Recently, the main villain behind the Operation Varsity Blues (OVB) scandal was released from federal custody after a brief 16 month stint in minimum security detention and has embarked on a reputation rehabilitation tour. With the cooperation of WSJ, ABC, and others, he’s attempting to relaunch a less illegal version of the same business that led to the massive federal investigation that exposed the networking, influence peddling, philanthropy laundering, fraud, and bribery that wealthy people use to get and keep advantages.
Continue reading “The Lionization of Testing and other weird metrics”Things worth reading
A couple things of note that are worth paying attention to.
Jon Boeckenstedt published an analysis of discount rates at colleges and its well worth reading and playing with. If you’re unfamiliar with the term discount rate, it captures aid that isn’t new money (merit aid that is essentially discounting, grants that are discounts, basically all the things that are coupons). Jon breaks it down nicely. And you can look up individual colleges. As you can see from the screenshot below, you can rollover a university and see their discount rate and even the percent of full pay (Damn Georgetown . . . I guess money means merit). Click here to check it out.
Also, I wrote a thing. I looked at the latest IPEDS data (government reporting of educational statistics), which is for the 2022 enrolling class of college students, to see trends in how many students are enrolling without test scores. The big take away is lots of kids are enrolling without test scores, but I’m not revising my previous advice on should you test. Ask the 3 questions: Should my child prep? Should my child test? Should my child submit? The screenshot below shows one of the tables in the post. As you can see the number of students ENROLLING (not applying) with scores has dropped precipitously since 2018. Click this link to see the full post.
Temperature is to Testing as ….
Recently Marten Roorda, CEO of ACT reminded us that throwing away the thermometer won’t get rid of a fever and he’s 100% right. Of course, no doctor in the world thinks that tossing the thermometer will cure an identified ailment. Mr. Roorda’s analogy in defense of the ACT (and attacking the test optional movement) was really subtle and I think many will miss all the ways in which the analogy works. Since I’m a fan of a good analogy (except when they are put on a test) I’m going to help make sure everyone understands why this is an amazing analogy.
Continue reading “Temperature is to Testing as ….”IACAC 2019 Keynote Address
Recently, I had the honor of delivering the Keynote address at the 2019 IACAC Conference. I thought it would be cool to share some of the highlights of that talk and some of the reference resources here.
The core message of my talk was that the American educational system is not a meritocracy as most people think of the word, but instead is a meritocracy in the original sense of the word as it was satirically coined by Micheal Young in 1958.
Continue reading “IACAC 2019 Keynote Address”Why Aren’t More Colleges Test Optional?
Since the inception of the SAT in 1926, the admission world has debated (1976, 2001, 2008, 2015, 2018, 2019) the impact of and validity of the SAT (and later the ACT, CLT, CCTST, etc) on the pool of applicants and enrolled students at a university. Recently, more and more colleges have been asking themselves should they diminish the role of testing in their admission process and declare a test optional admissions policy.
Continue reading “Why Aren’t More Colleges Test Optional?”Access Organizations: Providing Social Capital
As anyone who works with low income, first generation or underrepresented students could tell you, the vast majority of these students lack not only the funds to compete with the 1% but also the “social capital” that greases the wheels of higher education access. Networks of chatty parents sharing new discoveries about demonstrated interest, hooks, gap years, PPY, ED/EDII/EA/EAII/REA, supplemental essays, recommended (not really) tests, super-scoring, super-duper-scoring, test optional/flexible, and a host of other insider secrets help the most informed more easily navigate an increasingly complex system.
Unlike their rich counterparts, low-income parents do not have the opportunities to learn the intricacies of admissions to feeder middle schools, selective high schools, and highly selective colleges and graduate schools from a social circle that includes deans of admissions, board members, CEOs, and college presidents. Instead, first generation parents rely on objective sources (catalogues and webpages), their next door neighbors (who are likely also first generation, low income, and underrepresented), their school counselors, and their friends to pool the little information they have in hopes of hitting the access lotto and gaining a spot at a selective institution.
Continue reading “Access Organizations: Providing Social Capital”Stanford shows they’re not so smart after all
Making the rounds in the college world this week is the story of Stanford University’s “demand”* that college applicant Malala Yousafzai take the SAT. Correction, that’s Noble Laureate, educational activist, assassination attempt survivor, and still “kicking ass and taking names” while advocating for education for women, 18-year-old Malala Yousafzai. Stanford University, in their apparent quest for additional bad press, has let the story of Ms Yousafzai’s desire to apply to the college become one of a “demand” for a test that many see as worthless and not indicative of any of the true characteristics of college bound students. It’s stunning to me that this university, with what I assume is a million dollar team of PR professionals, would let this potentially huge PR win become another example of the evil that colleges do in their quest for rankings and their love of test scores.
Continue reading “Stanford shows they’re not so smart after all”Did Khan Pull Out His Disruptor?
Over the last few days, I’ve been texted, tweeted, gchatted, emailed and called about the release of College Board’s/Khan Academy’s SAT prep resources. I’ve been forwarded article, after article, after article, about the playing field leveling that College Board is touting its partnership with Khan Academy will bring. I’ve been asked for my opinion and thoughts on Khan’s resources and the implications for my job and industry. So here it is, my unfiltered (mostly) thoughts on Khan Academy “Official SAT Practice.”
Continue reading “Did Khan Pull Out His Disruptor?”
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