There are varying opinions about the relative importance of the SAT I and ACT. In my professional view, however, I think that colleges are loathe to admit just how important they view test scores, even the test-optional schools. Why? Well, professing too much emphasis on scores makes them look somewhat mono-dimensional and detracts from their contention that they use a “holistic methodology” (wow, cool phrase there, huh?) to give their applicants a fair-shake, broad-swath look.

Anyway, our test-prep friends over at IvyBound.net have issued an interesting statement about the importance of test scores. Here are some excerpts:

Why A Good ACT / SAT Score is more important than ever.

Most competitive colleges value standardized tests more than ever.  Over the last 25 years, more and more competitive colleges have EMPHASIZED high test scores because it gives them a way to evaluate students with disparate school records.  A small number of competitive colleges did drop SAT as a requirement over the last 25 years, but this pales in comparison to those that have affirmed merit scholarships based on SAT scores over the same period.  (Students and parents should distinguish competitive from non-competitive, where decent academic standing and an ability to pay are sufficient for acceptance.  This list of schools that do not require the SAT or ACT is heavily weighted with non-competitive colleges.)   At competitive colleges, admissions officers blatantly admit that the SAT now carries more weight as an admission criterion compared to 15 years ago.

College admissions offices compete with one another for applicants.  The most prominent survey, US NEWS, makes SAT / ACT score a huge category for ranking the schools.  Incoming GPA is not ranked in the US News survey.  This means that students with high GPAs often lose in the admissions game to students with lower GPAs but higher SAT or ACT scores.

Admissions offices also compete by offering the strongest candidates money, and the last 20 years have seen the flowering of MERIT-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS.  Prior to 1990, scholarship money was awarded only to athletic recruits and to students with high financial need.  Today, almost every competitive 4-year college awards scholarships to entice academic talent, and their assessment of “talent” is the SAT / ACT score.  Awards of $2,000 – $200,000 are based largely on SAT or ACT scores . . .

. . . Conclusion: students with high aspirations should not overlook the importance of a good SAT / ACT score. More schools should provide direct SAT coaching, because a good course can help students to 200+ point improvements, which can significantly open opportunities.  Since 92% of all competitive colleges take the best math score and combine it with the best reading score, it makes sense to plan on taking the SAT three times.  If you know you can excel on a third SAT, not trying is leaving opportunities on the shelf.

So, you can likely see that the answer to the question, “Hey, how important–really–are test scores?” is, in most cases, “Very.”  Don’t let the holistic PR front lull you to sleep. Wake up and smell numbers!

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Okay. What exactly does vicarious mean? In general, it means, “taking the place of another person.” You have to ask yourself the hard question: “Do I want my kid to seek Ivy so that the ‘prestige’ [whatever that means] will rub off on me?” Be honest. You’re reading this in private and no one is impatiently waiting for your answer. Just nod your head if it’s true. You don’t have to attend a VKSers Anonymous meeting, stand up, and say, “Hello. My name is Dave Berry and I want to live vicariously through my kid.” Just be aware of your stance here.

The purpose of this post is to increase your sensitivity to your kids’ deep-rooted potential. If, after being properly sensitized, you judge that your son or daughter has true competitive potential for the Ivy and elite admissions process, then you may become an advocate for that outcome, should you choose to do so. However, if your intentions are rooted anywhere near your own self-interests, then you should do some serious soul searching. You may be gambling with your kid’s long-range happiness and college success.

Loud Angry Voice from Offstage: “Hold it, dude. You almost just put me to sleep telling me that I should be a talent scout for Princeton or Harvard. Now you’re saying that I shouldn’t? That’s one confusing message, man.”

Not really. The message to parents is pretty straightforward: “Observe your kids. Discover who they are. If they’re competitive, advocate some top colleges.” That’s all. Notice that the message is not: “Dedicate your life to getting your kid into the Ivy League, come hell or high water.” There’s a big difference. Don’t be a vicar for your kids. They’ll have a hard enough time living their own lives. Don’t burden them with the extra weight of your unfulfilled dreams.

Disabling the Enabler: Resist the Urge to Become Enabling Parents

Now that we have that straight (and if you’re still with me), let’s talk about a common negative side effect of VKS: enabling. Are you a control freak? Did you always want to tie your child’s shoestrings for them, clean their room, or even do some of their homework? You could be an enabler.

