MIT Wins Alex Doonesbury

It's official: Alex Doonesbury is heading for MIT this fall.

As noted earlier in this blog, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau invited Slate.com readers to vote on-line to determine which of three schools the 17-year-old aspiring engineer would attend.

The final results are in, and they are (after some controversy over how to deal with script-driven schemes to stuff the ballot box):

MIT - 48%
Rensselaer Technical Institute - 32%
Cornell - 19%

Cornell students insist their school would have fared better in the poll if they had not been too preoccupied with finals to come up with their own vote-rigging script.

Stanford Seeks Higher Yield

The number of admitted students who have committed to enroll at Stanford University this fall rose to 69 per cent this year, up from 67 per cent last year. The 69 per cent yield is one of the highest in the University's history.

The yield rates at other selective colleges and universities range from approximately 80 per cent at Harvard to 73 per cent at Yale and 69 per cent at Princeton.

Stanford Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Richard Shaw told a Faculty Senate meeting in April that the two reasons admits cited most often for choosing another school instead of Stanford were tuition costs and geographic location.

Stanford recently introduced a new financial aid policy that is meant to make the University a more attractive choice for students from middle-income families. Families earning under $45,000 per year are no longer expected to contribute to a child's educational costs at Stanford, and families earning $45,000 to $60,000 are asked to contribute a reduced amount.

Stanford also hopes to increase its yield by expanding its Likely Admit Program. This initiative, which was introduced this year, reaches out to exceptional applicants prior to the regular decision mailing date. Selected students receive a letter in January and regular follow-up calls from Stanford faculty. In 2006, Stanford used the Likely Admit program to communicate with 121 applicants it considered likely to be admitted to any school they applied to. Shaw told the Faculty Senate that final yield figures for this group of applicants were not yet available, but that the program appeared to have been effective.

Source: "Admit Yield Increases by 2 Per Cent," by Shirin Sharif - the Stanford Daily, May 30, 2006

U of Delaware Ends Early Admissions

The University of Delaware is ending its early decision admissions option, Inside Higher Education reports.

Director of Admissions Louis L. Hirsh said in a statement to admissions officials that the University had decided that its binding early admissions option was detrimental to students who need financial aid. Binding ED programs force applicants to accept or decline admissions offers before they can compare financial aid packages from other schools.

The University of North Carolina ended its early admissions program several years ago after concluding that the program undercut UNC's goal of increasing student diversity. Several other selective schools, most notably Harvard and Yale, have gone to non-binding early action programs that allow applicants to submit regular applications to other schools and then compare admissions offers.

The University of Delaware received over 21,800 applications for fall 2006. 86 per cent of Delaware residents and 43 per cent of out-of-state applicants were accepted. 3,241 students accepted their admissions offers.

Source: "Quick Takes," Inside Higher Ed, May 30, 2006

U of Wisconsin Admissions to Put More Weight on Essays

The University of Wisconsin is adopting a new admissions policy that will give more weight to applicants' essays and less to measures such as class rank, GPAs, and test scores. The system-wide change will mean that Wisconsin students are no longer guaranteed seats at a UW campus.

Admissions officials said that the new policy is meant to do a better job of identifying applicants who will succeed as college students. They also hope it will promote diversity among UW students.

Admissions officers say that their priority is to identify well-rounded applicants who are likely to perform well as college students. Although academic preparation will continue to be the most important factor in admissions decisions, it will not be the only one. Admissions officers will also scrutinize applicants' essays for information about non-academic admissions factors such as life experience, interests, community involvement, and demographic background.

Under the previous UW admissions policy, Wisconsin high school graduates who were in the top 40 per cent of their class or who scored 21 or better on the ACT were guaranteed admission to the UW system.

Wisconsin is the latest state to move from guaranteed admissions to a holistic admissions policy. State universities in Oregon, Michigan, California, and Kentucky have also moved to more holistic admissions in recent years.

Source: "UW System to Alter Admissions Criteria," by Ryan J. Foley - The Wisconsin State Journal, May 25, 2006

Duke's Class of 2010 Takes Shape

Duke University's Class of 2010 will be one of the school's most selective ever, despite a small drop in admissions yield.

Duke received almost 19,400 applications in 2005-2006, exceeding last year's record-setting application volume by about 7 per cent. Duke's acceptance rate dropped to 21 per cent, the lowest ever for that school.

