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The Pros And Cons Of College Admissions

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Hands trembling ecstatically, the anxious student sneaked over to his mailbox and spotted a solitude letter sitting neatly dead-center. As he fervently ripped open the envelope, he found his way to a 4-digit number: one that could change his life forever. In the midst of one’s Junior year, a single standardized test separates the mediocre from the best: the SAT. While the ACT is another variant, the majority of American colleges require these mandatory tests for their admission process. However, this could soon change. A new report released on January 20, 2016 revealed that several nationwide universities are considering new changes in their outdated admissions processes. Currently, more than 80 colleges have already endorsed this idea, and it is …show more content…

While the major population of American students choose to go to college, the process may be daunting at first. Basically, college admission officers want to identify the best fits for their college, and they do so through checking interviews, standardized testing, and a transcript of one’s grades and extracurriculars. However, this new experience is regarded as a nasty and stressful endeavor by both students and adults alike. As Stu Schmill, the dean of admissions at MIT, told Matt Lauer on TODAY, “I do believe that most students stress out over their SAT scores much more than they need to.” However, Schmill did not state that this challenge of stress and anxious is really how college admission officers differentiate the regulars from the over-achievers. In the real world, stress is something that kids and adults must learn to handle. If one cannot handle simple highschool anxiety, it will be nearly impossible for them to survive college. At length, respectable students aren’t those who quit, but are the ones that struggle, endeavor, and make it out stronger than

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In “A History Of The SAT In 4 Questions”, Cory Turner and Eric Westervelt write about the SAT and how it is changing. The authors discuss the new version of the SAT and how the College Board is going to change things. The Board “hopes the redesign will provide a more accurate measure of a student’s college and career readiness.” (Turner and Westervelt, A History Of The SAT). For example, Cyndie Schmeiser, the chief of assessment of the College Board, says that the new test “will include vocabulary, but within a reading passage.

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In this society, students are constantly struggling with stress. The students in this generation have more anxiety, and higher stress levels than previous generations. Alexandra Robbins, the author of “The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids,” developed student’s stress as the theme throughout the book to put emphasis on how the rigor levels of schools increased causing students to overachieve. Yet while overachieving school goals, it led to student’s stress trying to juggle school and life at the same time while trying to get into a prestigious university. Julie, the school’s superstar who does it all, undergoes under the same stress everyone has.

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1a:“College is a singular opportunity to rummage through and luxuriate in ideas, to give your brain a vigorous workout and your soul a thorough investigation, to realize how very large the world is and to contemplate your desired place in it. And that’s being lost in the admissions mania, which sends the message that college is a sanctum to be breached — a border to be crossed — rather than a land to be inhabited and tilled for all that it’s worth. ”(Bruni 10) 1b: This passage, which is included in the final pages of Bruni’s introduction, helps define both his thoughts on the purpose of college and, at the same time, why he believes the rapidly increasing focus on college admissions is a problem.

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1398 Words | 6 Pages

Over time, the SAT’s format has changed to better measure a student’s ability and potential. Excessive stress is put on students to do well on the SAT’s, and causes them unnecessary strain. As college admissions become more and more competitive, the need for higher test scores has increased, despite fatal flaws in the SAT test itself. Although the SAT is used by thousands of colleges and taken by millions of students, many students' scores do not reflect their true abilities, and therefore the SAT test is useless.

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727 Words | 3 Pages

The stresses and strains that are put on young adults today is getting out of hand. Between the work that school demands from students to the cost it takes to put one self through school is unreasonable. The dignity of students is at stake. Students are not only stressed and constantly worried about the work it takes to pass classes and graduate, but they are also stressed with the cost it takes to simply stay enrolled in their field of study if they are in college or maintain a scholarship. With the great power of education comes great responsibility.

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1848 Words | 8 Pages

“Students suffer from anxiety, stress and mental health issues due to high cost of colleges (Dr. Teresa Sullivan).” More than 41% of students suffer from one form, the amount of stress added to students to pay off high student loans and/or not be able to pay for their next classes or even the material needed is alarming. We could relieve the stress off students which will in return allow them to focus on their school work and get better results. 2. Students can be more successful in their education and will have the information and knowledge needed to assist and give back to their communities.

