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.

Thread: Post-May 1, aka the death of May 1:

A friend sent this 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investigating the NACAC Statement of Principles of Good Practice, which would have allowed this if the student had not withdrawn, but would have forbidden it if the student had notified the offering school that they had deposited elsewhere.

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. 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.

Thread: The numbers.

I've never received so many emails about my writing in CHE as I have for the most recent one about "The Number."

But here's a little insight into that. Sunday morning, I logged in and checked our Tuition Deposits for Fall first-year students.

By Sunday evening (12 hours later) that number had gone up by 3.7%.

By this morning, it had gone up another 3.2% over that.

Thread: Don't be shocked when I tell you this. It takes a lot of people some time to figure it out, and sometimes a little longer to sink in:

College Board is a business. It's a not-for-profit business. But it's a business. Not-for-profit means they don't have owners or stockholders to collect excess revenue as profits.

It's not a charity. That's not what not-for-profit means.

Thread:

Hey, everyone: This is pretty big.

The Daily Caller (ugh) has memos from the Florida DOE suggesting they were influencing @CollegeBoard on the AP African-American Studies curriculum as early as January 2022, and at the very minimum, July 2022. So, to everyone who somehow believed that College Board made its own, independent decisions about the framework/curriculum and wrapped it all up in December, 2022, before DeSantis went public: Read this.

scribd.com/document/62466…

Thread: There are some people who apparently find The College Board explanation of AP African-American Studies plausible: That the framework was revised in December, and thus wasn't influenced by Florida or Ron DeSantis.

That's your right, of course. But here, to me, is the more plausible explanation.

That sometime--probably soon after AP AAS was announced, people in Florida got wind of the framework. And whether it was genuine, good-old fashioned racism, or political opportunism, the wheels started spinning.

Thread: College Board, which has a history of blowing it, has blown it.

You know about the Parkland email. You know they told kids to sit in a McDonald's parking lot during COVID to take AP. You know about millions in bonuses during COVID, when revenue dropped $400M. You know about taking out ads disguised as journalism. You know about their Communications staff working on a book of "research" about the SAT. You know about the disastrous launch of the redesigned SAT.

And now you know about AP African-American Studies.

Thread: I don't know about you, but I'd expect that if you went from president and CEO of a not-for-profit in 2018 to just president in 2020, you might not get a--hold on--million dollar raise? I have written to the Trustees of the College Board before, telling them I thought it was time for them to part ways with David Coleman.

They never answered...or maybe they did? And it was just a two-word answer?

Thread: Will colleges go back to the SAT? Yes. So let's look at how important California is to their enrollment.

I looked at 2018 IPEDS data (the last pre-COVID year for which data was available at every institution) to see how important the state is to them California is first in everything, when you count numbers, because of its size. So of course it's the largest exporter of students in the nation (but not highest on percentage exported).

In 2018, California kept 87% of its students in-state. 13% or 38,000, left.

Thread: I know a lot of parents follow me, so some advice about the college essay. Free, of course, so consider that.

You may know my wife is a writing tutor and because she worked in college admissions, she gets a LOT of requests for essay help this time of the year. She talks about the kids, but I never see the actual work. So this is a summary of my advice as someone who's done this for 40 years, and her experience as a tutor (college essays are not her main line of business, btw).

Thread: Having just talked about retention and graduation rates today, a few thoughts to add some perspective. Have a cup of coffee and settle in for some reading. First, there are three ways to "increase graduation rates." The first is to do a lot of work with your current students. This is the student services angle on it; the premise is that graduation rates are largely a function of what happens in college.

Thread: A play, in four acts: Some say that I am actively trying to persuade people not to use test prep. I don't think I've ever said that; I might think it's a bad idea, but I don't tell you how to spend your money.

You might think I'm dumb for paying to have my oil changed when I can do it myself.

Thread: How we in EM think and work.

Yesterday we closed the class and stopped taking freshman applications for fall. That's unusual at OSU, as we've typically stayed open most or all of the summer.

So, the summer is relaxation time, right? No, for lots of reasons. First, you made a decision. Was it the right one? Or do a lot more students have double or triple deposits than usual? What's melt going to be like? Is our post-COVID admission world going to behave differently than pre-COVID?

Are we even post-COVID?

Thread: I don't think Sal Khan is a bad guy. But this article is full of College Board propaganda, as you might expect from someone who is indebted to the College Board. thejournal.com/Articles/2022/… I will leave the #HateRead to @akilbello but let me just point out one thing in a quote from the article, and a piece of reality:

Thread: May 1 (or 2, this year).

This week a counselor contacted me and asked what percentage of freshman deposits came in very near the deadline, and whether there was any data on this phenomenon.

She had a parent who was worried because a child had not yet deposited. So, as I often have to tell people,"no there is no data published on this little narrow but interesting question, sorry." But then I talked about my experience: Depending on the place I've worked, you might get 25% of your freshman deposits in the week leading up to May 1 (or 2)

Thread: I tweeted about this yesterday (sort of sardonically), but of course this is picking up some steam now, as you knew it would. First, students have always included destination in their list of things that are important. I remember a counselor in Florida in the 80's telling me that "Boston had become hot" for her students.

It's always in the top three among student motivators.

Thread: Be watching for articles and opinion pieces with the new narrative that "The SAT helps poor students." They're starting to pop up like flowers in the spring.

Why? Here's my take on it: First, spend three minutes on this video. It's about what College Board did when the UC system tried to eliminate tests the first time, in the early part of this century. It is well worth your time. It's from @thetestdoc

thetestdoc.org/press#uc-excer…

Thread: I read it again this morning:

"Everything like letters of recommendation and essays and GPA can be easily manipulated by the wealthy, so we need The SAT because it's standardized and fair." I have this strange belief that if we who have actually done admissions keep beating our heads against a brick wall, somehow this thinking will go away.

It won't because you have people with a voice--the same ones who benefit from the SAT--controlling the narrative.

Thread: Do you remember when your mom said your eyes would stick that way if you crossed them?

And have you heard about the Flutie effect? Do you believe them? Follow along. First, let's look at some NCAA Cinderella teams. Check out this article here: ncaa.com/news/basketbal…

Thread: I hear there might be a report coming out about first-gen and/or low-income and/or students of color and performance in STEM.

I don't know what it says, but here's what I'd think about if I were doing this study. First, some admissions anecdote. If you've spent any time actually doing admissions and you disagree, feel free to say so. But I think this is so widely acknowledged in the profession that I won't get much pushback. (it could still be wrong, of course)