Approximately 40 to 41 per cent of 2006 admits have sent deposits to Duke, marking a slight drop from previous yield rates. Officials believe the decline arises from the ongoing controversy surrounding rape charges filed against members of the school's lacrosse team. Despite the change from last year, they note, this year's yield rate still falls within the 40 to 44 per cent range that is typical for Duke.

Duke officials are pleased with the quality and diversity of this fall's incoming class. 40 per cent of this year's admits describe themselves as students of color, compared to 37 per cent in 2005. International enrollment is expected to rise to about 7 per cent. Enrollment is almost equally divided between women and men.

Duke's admissions office expects to admit about 125 students off the waitlist to fill seats left vacant by this spring's lower-than-expected yield.

Source: "Duke Has Most Selective Admissions Year on Record" - press release, Duke University (Durham, NC), May 25, 2006

Technorati tags: Duke University

UNH Warns Senior Slumpers They May Lose Class Places

The University of New Hampshire is warning 2006 admits not to let their grades slip during their last semester of high school. Anyone giving in to the temptations of 'senioritis' may find their admissions offer withdrawn.

Like many schools, UNH has a policy that says it will rescind admissions offers made to students who cannot explain declining academic performance in their senior year. The Univesity will now enforce that policy more strictly than it has in the past.

Director of Admissions Robert McGann says that the change in policy has nothing to do with UNH's unexpectedly high enrollment for fall 2006. He doubts that the University will rescind more than a few dozen admissions offers, a number that will not offset the approximately 300 'extra' freshmen who accepted places at UNH this year.

The reason for stricter enforcement, McGann said, is to maintain academic standards. The University has found that students who let grades slip prior to matriculation at UNH perform poorly in their first semester of college classes.

UNH was sending a message to admits that "senior year matters," McGann added. "It's important for students not to think they can stop working just because they've gotten into college."

The University of New Hampshire had expected to enroll a freshman class of approximately 2,700 students this fall. Instead, over 3,280 admits sent deposits for seats in the Class of 2010. The University hopes to prevent an on-campus housing crunch by encouraging enough students to live off-campus.

Sources:

"Message to High School Seniors: Don't Goof Off," by Melanie Asmar - the Concord Monitor, May 22, 2006

"Too Many Freshmen Say Yes to UNH," by Melanie Asmar - the Portsmouth Herald, May 22, 2006

2 More Schools Go SAT-Optional

Virginia's George Mason University and Minnesota's Gustavus Adolphus College have both decided to make SAT scores an optional part of their admissions process.

GMU will no longer require students with strong high school academic records to include SAT scores with their applications. To qualify for this exemption, students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher and rank in the top 20 per cent of their class.

Gustavus Adolphus College is making SAT scores optional for all applicants, having concluded that standardized test scores had not proven a reliable predictor of post-secondary school academic performance. The school will rate applicants solely on the basis of college preparatory coursework, leadership, and extracurricular activities.

According to Fairtest.org, a nonprofit organization that reports on standardized testing, over 730 schools follow SAT-optional admissions policies. That list includes highly regarded colleges such as Hamilton and Bates. As we noted in an April 7 posting to this blog, however, college applicants should be careful to look at the details of admissions and class placement if they apply to schools with SAT-optional policies.

Cornell Woos Doonesbury's Alex

Alex, the college-bound daughter of the title character of Gary Trudeau's long-running satirical comic strip "Doonesbury," might be on her way to Cornell University this fall -- or she might not.

The Ithaca Journal reports that, whatever the outcome of Alex's college dilemma, Cornell appreciates the free publicity.

Claudia Wheatley, an officer in Cornell's marketing and publications office, immediately sent a Cornell information packet to Trudeau after reading an episode of "Doonesbury" in which Alex expressed interest in studying engineering at that school.

Cornell's hopes rose last month, when Trudeau published a "Doonebury" installment in which Alex received a Cornell acceptance offer and announced her intention to enroll.

“It was probably the highlight of my year," Wheatley told the Journal.

The story is not over yet, however. Alex, who is known for changing her mind, remains undecided about which school to attend. Trudeau asked readers of Slate.com to vote in an on-line poll to determine which school Alex should go to.

As of this week, Cornell had been beaten out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Cornell students and alumni protested the results, with one writer suggesting that someone had rigged the on-line poll submissions to favor the other schools.

For a Cornell undergraduate, however, the real loser in the poll outcome was the comic strip, which would miss out on the satirical opportunities presented by Cornell's unique culture. Alex, the undergrad asserted, would have fit right in "at one of the most underrated, closetly bizarre universities in the country."