You’ll probably be able to find a number of discussion forums on the Web (here’s The Best college-related forum) where enabling is a hot topic. I have observed many semi-heated exchanges among forum participants discussing how much help parents should offer their children during the college application process. One extreme faction adamantly states that parents shouldn’t even mail their kid’s application for them. The other extreme admits to writing {”editing,” as they encode it) essays for their kid. There are many shades in between.

How does this relate to our discussion of the developmental years? Well, I’m certainly no behavioral psychologist, but my experience shows me that we can inhibit our children’s quest for self-identity by trying to insert ourselves into their developmental trials too strongly. When is it time for them to try to feed themselves (resulting in those classic high-chair-tray food flings)? How about those shoestrings (they might trip and fall down)? And those post-tornado room scenes (I struggled with that)?

It’s not easy. We all want what’s best for our kids, but sometimes we get in the way of what’s best. When we do more for them than we should, we take away some of their independence. Even today, when our adult son visits on holidays, I have to fight my tendency to check the oil and tire-pressure levels of his car. But I don’t. He’s been able to drive tens of thousands of miles successfully without my fussy maintenance checks.

I often wonder how many other self-sufficiencies my kids incorporate thanks to my butting out of their learning curve. Bottom line: Beware VKS and its fallout.

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The New York Times reports a rather amazing statistic.

23 Private College Presidents Made More Than $1 Million

Here are the details (with some very helpful links) from Tamar Lewin’s article:

The presidents of the nation’s major private research universities were paid a median compensation of $627,750 in the 2007-8 fiscal year — a 5.5 percent increase from the previous year — according to The Chronicle of Higher Education annual executive compensation survey.

The highest paid private university executive was Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., with a pay package totaling $1,598,247 in fiscal 2008. Ms. Jackson, a physicist and former chairwoman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has been at Rensselaer since 1999, and first became the highest-paid university president just two years later.

In this year’s survey, she was followed by David J. Sargent of Suffolk University in Boston, the top earner in last year’s survey, who took in $1,496,593 in fiscal 2008, and Steadman Upham of the University of Tulsa, whose pay package was $1,485,275.

According to the survey, published in Monday’s edition, 23 private college presidents made over $1 million in total compensation, and 110 made more than $500,000. Such large pay packages are still relatively new in higher education: as recently as 2002, there were no million-dollar presidents, only four earning more than $800,000, and 27 earning more than $500,000.

Over all, the Chronicle survey found, the median pay for presidents of the 419 private colleges and universities surveyed was $358,746, a 6.5 percent increase over the previous year. Over the last five years, the median presidential pay, adjusted for inflation, grew by 14 percent.

Why is university presidents’ pay going up so much?

“I think the answer you’d get from the governing boards that set these salaries is that it’s a market and it’s increasingly hard to find these people,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which has published its compensation survey annually since 1993. “That said, almost every year, presidential salaries have gone up faster than inflation, and faster than tuition, which rankles some people on campus.”

The Chronicle’s information is from federal tax documents for the 2007-8 fiscal year, the most recent data available, but from a period before the current economic downturn. More recently, most colleges have moderated, or frozen, salary increases.

“It’s important to remember that these pay packages were set before the economic crisis began last fall,” Mr. Selingo said. “Since then, many presidents have taken pay cuts, donated part of their pay in scholarships, or had their pay frozen. Next year, it’s likely that we won’t see many presidents getting big raises.”

Mr. Selingo pointed out, however, that even if presidential pay has stopped growing so quickly, tuition has not, with 58 private colleges charging more than $50,000 for tuition, fees, room and board this year, compared with only five last year.

In its previous presidential pay surveys, The Chronicle reported compensation at both public and private universities, and last year, it was the public university presidents who were getting the larger raises.

In the current survey, covering only private institutions, for the presidents of large, complex research universities the pay increase was 11 percent over the year’s inflation rate. Over the last five years, The Chronicle found, their median increase, adjusted for inflation, was 19.6 percent.

Presidents of small liberal arts colleges tend to be paid less, with only John A. Fry, the president of Franklin & Marshall College earning more than a $1 million in 2007-8.

