Trying to bridge the gap between economic groups at the college level isn't going to work unless you start fixing the gap from pretty much birth through high school.
As we learn more form research like the Chicago Longitudinal Study, the environment children are in as they develop has a profound impact on their 'ability' later in life. If you don't learn basic math skills by a certain age you'll probably never be fluent. If you don't learn certain language skills like reading, it will probably never come naturally to you.
These deficiencies effect more than just someone's scholastic abilities too. Impulse control, interpersonal skills, problem solving.. there are lot of aspects that we tend to think of as a part of someone's nature that are actually controlled more by nurture than a lot of Social Darwinist would admit.
Even if we give kids from the ghetto a free ride through college, if they didn't learn math, self control, reading and problem solving at the appropriate times during their development they'll still fail; and it will be a result of the conditions they were born into and NOT a sign of their natural ability.
Think about it, I bet all of the young people in this forum can start training hard in B-Ball, but how many of them do you think will ever be good as LeBron James?
I don't know much if anything about the American education system, but I just want to say something. I think there's been some emphasis here on meritocratic testing for the hard subjects, with the implication that it's natural for mediocre students to end up in 'less rigorous' ones. I won't comment on what constitutes academic rigor or whether some subjects are naturally more rigorous, but it seems to me that even soft subjects can do with testing and curricula that are better designed to weed out incompetent students. As it is, that mediocre students end up in soft subjects is I think partly to do with the willingness of the relevant departments to tolerate them for some reason (maybe money?). I really don't like being in class with people whose only contribution to discussions are barely relevant personal anecdotes and who complain regularly about the material being too abstract and incomprehensible. That these people made it into the course in a highly-ranked university boggles my mind, and there has to be something wrong with the admissions process and teaching which is beside the simplistic reasoning that the humanities are for mediocre students.
There aren't enough non-mediocre (in a very general sense here, mediocre for college is not the same as the general population) students for colleges to only admit the good ones. Some few really selective schools obviously can but not all universities nationwide. The other option is for colleges to simply not admit as many students, but that's not going to happen for tons of reasons, societal expectations and again pure economics. (Though aelf you are right that the US could probably use more rigorous testing for some non-technical subjects, that's the thing, we really have nothing at all at the high school level being tested that is a really good measure of students talents or abilities in various liberal arts disciplines. Math happens to be a much easier thing to standardized test for and easier to correlate with students' success at college coursework, but all we've got is the SAT/ACT for students nationwide, no other tests are anywhere close for the number of students actually taking them. That would all be helpful for giving scholarships to talented students in the liberal arts should a college want to do so on more meritocratic criteria than activities/extracurricular type stuff. It won't change the below though.)
So what happens is that the mediocre students have to go somewhere. What can be controlled by the colleges and does happen, is that they don't make it into challenging disciplines like science & tech, medicine, law, because they'd be failed out. So in the general sense in the US it's not that liberal arts has to be less rigorous but a lot of liberal arts-ish degrees just happen to have large numbers of mediocre students.
So obviously schools want to admit and matriculate good students, and giving scholarships for poor, but good students is of course a reasonable thing to do. I think by the numbers that's not the real problem at many colleges in the US nationwide, though. It's a red herring, because slightly increasing such aid and scholarships on this matter doesn't change major systematic problems.
The problem is that among all the mediocre students, at private or public schools or whatever, the rich mediocre student will pay the tuition to attend. They want to go to college, their families want them to go to college, society says they should go to a four year college. The poor mediocre student can't pay, if admitted might not choose to enroll because of such limitations, etc... And it's a loser decision for colleges to try to give scholarships to these poor mediocre students, they just can't afford it, it could be argued to not even be the right call for society to encourage more of these students/majors, it's a simple economic decision. Especially public schools without massive endowments have this problem again, though to talk just about Amherst or Michigan or some college as in the article one would have to know some more specifics about them that I don't know off the top of my head (Michigan is a public school and Amherst private though, for non USians).