Source: "'Toon In: Will Alex Doonesbury Choose to Attend Cornell?" by Kerrie Frisinger - The Ithaca Journal, May 23, 2006

Technorati tags: Cornell University

Reed Puts Priority on Need-Based Financial Aid

Reed College has decided to continue its policy of offering financial aid exclusively on the basis of need rather than of merit, Dean of Admission Paul Marthers told Oregon Public Radio.

"Reed has decided that its limited financial aid funds will go to students based on their needing financial aid," Marthers said. "So Reed is a need-based only college -- there's no merit-based financial aid."

Reed's decision runs counter to a growing trend by colleges and universities to use merit-based aid offers to attract talented middle class students. Admissions directors say that the growing cost of college tuition makes merit-based aid an increasingly important element in middle class applicants' school choices.

Marthers noted that Reed's prestige and selectivity give it more leeway than other schools have in deciding whether to move to merit-based aid. Reed, which accepted fewer than 40% of applicants this year, is such an appealling college that many of the students it accepts are willing to pay its $34,000 annual tuition. This frees Reed to focus its financial aid resources on grants for lower-income students. By contrast, less competitive schools need to make an effort to attract a talented and well-rounded student body, and merit-based aid offers are an effective way of increasing enrollment.

Marthers suspects that, over time, these financial aid dynamics may lead to marked differences in the student bodies at different schools. "The outgrowth may be that Reed will have a lot of high-income students and a lot of low-income students, and maybe fewer students in the middle," he said. "But what's happening at these schools offering these merit scholarships is they're not appealing enough to these high income students... and they can't afford enough aid to bring in the really low-income students, so they're attracting a lot of students in the middle."

Source: "Colleges Offering More 'Merit-Based' Financial Aid," by Rob Manning - Oregon Public Broadcasting (Portland, OR), May 22, 2006

Technorati tags: Reed College, financial aid

Cougars on Campus at Stanford?

Stanford University students have been advised to stay aware of their surroundings and to avoid walking alone on campus in the wake of reports that at least one mountain lion was seen on Campus Drive the weekend of May 20.

The Stanford Department of Public Safety says that two sightings were reported early Saturday morning. It was not sure whether the callers had seen the same animal.

Sightings of wild animals on the Stanford campus are not unusual, police said. Most wild animals are seen in remote areas of the campus, however, rather than on Campus Drive. Two-thirds of Stanford's campus consists of open space in the foothills of the Santa Clara mountains.

Source: "Department of Public Safety Reports Two Mountain Lion Sightings," by Mandy Kovach - the Stanford Daily, May 22, 2006

Technorati tags: Stanford University, Stanford

NY State Senator Wants Oversight of SAT Testing

The chairman of the New York State Senate's committee on higher education wants to create a state board that would oversee SAT and other standardized testing, the New York Times reports. The board would be funded by a $1 state tax on standardized tests administered in New York.

The proposed legislation creating the committee would also require testing companies to respond more promptly to requests from students for copies of test questions and answers, and to provide the material for free.

State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle says the need for official oversight of the standardized testing industry was demonstrated by the approximately 5,000 erroneous SAT scores that the College Board released earlier this year. He expects the full Senate to approve the bill before the current legislative session ends in June.

Because New York is such a large market for standardized testing, a new state law on standardized testing could have repercussions for test-takers nation-wide. A 1979 New York state law that required testing companies to provide copies of certain test questions and answers and copies of students' own test responses, for a fee, was adopted by the industry nationwide because it was easier to change standards everywhere than to establish a special set of procedures for New York.

Source: "Senator Proposes Creating Board to Oversee College Admissions Tests," by Karen W. Arenson - the New York Times, May 20, 2006

U. of Chicago Yield Higher Than Expected

Approximately 38 per cent of students offered fall 2006 admission to the University of Chicago have accepted their offers -- leaving the University with about 9 per cent more first-year students than it had planned for.

Dean of College Admissions Ted O'Neill told the campus newspaper that he expects about 75 admits to defer enrollment or withdraw before the fall. Still, he is planning on an incoming class of 1,250 students, 40 more than the 1,210 he and his staff had in mind when they made admissions decisions.

Admissions staff had expected to get enough positive responses from admits to leave spaces for about 30 waitlisted applicants. O'Neill said the admissions committee would have made fewer acceptances if it had known this year's yield would be so high.

O'Neill sees the increased yield as both part of a national trend and as a Chicago-specific phenomenon. “Our image has probably changed from a place that’s more austere to a place where a more balanced social life can be had,” he told the Chicago Maroon. "There are signs that people are happier here."