While most of the highest-paying universities on The Chronicle’s lists are well-known institutions, there are some surprising names as well.

For example, among the five highest paid presidents at master’s level institutions are Guy F. Riekeman, the president of Life University, in Marietta, Ga., which is known for its chiropractic program; Charles H. Polk, the president of Mountain State University in Beckley, W. Va., which offers distance learning and branch campuses in several states; and Jerry C. Lee, the president of National University in San Diego, which has dozens of online degree programs and campuses throughout California.

Many of the pay packages in the survey included deferred compensation.

For the first time this year, The Chronicle survey analyzed the “former officer” pay reported on college’s federal tax forms, and found that 85 of the institutions, about one in five, were paying at least one former officer or key employee more than $200,000 in compensation in 2007-8.

Three of them paid a former officer more than $1 million: Stephen J. Trachtenberg, a former president of George Washington University’s, received a package totaling $3,664,569; Oberlin College paid Nancy S. Dye, a former president, $1,460,420; and Emory University paid Michael M. E. Johns, a former executive vice president who now serves as chancellor, $1,006,188.

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One of my favorite paragraphs is this one:

“I think the answer you’d get from the governing boards that set these salaries is that it’s a market and it’s increasingly hard to find these people,” said Jeffrey Selingo, editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which has published its compensation survey annually since 1993. “That said, almost every year, presidential salaries have gone up faster than inflation, and faster than tuition, which rankles some people on campus.”

In the words of the pre-teen who lives next door to me, “Ya think!?”

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Of course, file sharing can be risky business. You may have read about the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) suing 16 Cornell University students for copyright infringement. There are other examples of such litigation, so what’s an enterprising collegian to do? Well, here’s some very savvy advice:

Wired.com came out with some common-sense guidelines for those interested in file sharing. Here are some highlights:

Education 2.0: The College Student’s Guide to File Sharing

By Sean Hollister

College: You finally made it. But now that you’re here, how should you spend your first few weeks at school?

By filling up the hard drive of your brand-new Toshiba R500 with loads of music and video files, that’s how. By harnessing the full file-sharing power of a high-speed, university-class network.

But how? Is it safe? Legal? Faster than asking your parents to burn a few DVDs and put them into their monthly care package?

Excellent questions — the mark of a true student. Welcome to File Sharing 101.

How to Get What You Want

Assuming you’ve got your machine connected to the internet and cleaned of viruses and spyware, it’s time to choose a network. Heard of Napster or BitTorrent? Both are peer-to-peer networks through which your computer, equipped with the proper software, can find files to download. The actual file transfers happen between your computer and other computers using protocols that distribute the file-sharing load among all the computers, or “peers,” on the network.

There are several networks, and for each one, a wide variety of clients (the software that runs on your computer) that will let you connect and share files. Network choice is important because it determines how much privacy you have and how much you have to share in return for obtaining access. We recommend two: BitTorrent and Direct Connect, plus a third option — one-click hosting services — for the truly paranoid.

(Educating yourself about legal issues is an important part of your research. Check the second page of this article for more information on the risks involved before you dive in.)

[Cutting now to legal issues (you can read about hot file-sharing programs directly from the article itself) . . .]

Legal Risks

Legal interpretations may vary about what constitutes legitimate sharing of copyrighted content, and we’re not lawyers. Sharing a few music clips with your friends may not violate copyright law, but distributing the latest Hollywood blockbuster to 30,000 other fans almost certainly does. So give some thought to your file sharing before you start. While one-click hosting is fairly private at the moment and darknets keep content away from prying eyes, it’s all for naught if your university actively monitors traffic and is determined to shut down peer-to-peer activity.

We recommend you check your college’s “acceptable use policy” and similar documents to determine their position on file sharing before engaging in potentially illegal activity, or at least make sure you save three grand, the going rate, in case you get caught.

For the legal perspective, go right to the source: the United States Copyright Office FAQ.

You may also want to read online piracy statements from the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s handy guide, How To Not Get Sued for File Sharing.

One final word: If you don’t think file sharing, or simply downloading your favorite songs from the Web, is no big deal, think again. You have to be careful. Take, for example, the case of Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, who had a judgment levied against her for $222,000 in penalties (!).

