College admissions voodoo -- Thos Sowell

[DesertFox]

Every year about this time, high school students get letters of admission -- or rejection -- from colleges around the country. The saddest part of this process is not their rejections but the assumption by some students that they were rejected because they just didn't measure up to the high standards of Ivy U. or their flagship state university.

The cold fact is that objective admissions standards are seldom decisive at most colleges. The admissions process is so shot through with fads and unsubstantiated assumptions that it is more like voodoo than anything else.

A student who did not get admitted to Ivy U. may be a better student than some -- or even most -- of those who did. Admissions officials love to believe that they can spot all sorts of intangibles that outweigh test scores and grade-point averages.

Such notions are hardly surprising in people who pay no price for being wrong. All sorts of self-indulgences are possible when people are unaccountable, whether they be college admissions officials, parole boards, planning commissions or copy-editors. ...

Typical of the mindset that rejects the selection of students in the order of objective performances was a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education which said that colleges should "select randomly" from a pool of applicants who are "good enough." Nowhere in the real world, where people must face the consequences of their decisions, would such a principle be taken seriously. ...

In some professions, a large part of the time of first-rate people is spent countering the half-baked ideas of second-rate people and trying to salvage something from the wreckage of the disasters they create. "Good enough" is seldom good enough.

More (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050415.shtml)

[HomeschoolrsRUs]

Good article!


While my son isn't actually trying to get into "college," we are in the process of pursuing a dual enrollment at our local community college. I can SO totally relate to this article as we brave the treacherous paths seeking "higher education."

When the secretary (a SECRETARY, mind you) called last Wednesday to inform my son he needed to call the Professor of the vo-tech program he wants to enter to schedule an interview, I'm sure she had to have downed a whole BOTTLE of tums before she called so she could at least TRY to handle all the acid in her voice. It was quite clear, and she made it crystal, that if SHE had been calling the shots, my son would not even stand a chance. Now we had already had two separate meetings with my son's Dual Enrollment Counselor, who INTERVIEWED my son, made active inquiry as to his study habits and learning abilities as well as his preferred vocation skills. She assured us the ONE obstacle to my son's acceptance (his math scores) were really not a hindrance at all, because of the EXCELLENT math program available to students who need help in minimal specific areas (my son scored COLLEGE level on all other areas of the CPT -- and even his math score was STILL 12 points higher than the minimum requirement for his vocation program choice).

In this journey I have come to find out . . .
1. Students are given priority on a first-come, first-served basis, both for application processing and testing.
2. Counselors play a BIGGER role in acceptance than scores.
3. Homeschoolers are ritually and routinely discriminated against -- AUTOMATICALLY, just because they ARE homeschoolers.
4. There ARE still some good educators out there (this was the biggest shocker of them all).

I'm sure after Tuesday, at 9am, I will have some new revelations to share (that's the time of li'l Bubba's interview with the Vo-Tech Professor).

[Bluemoon_Rising]

And of course these idiots cannot be shamed into doing the sensible thing.