O'Neill also noted that this was the first year that Chicago posted a website for admitted applicants. The website makes it easier to confirm acceptances and pay deposits, and its message board creates a community of prospective students. “The students themselves persuaded each other that Chicago really was a good place to go to school,” he said.

Source: "Admissions Picks Selective '10 Class," by Andrew Alexander - the Chicago Maroon, May 19, 2006

Stanford Students Compete for Sophomore College Seats

Several hundred happy freshmen have won seats in Stanford's competitive Sophomore College program this fall.

Sophomore College gives students entering their second year at Stanford a chance to study a topic in depth in a small class led by a ranking professor. The classes last three weeks and take place in mid-September, just before the start of the fall term. Class enrollment ranges from 12 to 14 students.

The Sophomore College offerings that drew the most applicants this year were "American Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century," which will be taught by Institute for International Studies Director Coit Blacker, and "Natural History, Marine Biology, and Research," which is held at the Hopkins Marine Station and taught by Professor Stuart Thompson. Other classes are being offered in Political Science, History, Film Studies, Religion, Economics, Music, and Chemical Engineering.

Director of Freshman and Sophomore Programs Sharon Palmer told the Stanford Daily that Sophomore College puts students together with professors who are both excellent teachers and leading scholars. The program's aim is to create mentoring relationships between students and professors and to expose students to Stanford's research resources at a key point in their studies.

Source: "Sophomore College Admits Next Batch," by Rahul Kanakia. The Stanford Daily, May 17, 2006.

Technorati tags: Stanford University, Stanford

Selective Colleges Taking Few Applicants Off Waitlists This Year

2006 is turning out to be a tough year to be on the waitlist at a selective college or university. A number of schools are getting enough positive responses from accepted students to fill their freshman classes, meaning that fewer admissions offers are being made to waitlisted students than in past years.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the University of Chicago will take about 7 students off the waitlist this year, compared to 34 last year. Harvard will probably admit 5 to 10 waitlisted applicants, compared to 28 in 2005. Georgetown expects to take about 10 applicants off its waitlist, whereas last year it took 70. The University of Pennsylvania expects to extend admission offers to only 10 to 15 of the roughly 1,400 students it offered waitlist status to. Princeton and Ohio State do not expect to use their waitlists at all.

Higher-than-expected yields are the reason for this year's waitlist situation. Admissions officers have been surprised by the number of applicants who are accepting their admission offers. Many people had expected that, with the larger number of schools that an average high school student applies to today, yields would either remain stable or decline. Instead, yield actually increased at a number of institutions.

As we've noted before in this blog, there is a link between the admissions yield and class size one year and the admissions environment the following year. The University of Pennsylvania's exceptionally low acceptance rate this year stems in part from its admissions experience last year. More students than expected accepted 2005 admissions offers from U Penn, resulting in an on-campus housing crunch. There was a similar situation at the University of North Carolina, which wound up enrolling about 70 more students than it normally does in fall 2005. This year, UNC took a more conservative approach, issuing fewer acceptance letters and making more waitlist decisions, to avoid a repeat of that situation. It expects to admit about 100 applicants from its waitlist.

This year's high yields suggest that next year's acceptance rates will remain low, and that next year's waitlisted applicants will again face slim chances of getting admissions offers. Smart applicants will research their school options carefully and submit well-thought-out, focused applications that get them accepted at one of their target schools the first time around.

Source: "Colleges Admit Few Students off the Wait List," by Ann Marie Chaker. The Wall Street Journal, May 16, 2006.

Double-Depositing Annoys Schools - And Cheats Applicants

May 1 was a big day for college applicants and admissions officers alike. As the deadline that most schools set for admitted students to accept or decline their admissions offers, it marked the end of the 2005-2006 admissions season and the day on which the Class of 2010 took definite shape.

But, if whispers and hearsay can be believed, the composition of all of those classes may not be as definite as it seems. There is talk again this year of some students saying ‘yes’ to more than one school, in a practice known as ‘double-depositing.’

A student who double deposits sends tuition deposits to two institutions with the intention of later withdrawing from one of the schools. They accept the loss of one of the deposits as the price of keeping their options open.

This strange practice seems to have become more common in recent years. We call it ‘strange’ because it’s difficult to see what benefit the student gains from it beyond putting off a college decision for few more weeks. The deposits that people forfeit seem a steep price for the luxury of prolonged indecision.