Have fun with that lightning-fast Internet connection in your dorm, but ask yourself a question first: “How much am I willing to pay for these songs or movies . . . if I screw up?”

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Yep, that’s the image. Well, the reality may be something quite different from old Professor Kingsfield, above.  Let’s take a quick look at who you may encounter once you plop yourself down in those vaunted halls of ivy, mainly, the ubiquitous TA:

TAs are Teaching Assistants. They are usually graduate students working as faculty assistants to supplement their graduate expenses. Sometimes advanced undergraduates become TAs when their work in a particular area is outstanding and they have gained the confidence of senior faculty.

Sometimes the very mention of TAs can have a negative connotation when it comes to teaching. That’s because at many large universities, especially in introductory courses, TAs sometimes do a significant amount of the teaching. Even if they are not involved directly with the instruction of the class, teaching assistants can be a large part of lab activities and counseling for the students.

The reason for the negative perception has nothing to do with the quality of the TA’s teaching. Some TAs can be genuinely exciting and motivational. The problem comes from students and parents who feel that for the high price of tuition, faculty should be doing the teaching, not a graduate student who is also a teaching assistant.

In large introductory courses, the teaching assistant can also handle the administration of exams and grading. Many first-year students may never know that a graduate student is doing the teaching. The way to tell is to get a listing of courses and then check to see who will be doing the teaching. If the name of the instructor or professor is not on that course’s departmental faculty listing, you may want to do some research. If you find out that you’re dealing with a TA, you might be able to pick the course up later when a member of the faculty will teach it.

There is nothing wrong with Teaching Assistants. They serve a positive and productive function. If I had a choice, though, I’d prefer full-time faculty.

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Our friends at CampusGrotto.com have put together a list of the most expensive college dorms. At least my mind boggles when I see what it costs to live in some of these dorms for less than nine months, especially when I think of having to share living quarters with at least one other person, in most cases. Let’s do some math:

A full college year (two semesters), on average, is about 160 class days. Take the most expensive dorm on Campus Grotto’s list, at Eugene Lang College, which charges $15,460 room and board (2008-2009 cost) for a school year, and divide that amount by 160 class days. You’ll get $96.63 per school day, if my math is right.

Granted, that number includes food, which may or may not be for three meals a day. However, how many college kids do you know who actually get up early enough seven days a week to eat breakfast, let alone lunch? Many, if not the majority, of college kids despise campus food, so they spend laundry money and other cash on eating out. Parents can just see their hard-earned dollars flying out those dorm windows.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun, if not painful, to take a look at the most costly room and board plans in America. Campus Grotto has even been kind enough to supply some picture of the top-of-the-line digs.

Most Expensive College Dorms

The price of room and board at college continues to increase just as much as the rate of tuition. The average room and board expense for the 2008-2009 school year at public colleges is $7,748 and $8,989 at private colleges, an average cost that has gone up about 5% since last year. Looking at the rankings, many of the most expensive dorms are where you would expect them to be; in the heavily populated areas of California, New York and Washington DC.

Room and board is a huge expense. Take NYU for example, which ranks in with the 42nd highest tuition, but with room and board added in it gives NYU a total cost of over $50,000, placing it as the 3rd most expensive school in the nation. Take Sarah Lawrence College as another example; tuition at Sarah Lawrence is $39,450 making it the 8th highest tuition wise, but add in the whopping $13,716 for room and board and it easily becomes the most expensive college in the country.

These rankings are figured by taking the estimated cost of room and board for the school year. Prices are for a standard double room.

1. Eugene Lang College
   Room and Board: $15,460
   
2. Cooper Union
   Room and Board: $14,000
   
   Photo Credit
3. Suffolk University
   Room and Board: $13,970
   
4. Sarah Lawrence College
   Room and Board: $13,716
   
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5. University of California – Berkeley
   Room and Board: $13,170
   
6. Manhattanville College
   Room and Board: $13,040
   
7. University of California – Santa Cruz
   Room and Board: $13,038
   
8. UCLA
   Room and Board: $12,891
   
   Photo Credit
9. NYU
   Room and Board: $12,810
   
   Photo Credit
10. Marymount Manhattan College
    Room and Board: $12,660
    

The Top 15

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There have been a few changes in the rankings:

Here are the top 100 most expensive colleges by total cost for the 2009-2010 school year.