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729 Words | 3 Pages

A students ACT and SAT score is just one portion of many college applications. Colleges and Universities look at GPA, an essay, and letter of recommendations to determine a student’s admission. Many people believe that the importance of the ACT or SAT score depends on the college and what other things the student has to offer (Drinkworth, 2015). The ACT and SAT tests can be an important factor in college admissions because they tests are on all subject areas, math, reading, writing, and science. Since each area is graded separately and the score is later averaged out it shows how the students does overall in the general

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SATS and ACTS have been used for numerous years as a way to gauge a student’s academic success while in college. Students have the choice which test they would prefer to take and most colleges do not prefer one test over the other. There are a few key differences between the SAT and ACT, which may make one test more suitable than the other for those taking the tests. Many studies have proven that the SAT and ACT are not the best judge of future success, and that colleges should focus their applications more on past grades and accomplishments to decide which students should be accepted to their university. SATs and ACTs are not an effective measure of college readiness and future academic success.

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Ted Tran Ms. Yelton English III DC 11 April 2023 The SAT and ACT needs to be changed The SAT and ACT have made a considerable impact on students nowadays in society through college admissions. Although there are benefits to the test such as scholarships and ranking, some students have struggles and unfairness through the test, especially with low-income or minority backgrounds. In addition, students also have had test anxiety while taking the SAT and ACT which discourages them from the test.

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1523 Words | 7 Pages

However, there’s a certain perversion to admission policies like this, policies like UT’s “top 10” program. These policies leverage their racial diversity via neighborhood, and thus public high school, segregation. As Jamelle Bouie write in a Slate article on the

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Standardized tests are very common in today’s modern society. They are used as a tool to measure a person’s performance and indicate how their estimated performance will be in a college class. Every year hundreds of students take the ACT or SAT in order to get accepted into their college of choice and to receive scholarships, but they fail to see the problems with these standardized tests. As more and more people take these tests, the national average score falls causing doubt in the extremely important system. This is leading people to question whether or not the ACT and SATs are accomplishing what they were created to do.

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212 Words | 1 Pages

The current SAT essay testing and grading process is poorly designed and does a substandard job of evaluating students actual intellectual ability and capability to do college level work. One main problem with the SAT is the length of the actually essay in comparison to the amount of time graders are given to asses the composition. According to Les Perelman, a former director of MIT’s Writing Across the Curriculum program, “they expect SAT essay readers to read and grade a minimum of 20 essays an hour” (Malady 1). Perelman also states that “students who know simple tricks such as using big words such plethora instead of many” (Malady 2 These quotes show that the standardized test system is favored to those who know how the tests are graded

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1083 Words | 5 Pages

In “College Pressures” by William Zinsser, leader of one of the residential colleges at Yale University, the author describes the different amount of pressures that students struggle with in college. Because of his position at the university, he constantly noticed the students around him and the anxiety that was radiating off them. He believes that economic pressures cause students to feel anxious about paying back student loans after college. However, parental pressure leads students to make decisions that their parents would be happy with because of the feeling of guilt and wanting to please them.

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1448 Words | 6 Pages

It can be one of the best experiences in a person’s life, but it is a major adjustment from the life that most people live prior to it. With this adjustment comes many types of stress that a college student will face. Whether it is taking out a loan, trying to make my parents proud, or relearning how to make friends, there will always be some sort of stress that comes along with being a college student. The stress that the average college student will endure can seem to be overwhelming at times, but these stresses are part of the learning experience of college and overcoming them will teach us valuable lessons that will help us in whatever we

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707 Words | 3 Pages

Thus, stressors affecting students can be categorized as academic, financial, time or health related, and self- imposed (Goodman, 1993). Academic stressors include the student’s perception of the extensive knowledge base required and the perception of an inadequate time to develop it ((Carveth et al, 1996). Students report experiencing academic stress at predictable times each semester with the greatest sources of academic stress resulting from taking and studying for exams, grade competition, andthe large amount of content to master in a small amount of time (Abouserie, 1994). College students have many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve their optimal academic performance. It takes a lot more than just studying to achieve a successful college career.

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