It’s also potentially hazardous. Schools hate double deposits. The practice puts them in the position of withholding an admissions offer from a sincere applicant in order to accommodate a deceitful one. Colleges and universities sometimes share matriculation lists and will rescind admissions offers to anyone caught double-depositing. A move that is meant to give an applicant two birds in the hand may wind up leaving them with no choices at all.

Some applicants have a hard time understanding why double-depositing is such a big deal. They paid the deposit with their own money, right? If they’re willing to lose that money, what’s the harm?

The problem with double deposits has less to do with money than it does with honest relationships. When you accept an admissions offer to a college or university, you become part of that school’s community. You’re expected to be honest about matters that affect the institution. Leaving a school with an empty seat to fill in mid-August, a few weeks before classes begin, is inconsiderate and harmful. Schools don’t want students who, by double-depositing, indicate a willingness to pull that stunt. They will gladly withdraw an admissions offer made to a student caught double-depositing and extend it to someone who genuinely wants to be at the school instead.

(We should clarify here that double-depositing is not the same thing as accepting one school’s admission offer while remaining on the waitlist at another institution. That’s a completely accepted practice. The school you would withdraw from if you are admitted from the waitlist would be sorry to see you go, but it wouldn’t feel you had deceived it about your intentions.)

Arguably, the people hurt most by double-depositing are the applicants who do it. By putting off an inevitable decision, they cheat themselves of weeks of valuable time they could use to prepare for their move to college. Moreover, they’re putting off part of the maturing process. Going to college means becoming an adult, and being an adult means making choices and accepting that the ones you make may sometimes be less than perfect. Committing to one of two school choices is a useful warm-up for other choices you’ll have to make in life. That’s what smart applicants do, rather than clinging to the false security of double deposits.

Application Volume Grew Again in 2005

More applications than ever were submitted to US colleges and universities during the 2005-2006 application season, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling's annual report on college admissions.

73 per cent of colleges and universities reported receiving more applications than they had the previous year, continuing a trend that began in the late 1990s. This growth is driven by both a larger applicant pool and by an increase in the number of students who apply to multiple institutions.

Another admissions trend noted in the NACAC report is continuing growth in the number of college applications submitted online. 53 per cent of college applications were submitted online in 2005, compared to 47 per cent in 2004 and 35 per cent in 2003.

Source: "State of College Admission," National Association for College Admission Counseling, May 2006 (wwww.nacacnet.org/MemberPortal/ProfessionalResources/
Research/SOCA.htm)

Princeton Pushes for Intellectual Diversity

Three years ago, Princeton initiated an effort to encourage undergraduates to sign up for under-subscribed majors in the humanities and sciences.

Faculty and administrators were concerned that a number of departments and programs were attracting only a small number of students. In 2004, for example, the University graduated only 13 chemistry majors. Educators worried that Princeton risked becoming an overly homogenous intellectual community if most students continued to enroll in a handful of popular majors.

In 2004, the University issued a booklet called "Major Choices" to undergrads. The booklet contained profiles of students who had majored in under-subscribed programs.

At the same time, the University allocated more resources to departments where it wanted to see major enrollment increase. These departments also took steps to make their work and course offerings more visible and attractive to prospective majors.

Princeton's initiative has paid off in significant increases in enrollment in the targeted history and science programs. The number of students majoring in comparative literature, Slavic languages, and classics has increased by 60 per cent over three years. The number of philosophy majors has grown by 40 per cent, and that of French, Italian, art and archeology, and religion majors by over 30 per cent. Chemistry and chemical engineering enrollment is also up by more than 30 per cent, while astrophysics, music, and psychology majors have increased by over 20 per cent.

Overall, the number of humanities majors grew by 15 per cent, and that of science majors by 11 per cent.

The University notes that a number of small departments, including East Asian studies and geosciences, have still not attracted more majors. It hopes that situation will change as the Major Choices initiative continues.

Technorati tags: Princeton University, Princeton

Undergrads Play Key Role in Brown's Research Orientation, Provost Says

Brown University has selected David Ketzer, professor of anthropology and chair of the Department of Anthropology, as the school's next provost. He is expected to return to teaching after serving a five-year term in this administrative post.

Ketzer is replacing Robert Zimmer, who is leaving Brown to become president of the University of Chicago.

Ketzer expressed excitement about his new duties. "We have great momentum behind us. If you look at how much has been accomplished in the last few years, it is really striking," he told a reporter for the campus paper.