The real tragedy, again, is that some of the poor "mediocre" students are not mediocre in their abilities. They are mediocre at the point of college admissions because they have been given few opportunities, didn't have great schools and education through childhood and high school. But when the college has to decide who entering freshmen students should be, they are mediocre at that point, and pretty much the entire four year university system in the US is not conducive to helping these mediocre students catch up and graduate. The rich ones who are going tp pay tuition themselves and because they are rich can afford to take 5 years or aren't destroyed by massive loans if they drop out or whatever, at least aren't costing the colleges, but they just can't easily make it so they can give grants and aid and scholarships to all the poor ones.
So it's not a problem that can be solved by the universities. The problem can be addressed but system-wide changes must be made, like improvements in primary/secondary schooling all across the nation, changing the whole purpose of many colleges and trade schools to adapt to new economic realities, massive spending by the federal of government to make college cheaper for everyone, something like that. None of these are doable just by colleges like Amherst whatever their ideals are, and mostly this is all politically unlikely, quite unfortunately.
I'd say it's vital. A straight-A teenager from a rich family with a private tutor hasn't achieved very much at all compared to a straight-A teenager from a poor family with no parental support.
Problem with that approach is you are making it more subjective. You can come from an affluent family and still have hurdles to overcome. You can come from a poor family and still have a lot of support. It would be extremely hard if not impossible, to make those kind of distinctions among the thousands, often tens of thousands, of applicants each year. That of course is why they use grades and test scores. It's been generally agreed by the universities that those are reliable guides to performance. Maybe offering more minorities and more low-income students a scholarship makes society better, but it doesn't objectively make colleges more meritocratic. You end up in the realm of potential and "what-ifs?". "What if this student didn't have to work during high school". "What if this student was from a bad neighborhood with low parental support? Does he still get A's?" These are intriguing questions and often worthwhile, but since there is no objective way to answer them we have to rely on what can be measured. One can certainly argue that affirmative action and the like makes it more fair, but i'm not convinced it makes it more meritocratic.
But that's all theoretical what-ifs and fluff. There's probably a better chance that the kid with the 700 and AP courses is actually a smarter and better student with a better foundation in general knowledge.
Not really. Does the high school offer AP classes? Did the person with the lower score take any prep classes for the SAT and if not, was financial situation of the family something that precluded it? I mean, you're basically saying that the test score is an indication of an inherent ability, and not indicative of the process that one took to get there.
Not really. Does the high school offer AP classes? Did the person with the lower score take any prep classes for the SAT and if not, was financial situation of the family something that precluded it? I mean, you're basically saying that the test score is an indication of an inherent ability, and not indicative of the process that one took to get there.
I think it's indicative of both. But it can be difficult to separate out the specific circumstances -- how do you tell the difference between the poor kid who had to work to support her family versus the poor kid whose single mom made sure she never worked so she could focus on school and make something of herself? How do you tell the difference between the rich, preppy kid who had a tutor for everything and got straight A's versus the rich kid who studied on the weekends instead of going to Cancun? Being genuinely meritocratic would take these individual situations into account, but that's really difficult.
Applying an across the board standard (Poor kid = +50 SAT points!) may make for a more genuinely meritocratic institution in the aggregate, but it risks letting a lot of people of all incomes fall through the cracks in one way or another. It's at best the least crappy of a load of terrible options.
Well, you could mandate that children of alumni no longer get preferential treatment and prevent universities from seeing income brackets unless students apply for financial aid.
I would advocate eliminating or completely revising the SAT I, because its a test that doesn't evaluate skills that were taught in high school or are truly necessary in college. Plus, it can easily be gamed; I know that some foreign students from China just memorize the patterns of grammar for the English & Writing sections, get a high score, and then require a translator when they are interviewed or when they come to take courses at college.
