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”Cutting Room Floor: The Hidden Factors Influencing College Admissions Decisions
I recently wrote an article published in Word In Black about the different ways colleges go about the business of evaluating applications and even though it was long as hell, I couldn’t get in everything I wanted. So let me highlight a few bits that got left out. This is, obviously, part of my periodic series on this blog called Cutting Room Floor (the first one is here).
Continue reading “Cutting Room Floor: The Hidden Factors Influencing College Admissions Decisions”The NY Times Doesn’t Cover College
What’s Kanye wearing? What’s El*n driving? What’s Besos buying?
If you believe the answers to these questions are relevant to your life then the New York Times might be the best paper for you to learn about the college process. If you pattern your life choices after what a billionaire or celebrity does, if you think that brand is all that matters in college admission, the NYT is for you. If not, then you should probably never bother to read it about college admission or at least read it with a careful and critical eye. This is because I’ve been forced to conclude that the NYT doesn’t write about college, it writes about a few highly rejective colleges. Yes, I said that intentionally…a few.
But let me rant less and demonstrate more.
Cutting Room: The Misguided War on Test Optional
Ever since I was first interviewed for a news story and especially when I was interviewed for the documentaries I was in (both the Test and The Art of Thinking and Netflix’s Operation Varsity Blues). I’ve been fascinated by what’s left out. I asked both producers of the documentaries if they would release the uncut footage but alas that’s not something they do. I feel that the cutting room floor and editing choices are as interesting as the final product.
So in the spirit of practicing what I preach, I’ll periodically post my cutting room floor. Anything labeled “cutting room floor” will be incomplete thoughts, mildly edited text, unfact checked data points, etc. Do with it as you see fit.
Merit: Myths and Money
Many people believe that merit aid means aid awarded for students who are the smartest and most accomplished, but that’s not true. I just spent months reviewing state-funded “merit” scholarship policies and school-funded “merit” scholarships rules at flagship universities and what I found WILL SHOCK YOU!
All dramatics aside, my report found a few important, and somewhat surprising to me, things:
1. Metrics not merit.
Merit means nothing. There is no formal definition of merit. There is no formal determiner of who is meritorious and who isn’t. So getting a “merit” scholarship just means you met whatever criteria was set.
Many “merit” scholarships are given on the basis of random criteria, for example this one:
#HateRead: Admissions, testing and the media
Back in 2016 I wrote about the media coverage of college admissions and testing issue. I’d taken to fisking articles on Twitter under the hashtag #hateread and thought I needed to provide a bit more explanation of that and nuance. I’m updating it now because, with all that’s going on (waves vaguely at the world), finding good information is getting harder. So here goes . . .
Continue reading “#HateRead: Admissions, testing and the media”Ben Simmons and Educational Testing
In a recent interview with Dr. Rawls-Dill, he mentioned Ben Simmons and an example of how what’s measured and who’s evaluating matters in determining success and quality. This really resonated with me and fine-tuned a sports analogy I’ve been making for years. Ben Simmons’s saga is the perfect example of how we’ve let standardized testing define students ability/aptitude/potential.
Continue reading “Ben Simmons and Educational Testing”Should You Take the SAT/ACT or Not?
For parents of 10th, 11th and 12th graders, the question of testing looms large (especially this fall as the test optional movement has really taken hold), so let me try to help you out and give you the lowdown to help you make decisions. I’m not going to do a detailed discussion of testing policy, overuse, misuse, or the like (that’s my day job and this is my side gig), rather I want parents to come away with the tools to make the 3 binary testing decisions on the road to college application:
- to prep for tests or not to prep
- to test or not to test
- to submit scores or not to submit
Also I might update this post like I do my College Admissions Resources post, so check back periodically.
College Essay Trauma Porn
My sons make me hopeful about the future. My sons impress me with what they know and can do. My sons often surprise me. But most often my sons amuse me. Today, I share one of the amusements and surprises. My sons (Enid-Michele, my internet daughter wasn’t part of this so that’s why I’m not mentioning her.) have apparently been paying attention to pop culture and to my work. These boys, in 7th and 9th grades when this started, have been workshopping lines they claim are going into their college essays. They shared with me the beginnings of their joint effort:
Growing up in the poorest borough of NYC, raised by a mother fighting addiction, and a father who couldn’t get a job.
Don’t Believe the Hype
Brigham tried to warn you in 1936. PE tried to warn you in 1988. Bigham tried to warn you repeatedly since 1990.
But, unfortunately, since the marketing machine of the testing agencies got their grips into the Stanvard Universities the narrative of the SAT providing access has taken root in the American psyche and far too many have bought into the hype about what standardized testing does and doesn’t do. Specifically about what it does and doesn’t do for Black and Hispanic people as a group.
Bellowings 
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