to that university's website. No hint that something like this might doom you.

Earlier, in the WSJ, Jeff wrote this Image
Huh. I call this the invisible moving target. It's a great technique for managers who--for whatever reason--want people to fail. Just as the objective is never clear, neither is the reason for failure.

You just fail. As planned.
Before we go any farther, no, you bad mind readers, this is not, in fact, an admission by me that tests would be better or fairer or more objective.

Don't @ me.

It's another example of how the process is stacked for kids with the connections.
If you don't believe me, ask yourself this: Why are the kids who do so well on standardized tests (wealthy students) suddenly freaking out even more?

Because that advantage has been taken away. And even though they still have all the advantages, guess what?

They're afraid.
I've written before in my "There is no such thing as need blind" blogpost that almost every single factor colleges (those colleges) favor (except diversity) gives advantages to kids with the wealth and power and privilege. Taking just one of those things away puts them on edge.
This is what's wrong with college admissions. This is what we need to fix: An expensive, esoteric, cryptic, unfair system that ensures those with advantage get to wield it unfairly.

Test optional is just the first step. We need to keep going.
Oh, and #EMTalk

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More from @JonBoeckenstedt

Sep 10
Thread: If people want to talk about public universities going out-of-state to generate revenue, just remember public education used to be adequately funded and mostly free for residents until this guy convinced people in California that was a bad idea. Image
And remember that access to high quality public education was most likely at the core of an amazing ramp up of educational attainment in the US (in 1940, only about 4% of adults had college degrees).

highereddatastories.com/2021/11/a-diff…
Image
And that led to an amazing rise in wealth, GDP, and other economic measures in the US, post WW II. If Median Family income had risen just at the rate of inflation since 1953, it would have been at $44.6K instead of $92.7K in 2021. Image
Read 6 tweets
Aug 29
Thread: We're hearing about male college enrollment again. And yes, it's going down. Is it a crisis? Maybe.

But there are stories beneath the data.
First, people often equate "enrollment" with "first-time, full-time enrollment of 18-year-olds." They are decidedly not the same. Let's take a look at my institution, Oregon State as an example.
Our total enrollment will be about 38,000 next month (we've not started classes yet, as we're on the quarter system). Traditional freshmen? About 4,600, or roughly 12% of the total.
Read 14 tweets
Aug 26
Counselors are not happy with @CollegeBoard who seems to turn a deaf ear, and who seems to want to force high schools' hand to offer more free labor and space via School Day Testing, all in service to the Highly Rejectives. (used with permission and redacted for privacy).
Image
Image
This is what our HS colleagues go through to give the highly rejectives a teeny, tiny little more confidence in allocating their precious admissions slots.

Those institutions and College Board hoist the entire cost of their demands onto high schools and volunteers.
As indicated, it seems absurd when College Board (a nominally not-for-profit) had positive bottom lines averaging about $125M in the last two years available.

pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/202…
Image
Read 7 tweets
Feb 7
Thread: It seems I'm spending more time telling people why I'm not too interested in the Dartmouth decision than it would take to just put it here. So here goes. I hope this is the last I'll say about it.
First, I've long said that if a college finds value in the SAT, they would be foolish not to use it. I just ask that they do the research, which Dartmouth did. And the lowest-scoring students at Dartmouth end up with a GPA of 3.1 or something like that. Horrible.
I am--frankly--a little suspicious of analysis that shows the SAT is better than HS GPA, because you know damn well if College Board or ACT could make that claim, they'd have done so long ago. They've never even whispered it.
Read 18 tweets
May 3, 2023
Thread: Post-May 1, aka the death of May 1:

A friend sent this Image
This is the result of the DOJ investigating the NACAC Statement of Principles of Good Practice, which would have allowed this if the student had not withdrawn, but would have forbidden it if the student had notified the offering school that they had deposited elsewhere.
The DOJ treated college just like any other consumer purchase: Suppose car dealers agreed the Subaru dealer could not call you while you were on the way to the Ford dealer to buy the car you had agreed to buy, and offer you a better deal?

That would be bad for consumers.
Read 15 tweets
May 2, 2023
Thread: When someone tells you about the big drop in high school graduates, remember 2014. Because by 2037, we'll be back to numbers like we saw in 2014. Image
What's really compelling is the mix: America will be more diverse, and because different ethnic groups have different college participation rates, that's the big thing going on behind the numbers. Image
And, of course, New England has known this for a long time. Image
Read 7 tweets

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