The SAT II's, APs, and IBs should still be used, as they are better standardized tests overall.
Not really. Does the high school offer AP classes? Did the person with the lower score take any prep classes for the SAT and if not, was financial situation of the family something that precluded it? I mean, you're basically saying that the test score is an indication of an inherent ability, and not indicative of the process that one took to get there.
Thats why there's per-school quotas for many schools. Its about your rank in your graduating class from your school. Many colleges use un-weighted GPAs now so taking AP classes won't inflate your GPA. For any good college, you want to be in the top 10% in your school.
The only think grades are good at measuring is how well a kid can follow orders.
Being able to follow orders and accomplish a specific task is pretty important for almost any type of job. Grades also measure how good a kid is at actually following through on something that is considered important. Being sure you are well versed in a subject via tests is also important.
You guys talk about a meritocracy but what you are arguing for is to take all the objective measure out of it and base it solely on subjective matters, hardly a meritocracy.
Of course they do. The school system fits very well within the capitalist system. I just don't want people pretending that more intellectually motivated kids or more independent learners are going to see more success because of their merit. That's just not our education system works.
You guys talk about a meritocracy but what you are arguing for is to take all the objective measure out of it and base it solely on subjective matters, hardly a meritocracy.
Except nobody here is saying that? And this isn't the first time, you're either not responding to the people you imply you're responding to or confused on what is being said in the thread. I don't know if quoting the posts more specifically that you intend to address would help but I would also repeat downton's question to you if you actually read the article.
I'll read the full article a bit later, and I certainly am not following the education scene well, but I kind of am wondering how state-funded programs go into it. I can comment on my experience with state public schools and funding from the state and what I've heard.
stuff about Georgia' HOPE scholarship, a merit scholarship that I think is a good start.
Spoiler:
Georgia has a merit scholarship, the HOPE Scholarship, that seems to me to be pretty good in philosophy but is too generous at the moment. Basically, you graduate an eligible high school with a 3.0 GPA and then Georgia will pay tuition and some fees for its public universities; however, a 3.0 GPA is high school really is easy for any college-bound person. It's funded by the GA lottery (which gets its revenue mostly from low-income according to wikipedia), and so you get low-income people funding mediocre-median-income students to go to college.
I don't know how many schools count as HOPE eligible or non-eligible, but you can also get the scholarship no matter what your background if you have a 3.0 college GPA after 30 credit hours (which will be 2 semesters).
I'm addressing this just because the article does call georgia tech an "elite" school, yet the state of Georgia does a pretty good job at *hypothetically* providing Georgia residents with a merit based scholarship. I've heard a lot of people say Florida, Alabama, etc (mostly those southern states) have similar programs, where good students (I assume some factor of GPA and/or standardized test scores) get huge discounts (I have heard New Mexico too).
Then, a lot of people go and lose the HOPE scholarship after going to georgia tech (dip under 3.0 GPA), for no particular reason other than laziness as far as I can tell. The HOPE scholarship is definitely under huge political debate now, especially after some cuts are being proposed to it, but I think that system does work well. Except that, from what I can tell, it's not truly "merit". It's more median-to-high income students getting a free couple of semester's of tuition. The merit is too easy for people to achieve from wealthier backgrounds--it's essentially "guarenteed" whereas low income students have to work for it.
I don't really see it the job of private schools to try to bring in more low-income students; I see it more as the states should provide good education and funding for its own residents. Which is a problem in the state I attended high school in--virginia--where there are essentially no merit scholarships for Virginian residents. Other states (re: the georgia HOPE scholarship) are just giving semi-free rides to mediocre-students who come from higher incomes. Now, I know the OP is asking about whether schools are being too meritocratic, but that's the problem with HOPE---anyone who has a remote chance of going to a good school really automatically will get HOPE, and it's not really celebrating true merit achievement. The number of higher-income students who get HOPE out of high school will far outweigh the number of low-income students, and it'd be better for low-income students to go to an "easier" in-state school (like U[sic]GA) to try to get the 3.0 for HOPE than reach for the top and go for Georgia Tech, the "elite" school.