Ketzer said that the creation of new programs and the hiring of additional senior and junior faculty had increased the "vibrancy" of Brown's academic environment.

In discussing the University's future, Ketzer noted that Brown's undergraduate college plays an unusually prominent role in research. Most research universities, he said, have a large number of graduate and professional schools that compete with the undergrad college for research opportunities and funding. That is not the case at Brown, meaning that undergrads have more opportunity to get involved in research projects. Maintaining a strong undergraduate program is therefore especially important to Brown's performance and reputation.

Source: "U. Names Ketzer as New Provost," by Eric Beck. The Brown Daily Herald, May 8, 2006.

Technorati tags: Brown University, Brown

Georgetown Accepts 22% of Applicants for Class of 2010

The Georgetown University campus paper reports that the University sent admission offers to 3,343 applicants for seats in the Class of 2010.

Over 15,000 people submitted applications to Georgetown this year. Georgetown's overall acceptance rate for the 2005-2006 application season is 22 per cent, about the same as last year's.

Assistant director and systems manager of admissions Melissa Costanzi told The Hoya that she expects approximately half of accepted students to enroll at the University. She doubts that many of the 1,000 students placed on Georgetown's waitlist will receive admissions offers.

Source: "Few Likely to Be Taken Off Waitlist," by Sarah Mellott - The Hoya, April 21, 2006

Bowdoin Selects Class of 2010

Bowdoin College sent acceptance letters to 1,172 applicants for seats in the Class of 2010. The College plans for a freshman class this fall of about 480 students.

5,401 students applied for fall 2006 admission to Bowdoin, making for a 21.7 per cent acceptance rate this year. Last year, 5,026 students applied and 1,220 were accepted.

Assistant Dean of Admissions Toby Brewster told The Bowdoin Orient that, as in past years, many of the admits who took part in Bowdoin's open houses or in the Bowdoin Experience had already accepted their admission offers. "We tend to yield very well on students who choose to attend these events," he said.

Source: "Class of 2010 Nears Target," by Emma Powers. The Bowdoin Orient, May 5, 2006.

Technorati tags: Bowdoin, college admissions

Dartmouth Dean Leaves to Head Swarthmore

James Larimore, dean of Dartmouth College, has announced that he will leave that institution this August to accept the deanship at Swarthmore College.

Larimore said his reasons for moving to Swarthmore include a desire to "dean more and administer less." He expects that Swarthmore's smaller size will allow him "to be visible and active in the campus community" and to have a greater impact on the school.

Larimore also cited Dartmouth's academic calendar as a reason for his decision to leave. Swarthmore follows a traditional academic calendar with fall and spring semesters and summers off. Dartmouth, by contrast, follows the Dartmouth Plan, a unique academic calendar that uses four 10-week terms distributed throughout the year. The Dartmouth Plan was adopted in part to make it easier for students to arrange off-campus study and internships. Over half of Dartmouth undergrads take part in at least one of the College's many off-campus study programs. Larimore thinks that Swarthmore's traditional academic calendar will make it easier to start and maintain an ongoing dialogue on college issues with students.

Larimore's accomplishments as Dean of Dartmouth College include improving the relationship between administrators and students and increasing the diversity of the College community. Larimore was a key figure in Darthmouth's decision to hire Josie Harper as athletics director, making it the first Ivy League school to name a woman to that post.

Source: "Larimore Resigns, Plans to Leave for Swarthmore," by Rebekah Rombom, The Dartmouth, 4 May 2006

Technorati tags: Dartmouth, Ivy League, Swarthmore

Admissions Officers Puzzled by Drop in SAT Scores

Inside Higher Education reports that college admissions officals across the country are puzzled by an overall drop in average SAT scores this year.

The College Board, which administers the SAT, says that there is only a 4 to 5 point difference between median scores for this year and last year. It assures educators and the public that this year's test scores can be validly compared to scores from past years.

However, a number of colleges and universities are reporting larger differences, with some the median scores for some applicant pools being 10 to 20 points lower than for the previous year.

Admissions officers are especially puzzled by this decline because GPAs for the same groups of students have either held steady or increased.

“I’m seeing scores that are just amazing to me," Bob Voss, the dean of admissions at Philadelphia's La Salle University, is quoted as saying, referring to this year's inconsistencies between SAT scores and other indicators of applicants' ability. He noted that La Salle uses SAT scores to identify incoming students who should take enrichment programs, and worries that the University may have directed some students to take enrichment programs where it was not necessary.