Read the original article: Most Expensive Colleges for 2009-2010

Total Cost = Tuition + Room and Board

Well, a forward thinking Georgetown University sophomore must be a Seinfeld fan (or at least a Kramer fan) because he’s advertising for his own personal assistant:

Georgetown student advertises for a personal assistant

The successful applicant will do laundry, gas up the car and handle other ‘everyday tasks’ for busy sophomore

Georgetown University sophomore Charley Cooper is busy. He has a full load of classes, hours of homework and a part-time job at a financial services company. He’s also worried about an illness in the family. And then there are all the other time-consuming aspects of college.

The solution? A personal assistant.

Cooper, 19, logged on to the university’s student employment Web site last week and posted an ad for someone to tackle “some of my everyday tasks,” such as organizing his closet, dropping him off and picking him up from work, scheduling haircuts, putting gas in the car and taking it in for service, managing his electronic accounts and doing laundry (although the assistant will be paid only for the time spent loading, unloading and folding clothes, not the entire laundry cycle).

The successful applicant can expect to work three to seven hours a week and make $10 to $12 an hour, although “on occasion it will be possible to work additional hours and/or receive bonuses at my discretion.” Preference will be given to Georgetown undergraduates, Cooper says in the listing, and the assistant can spread his or her tasks throughout the day.

“As my PA you will receive an email once a day by 9:00 am with a task list for that day and a time estimate for each task,” Cooper wrote in the job listing, which was first reported by the student newsmagazine, Georgetown Voice. “Important tasks will be bolded on the list and must be done that day (even though everything on the list should theoretically be finished on a daily basis). At the end of the day you will send me an email telling me what tasks are incomplete or that all tasks have been completed.”

Could this be a publicity stunt? Cooper said in a Facebook message to a reporter that he is completely serious and has heard from several interested students, in addition to a few prank applicants. A university spokesman confirmed that Cooper is a student and has posted the job listing.

Cooper would answer questions only through messages sent to his Facebook account, which features a photo of a man in a striped polo shirt holding a champagne flute. He provided only brief details about himself, his family and his job: He grew up in Bethesda and graduated from the Landon School, a private boys school, in 2008. He lives in the dorms and hasn’t declared a major but is planning to double-major in finance and management, perhaps with a minor in Spanish. His Linked-In profile says he is considering jobs in finance, entertainment or both. In the spring, he got a part-time job in the D.C. offices of a financial services company that he didn’t want to identify, where he works as an assistant and manages a team of interns.

Cooper said he decided to post the help-wanted ad after a family member had a cancer diagnosis and began to make arrangements for treatment at Georgetown University Hospital. Cooper says he hopes to start interviews in a few days, after the craziness of midterms has passed. “I know that if I didn’t already have a job, I would definitely be interested in a job that pays 10 to 12 dollars per hour and is flexible in terms of hours,” he said.

The Georgetown Voice posted the listing on its blog Friday under the headline, “Georgetown sophomore seeks personal assistant, takes premature self-importance to whole new level.” Soon, dozens of derogatory comments popped up accusing Cooper of furthering the stereotype that Georgetown is filled with wealthy kids who can’t do anything for themselves.

“Everybody probably knows who he is now,” said Sarah Murphy, 19, a sophomore English major who heard about the job listing from friends. “People are not happy. They think he’s just ridiculous and full of himself.”

But other students were more understanding. “Listen, I think if there’s a market for it, and someone wants to do it, all the more power to him,” said Corey Sherman, 20, a junior international politics major who has two jobs. “Maybe he just wants the personal touch — knowing the human being folding his underwear.” (Earlier in the week, a Georgetown junior posted a similar job listing, according to the Georgetown Heckler, a campus humor blog. The student did not respond to an e-mail Thursday and it could not be determined whether the listing was a parody.)

Although the posting created buzz, outsourcing dull duties is not a new thing at Georgetown or other universities. Some students pay to have their group houses or apartments cleaned, or contract with Soapy Joe’s, a company that will pick up dirty laundry from the dorms and return it clean and folded within days.

Still, springing for a personal assistant is “definitely out of the ordinary,” said Bonnie Low-Kramen, the longtime personal assistant to actress Olympia Dukakis. Low-Kramen teaches workshops to aspiring celebrity personal assistants and wrote a book titled “Be the Ultimate Assistant.”