So in sum, with the HOPE basically anyone who will have a shot at going to college is automatically getting it right now, and we all know that pretty much all higher-income students will go to college because if they don't get any financial aid, they will just pay. It's kind of the opposite of merit at the time being (or too lax on it). But a system where the state will fund your in-state tuition after X credit hours (HOPE uses 30, basically 1 year of college) while maintaining X GPA seems rather fair, and that way public schools can try to admit more low-income students who they feel actually have a chance at that GPA so that the university doesn't have to keep giving the kid money but instead the state can (funded by some other means, like state lottery). HOPE will stick with you through transfers, so going with the OP's comment on private schools transfer policy, private schools (or the "eliter" public schools, like goergia tech or UVA or whatever your choice) should be more open to transfers. Someone doing really well at a "lesser" public school deserves every right to able able to transfer in to the more expensive/more elite school.
I know this doesn't really comment about private schools, but I think private education is kind of the wrong route to go in the US; or at least, people shouldn't focus on trying to get the "elite" private schools to take low incomes but to improve public schools.
Only other comment I have on top of my hand is that the score-report policy of only reporting your top 3 SAT scores (meaning a rich kid can take the SAT 7 times and have only his best 3 reported to colleges) is absolutely unnecessary and biased towards higher incomes. The trend of colleges taking only your "top" scores for consideration needs to go away as that is a completely unfair system; schools should pay attention to a student's entire record.
*Edit*
tl;dr: um, so I am not really wording this great, but there should be more state-sponsored merit scholarships that will reward the low-income students that actually do perform well (but may be limited due to other factors) and for state-schools to have better transfer policies (such that a low-income student can attend a community college or "lesser" public school, achieve good grades there, and matriculate into the more "elite" schools if they wish through transfer and maintain the merit-based scholarship through the transfer).
Immediate admission to "elite" schools can be too meritocratic, but I don't think trying to make that system less meritocratic will work well, and the schools will complain if they have to give financial aid to someone who then promptly fails out or just barely coasts through. State education should provide more opportunities for those low-incomes and then "elite" schools should be more open to students transferring in.
Except nobody here is saying that? And this isn't the first time, you're either not responding to the people you imply you're responding to or confused on what is being said in the thread. I don't know if quoting the posts more specifically that you intend to address would help but I would also repeat downton's question to you if you actually read the article.
Thats just what the article is saying actually. They want to have less emphasis and grades/sat test scores and more emphasis on "what-if" conditions. It is in fact arguing for de-emphasis on objective measures and emphazing more subjective measures. Did you not read the article carefully enough yourself?
If you are arguing for the position that a students economic status/race should be considered in the admissions process(which is not the same as the financial aid process), then you are indeed arguing against a meritocracy, not for one. Thats the overall position the article is taking as well as many posters here.
Maybe you missed this part of the article:
Finally, Mr. Marx says Amherst does put a thumb on the scale to give poor students more credit for a given SAT score. Not everyone will love that policy. “Spots at these places are precious,” he notes. But I find it tough to argue that a 1,300 score for most graduates of Phillips Exeter Academy — or most children of Amherst alumni — is as impressive as a 1,250 for someone from McDowell County, W.Va., or the South Bronx.
He is not arguing for giving extra consideration to financial aid packages to poor people.
He wants a 1250 on a standarized test to be worth more than a 1300 on a test because of a students class/social position. Again, he wants to rely on subjective "what-if" conditions to argue that poor students should in effect get "extra points" for being poor. Hardly what you call merit.
The article also ignores that students are generally compared as to what % of their graduating class they are in from their own school. School want top 10% students from their graduating class. When you are being compared to your respective class, you are in large part, being compared to kids like yourself.
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