The College Board, in a memo to college admissions officers, said that it thinks the decline may be due to high school students taking the SAT fewer times on average. It noted that students who re-take the test usually increase their overall scores by an average of 30 points; if fewer students are re-taking the test, average test scores would decline.

Source: "New SAT Mystery," by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Education, May 3, 2006

Also see "2006 SAT® Cohort Averages" - press release from the College Board (www.collegeboard.com/prof/2006_sat_cohort_avg.html)

Swim Test Stands Between MIT Students & Their Degrees

MIT's 2006 acceptance rate of 13 per cent makes it one of the hardest undergraduate schools to get into in the country. Its swimming skills requirement may make it, for some students, even more difficult to graduate from.

MIT has required undergrads to pass a swim test since the late 1940s as part of the University's General Institute Requirements. Students can fulfill the requirement either by passing a 100-yard swimming test or by taking a swimming class.

The swim test is offered as part of Orientation for incoming students. About 700 students have reported for the test in recent years. The event is “a fun time for froshes to kick off and challenge themselves,” Carrie Moore, Director of Physical Education, told the MIT Tech.

MIT holds a women-only and men-only sessions of the swim test every other year. It will also schedule private test sessions for students who request them. (Presumably, the University's non-discriminatory policies would mean it is willing to alter or drop the swimming requirement for students who are physically unable to swim.)

The Tech reports that failure to fulfill the swimming requirement can and has forced seniors to postpone graduation. This year, with about five weeks to go before Commencement Day, there are over two dozen seniors who still need to pass the swim test.

Other colleges and universities where students have to demonstrate swimming skills to graduate include Bryn Mawr, Cornell, Columbia, Swarthmore, Dartmouth, the University of Chicago, and Notre Dame.

NCAA Challenges High School 'Diploma Mills'

College coaches are coming under enhanced scrutiny from the NCAA on two issues these days: using inappropriate recruiting methods, and signing on high school student athletes from diploma mills.

Both issues have been under the NCAA's scope for some time. The NCAA recently placed the Fresno State men’s basketball team on four years’ suspension for major and persistent violations of NCAA recruiting rules. The NCCA also subjected former Fresno coach Roy Lopes to a two-year “show cause penalty,” meaning that he cannot accept a coaching position at another NCAA school without clearance by the NCAA infractions committee.

While some high school athletes have been prey to over-zealous recruiting, others have been involved in exploiting the NCAA's academic requirements by enrolling in correspondence "academies" for struggling students. Inside Higher Education reported on April 28 that the NCAA was looking into reports that a high-school correspondence program based in Florida is somehow helping students who barely passed minimal requirements in traditional high schools to “magically” improve their academic performance after only a few weeks.

The NCAA has responded to this situation by giving the NCAA Clearinghouse greater authority to examine the high school records of prospective athletes and the track records of schools and other secondary education programs. The NCAA said that it may even go so far as to hire lawyers and private investigators to look into suspect programs, and would be willing to cooperate with state officials to close fraudulent schools down.

Source: "NCAA Homes In on High Schools." Inside Higher Education, April 28, 2006.

A Novel Question: Can Plagiarism Be Unintentional?

We almost – almost – posted something last week about Harvard undergrad Kaavya Viswanathan's send-up of Ivy League college admissions in her now-withdrawn novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. The reviews made it sound like a funny, timely, and even mildly thought-provoking read.

But it's probably just as well that we didn't get around to it. If we had, we would have felt obliged to spend most of this week posting endless updates about ongoing developments stemming from accusations that Viswanathan plagiarized parts of her text from another author. (To see the Harvard Crimson article that broke the story, and examples of the plagiarized text, go to www.thecrimson.com.)

One of the things that caught our eye about this story is Viswanathan's claim that the plagiarism was unintentional. She acknowledges that she read the two novels she appears to have copied passages from several times while she was in high school, but says she did not have the books with her at Harvard when she wrote her manuscript, and did not copy from them. The similarities between Opal Mehta and Megan F. McCafferty's Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings "were completely unintentional and unconscious," Viswanathan said.

Is such a thing possible? Can you plagiarize something without even being aware of it?

Well – maybe. Helen Keller, the blind and deaf girl whose educational breakthroughs are portrayed in the play The Miracle Worker and who, in real life, grew up to be an accomplished writer and speaker, apparently did something like that when she was about twelve years old.