“Whenever someone gets wealthy or famous, things can fall through the cracks,” she said. “There’s no chance someone like Scarlett Johansson or Angelina Jolie end up on all of those covers without a team of people.”

But college students are rarely mature enough to handle the responsibility of managing a personal assistant, said Low-Kramen, whose son is a senior at the University of Maryland (and does not have a personal assistant).

“There’s a benefit to learning to do things on your own,” she said. “I know — college is stressful, there’s a lot to do. But the pressures are still nowhere near needing a personal assistant.”

I recall my college daze, so to speak. A lot of stuff, both school- and personal-related, slipped through the cracks. The closest I came to having a personal assistant was being married. My wife took care of some of the stuff that Charley Cooper here needs to have done, but mine wasn’t a business relationship and I don’t think Charley is looking for a long-term commitment. Mine has lasted 40 years so far.

It appears as though Charley is well on his way to a successful career, whatever he ends up doing. Creative thinking and clever use of resources are two keys to getting what you want out of life. Regardless of what his critics are saying about his lack of learning to manage a complex life, I like Charley’s approach. He’s well on his way to founding Coopermerica Industries.

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One news item and one opinion piece speak clearly about racism on campus. First, for the news item, we go to Hampton University in Virginia:

White beauty queen at US black university pens plea to Obama

The “Homecoming Queen” at a traditionally black US university has sent a letter to President Barack Obama, complaining that her win had been questioned on campus because she is white.But after her letter riled students at Hampton University in Virginia, beauty pageant winner Nikole Churchill issued a public apology, saying she had taken “the comments of a few and blew them out of all proportion.”

Churchill, a tall, raven-haired woman who, like Obama, grew up in Hawaii, wrote to the president after winning her university’s beauty pageant last week.

“It would be much easier to say that possibly some were not accepting of the news because I wasn?t the most qualified contestant; however, the true reason for the disapproval was because of the color of my skin. I am not African American,” the nursing student wrote to the president.

She asked the president for help, suggesting that he visit Hampton University to convince students to “stop focusing so much on the color of my skin and doubting my abilities to represent, but rather be proud of the changes our nation is making towards accepting diversity.

“I am hoping that you can assist me in opening some closed minds,” Churchill said.

That brought a raft of reactions, including from students at Hampton University who said race had nothing to do with their disgruntlement at Churchill’s election.

“Black or white, this young lady is not qualified to be the face of Hampton University as she is not in tune with the wants, needs, and desires of the student body at large,” a person who signed themselves as a graduate of the university commented on the website of Essence, a magazine for black women.

“Although some are outraged by her race, I think most are upset because this young lady has no ties to the student body. She is a transfer student who attends an HU satellite campus. She has never lived in a dorm, eaten in the cafe, or spent time in the Student Center.”

Churchill has issued a statement on the university’s website, regretting having written to Obama and apologizing for drawing negative attention to Hampton University, which she hailed as being a long-time pioneer of diversity.

The next instalment in the saga is likely to come on October 21, when Churchill is due to be formally “crowned” during Hampton University’s week-long homecoming celebrations.

The issue here is not that there may have been actual racism at work, although apparently there were a few racist comments made, but rather that Ms. Churchill felt obligated to raise the issue to the national governmental and national press level. This, in turn, has created a backlash with amplified racial undertones. The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.

Now, for a complementary perspective on campus racial matters, consider these words from Walter Williams:

The racism of campus ‘diversity’

Many of our nation’s colleges and universities have become cesspools of indoctrination, intolerance, academic dishonesty and the new racism. In a March 1991 speech, Yale President Benno Schmidt warned, “The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses. … The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind.”

Writing in the fall 2006 issue of Academic Questions, Luann Wright, in her article titled “Pernicious Politicization in Academe,” documents academic dishonesty and indoctrination all too common today. Here are some of her findings:

* An ethnic studies professor at Cal State Northridge and Pasadena City College teaches that “the role of students and teachers in ethnic studies is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

* UC Santa Barbara’s School of Education e-mailed its faculty asking them to consider classroom options concerning the Iraq war, suggesting they excuse students from class to attend anti-war events and give them extra credit to write about it.

