The news today is all about the new SAT, which will be administered for the first time next Saturday, March 12. Many newspapers are carrying articles like this one (featured at Inside Bay Area) on the pros and cons of the SAT in admissions.
Spring's a big time in testing whether or not there's a new SAT. The FCATs start on Monday. The benchmark exams in Arkansas are next week. The Ohio Graduation Exam will be given on March 14, and will count for the class of 2007. I'm sure there are plenty more I'm not listing here.
One bit of news with an interesting twist - the University of North Dakota, and North Dakota State University, will not require the new essay portion of the ACT for admissions. Mainly, it's because they're interested more in developing their own essays - and not penalizing students who took the old ACT without the essay - but I found this comment from the student body representative to be amusing:
In November, the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education approved a new policy asking the state's 11 public universities to set the requirement. However, the board left the door open for schools to set exemptions. UND and NDSU's stop-gap approach was needed because the schools didn't have enough time to get formal, more permanent exemption policies in place. Many high school juniors have already taken the ACT without the essay...Jordan Schuetzle, UND student body president, said he's pleased with the UND administration's response. UND's Student Senate opposed the essay requirement because of its cost and because it added a layer of subjectivity to a standardized test. Schuetzle added that the requirement is unfair because it gives an advantage to larger, more affluent school districts with means to hire quality writing teachers and coaches. He said also it might impact enrollment.
If I read this right, Jordan believes it's unfair for people who write better to have the edge in college admissions, all those remediation classes be damned. He seems to think that the ND administrators agree with him, but it sounds like they're planning their own much more substantial writing exam.
Posted by kswygert at March 6, 2005 02:11 PM