In 1892, Keller sent a copy of a story she had written to a family friend. He had it published in a small magazine. A reader spotted strong similarities between Keller's story and a children's story that Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, had evidently once 'read' to Keller through finger spelling. The scandal that followed left Keller traumatized and hyper-sensitive about plagiarism for the rest of her life.

So it is not inconceivable that someone might internalize a story so thoroughly that they eventually forget where the familiar words and images came from, and wind up presenting the material later on as their own work.

Can unintentional plagiarism creep into an admissions essay the same way it can creep into fiction?

It can, and does. In fact, admissions officers see a particular version of unintentional plagiarism all the time, in the form of application essays that are clearly based on the many 'model' essays published in books and on websites.

These essays undermine the admissions chances of the applicants who submit them. Ironically, it's not because admissions committees take it upon themselves to punish plagiarizers. Rather, it's because these essays themselves are so ordinary and dull. Any admissions officer who picks one up will have read a thousand other essays just like it, and will be hard pressed to tell the author apart from all the other applicants who used the same model. The real problem with a 'modeled' essay is that it wastes the applicant's best chance to connect with an admissions committee by conveying their own, unique thinking and character.

Here are 3 tips to minimize your chances of committing unintentional plagiarism in your application essays:

- Read a lot, and read widely. The more varied your reading is, the less likely you are to internalize someone else's voice and ideas and mistake them for your own.

- Write. Get in the habit of expressing yourself in words on paper (or screen). The more you write, the more you develop a feel for your own voice. That makes it easier to recognize when the words coming out of your head don't belong to you.

- Don't over-use model essays. If you want to skim through a few essays to get an idea of the kinds of things other applicants have written about, that's fine. But don't read a model essay more than once or twice, and don't read it too closely. Above all, don't settle for writing something 'as good as' a model essay. Set out to write something better. Many of the essays presented as models are really quite mediocre – which is another reason by 'modeled' essays hurt their authors' admission chances.

-- All Star Essays

BusinessWeek Names Top Undergrad Business Programs

BusinessWeek has published its first annual ranking of undergraduate business programs at U.S. colleges and universities. Schools were ranked on the basis of student satisfaction, academic and teaching quality, teaching faclities, average SAT scores of incoming students, job placement services, and the school's reputation among corporate recruiters.

The schools named to the top 10 slots are:

1. The University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
2. The University of Virginia (McIntire)
3. Notre Dame University (Mendoza)
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (Sloan)
5. Emory University (Goizueta)
6. University of Michigan (Ross)
7. New York University (NYU) (Stern)
8. Brigham Young University (Marriott)
9. University of Texas, Austin (McCombs)
10. Indiana University (Kelley)

Tufts Adopts Stricter Reporting Policy to Combat Plagiarism

Tufts faculty have approved a policy change that now requires professors to report any allegation of student plagiarism or other academic dishonesty to the Dean of Students, the Tufts Daily reports.

The new policy goes into effect at the start of the 2006-2007 academic year.

Previous Tufts policy had given professors more leeway in deciding how to handle cases of suspected dishonesty, encouraging but not requiring them to report violations of academic integrity to University officials. Faculty criticized that policy as creating an environment in which enforcement varied from teacher to teacher and department to department, making it difficult to track repeat offenders or enforce standards.

An English professor welcomed the new policy in an email to the Daily, writing that "a uniform policy serves everyone's interests better. Students know what to expect if they cheat and so may be less likely to violate the policy on academic honesty; faculty aren't put in the position of trying to 'protect' students from the consequences of their actions; and the Dean's office has a better opportunity to come to terms with the problem of academic dishonesty."

In a further move to combat plagiarism, Tufts will start using Turnitin.com software campus-wide this fall. The plagiarism detection software was used in a successful test run in the University's biology department in 2005-2006.

Turnitin.com allows instructors to compare students' writing against a database of millions of student papers and Internet-based content and receive a "originality report" indicating the likelihood that a student lifted part or all of a paper from those sources. The reports are intended to "start a conversation" between teacher and student about suspected plagiarism rather than to serve as evidence of plagiarism, Dean Reitman said.

But Tufts biology professors who had used Turnitin.com noted that they could often sense plagiarism without the help of the program. Professor Michelle Gaudette explained that, "When I grade papers, I look for patterns in writing style and syntax." Suspicions of plagiarism arise when a student submits a paper marked by inconsistent writing quality and style, or one that is written in a style markedly different from the student's other work.

Source: "Tufts Takes Next Steps Toward Academic Integrity," by James Bologna and Chris Brown - the Tufts Daily, May 1, 2006

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