* An English professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey tells his students, “Conservatism champions racism, exploitation and imperialist war.”

Other instances of academic dishonesty include professors having their students write letters to state representatives protesting budget cuts. Students enrolled in cell biology, math and art classes must sit through lectures listening to professorial rants about unrelated topics such as globalism, U.S. exploitation of the Middle East and President Bush.

Wright is also the founder of NoIndoctrination.org, a website containing hundreds of reports of similar academic bias and dishonesty.

Anne D. Neal, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, wrote a companion article titled “Advocacy in the College Classroom.” She says that campuses across the nation have cultivated an atmosphere that permits the disinviting of politically incorrect speakers; politicized instruction; reprisals against or intimidation of students who speak their mind; political discrimination in college hiring and retention; and campus speech codes.

On most college campuses, there’s the worship of diversity. The universities of Harvard, Texas A&M, UC Berkeley, Virginia and many others boast of officers, deans and vice presidents of diversity. Many academics make the mindless argument, with absolutely no evidence to back it up, that racial representation is necessary for academic excellence. For them, getting the right racial mix requires racial discrimination.

Diversity wasn’t the buzzword back in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. Diversity is the response by universities, as well as corporations, to various court decisions holding racial quotas, goals and timetables unconstitutional. Offices of diversity and inclusion are simply substitutes for yesterday’s offices of equity or affirmative action. It’s simply a matter of old wine in new bottles, but it’s racism just the same.

In an open letter titled “To the President of My University,” Carl Cohen, professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan, summarizes, “Diversity is a good thing – but the claim that the need for diversity is so compelling that it overrides the constitutional guarantee of civic equality is one we swallow only because, by holding our nose and gulping it down, we can go on doing what our feeling of guilt demands.”

Until parents, donors and taxpayers shed their unwillingness to investigate what’s sold to them as higher education, what we see today will continue and get worse. Just as important is the recognition of the fact that boards of trustees at our colleges and universities bear the ultimate responsibility, and it is they who’ve been grossly derelict in their duty.

So, what’s the bottom line here? In my view, the bottom line is that regardless of how “progressive” we want our tolerance and acceptance of certain issues to be, the pure gravity of human nature is going to pull good intentions into the quagmire of hypocrisy. I also think that it’s a great time to take a hard look in the mirror.

Where do you stand on such issues as Affirmative Action in college admissions? I’d really like to know. Post your comments below.

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Don’t forget to check out all my admissions-related articles and book reviews at College Confidential.

One such commentator is Walter Williams, whose recent editorial points out, in his opinion, the reasons for this situation.  See if you agree:

Academic Dishonesty

College education is a costly proposition with tuition, room and board at some colleges topping $50,000 a year. Is it worth it? Increasing evidence suggests that it’s not. Since the 1960s, academic achievement scores have plummeted, but student college grade point averages (GPA) have skyrocketed. In October 2001, the Boston Globe published an article entitled “Harvard’s Quiet Secret: Rampant Grade Inflation.” The article reported that a record 91 percent of Harvard University students were awarded honors during the spring graduation. The newspaper called Harvard’s grading practices “the laughing stock of the Ivy League.” Harvard is by no means unique. For example, 80 percent of the grades given at the University of Illinois are A’s and B’s. Fifty percent of students at Columbia University are on the Dean’s list. At Stanford University, where F grades used to be banned, only 6 percent of student grades were as low as a C. In the 1930s, the average GPA at American colleges and universities was 2.35, about a C plus; today the national average GPA is 3.2, more than a B.

Today’s college students are generally dumber than their predecessors. An article in the Wall Street Journal (1/30/97) reported that a “bachelor of Arts degree in 1997 may not be the equal of a graduation certificate from an academic high school in 1947.” The American Council on Education found that only 15 percent of universities require tests for general knowledge; only 17 percent for critical thinking; and only 19 percent for minimum competency. According a recent National Assessment of Adult Literacy, the percentage of college graduates proficient in prose literacy has declined from 40 percent to 31 percent within the past decade. Employers report that many college graduates lack the basic skills of critical thinking, writing and problem-solving and some employers find they must hire English and math teachers to teach them how to write memos and perform simple computations.

What is being labeled grade inflation is simply a euphemism for academic dishonesty. After all, it’s dishonesty when a professor assigns a grade the student did not earn. When a university or college confers a degree upon a student who has not mastered critical thinking skills, writing and problem-solving, it’s academic dishonesty. Of course, I might be in error calling it dishonesty. Perhaps academic standards have been set so low that idiots could earn A’s and B’s.

Academic dishonesty and deception go beyond fraudulent grades. “Minding the Campus” is a newsletter published by the Manhattan Institute. Edward Fiske tells a chilling tale of deception titled “Gaming the College Rankings” (9/17/09). The U.S. News and World Report college rankings are worshiped by some college administrators, and they go to great lengths to strengthen their rankings. Some years ago, University of Miami omitted scores of athletes and special admission students so as to boost SAT scores of incoming freshmen. At least one college mailed dollar bills to alumni with a request that they send them back to the annual fund thereby inflating the number of alumni donors.

“Gaming the College Rankings” contains an insert by John Leo, who is the editor of “Minding the Campus,” reporting that in the mid-1990s, Boston University raised its SAT scores by excluding the verbal scores of foreign students whilst including their math scores. Monmouth University simply added 200 SAT points to its group scores. University of California reported that 34 of its professors were members of a prestigious engineering association when in fact only 17 of their current faculty were. Baylor University offered students, who were already admitted to the university, $300 in bookstore credits to take the SAT again in the hopes of boosting Baylor’s SAT averages.

Academic dishonesty, coupled with incompetency, particularly at the undergraduate level, doesn’t bode well for the future of our nation. And who’s to blame? Most of the blame lies at the feet of the boards of trustees, who bear ultimate responsibility for the management of our colleges and universities.

I posted a link to this editorial on the College Confidential discussion forum. The comments it inspired are interesting. Here are a few samples:

I love Walter Williams, too.

I will always remember how he once talked about how it used to be important to “behave properly” to protect the “family name”. There was a time when parents would say that bad behavior would “ruin the family name.” That has pretty much disappeared, and he wanted to bring that idea back.

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I know there is grade creep involved in HS. And they recentered the SAT about 15 years ago. Prior to that MENSA would take SAT results as equivalent of an IQ test; not so any longer (FWIW). On the other hand, I know that my children were much better prepared for college than I was, and are smarter than I am.

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I think our top students are much better prepared academically at my children’s high school than the top students were at mine. The breadth of their math and science courses in particular is superior to what was offered to us. However, the middle and bottom thirds today seem to be far worse off, and many cannot read on a high school level, do simple mathematical calculations (like make change) or write coherently with proper punctuation. They also lack basic cultural literacy and knowledge of American history, world geograpy, etc. One reason for the difference, though, could be due to the fact that the non-academically oriented students of my generation were encouraged to go the Vo-Tech route. It was socially acceptable and provided for decent-paying jobs after graduation. Now, most parents I know would rather die than see their child go to Vo-Tech school. So these kids stay in the regular curriculum all four years and flounder. If they go on to college, they require remedial classes.

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I also think that teaching methodology today is better than it was in my time. My S took an Anatomy-Physiology course in our Community College, and there were several 3D models at the college that made my jaw drop, for instance. We had to “imagine” it all from text, and the drawings and diagrams in the book. So of course, if kids learn more and learn it better, they would tend to get better grades, especially the best students in the best schools. So if you are grading against the total content of the course, and not comparing one kid’s knowledge against another’s, you might get a greater percentage of kids that are close to perfect than you used to have 20 or 30 years ago. The internet also makes things incredibly easy. Literature review paper due soon? No more looking for old articles in the library, or walking to it in the snow. Just google them!! Forgot what the homework was, or lost it? Email a friend, or a professor, or look it up on the intranet. When I went to visit JHU I attended a lecture, and I was amazed to see all the kids had the current class topic on their lap-tops. Wow!! It seemed like you don’t even have to take notes anymore!!

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So, whether or not you agree with Walter Williams or any of the comments on the College Confidential forum, I think it’s safe to say that college graduates of the past 10 years or so have faced an entirely different world than those who preceded them. Let us know your thoughts.

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Don’t forget to check out all my admissions-related articles and book reviews at College Confidential.