“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” –Sinclair Lewis I’m not going to debate the value of standardized tests in admissions. I’m not going to go over the research that shows differences without distinctions (a 3.2 GPA for one group vs a 3.4 […]
April 1, 2025 In the years post-pandemic, several of the Ivy League institutions (along with their shadowed, loosely defined cousins, the “Ivy Plus” universities) have re-instituted their policy of requiring the SAT for admission. I have said several times in public, and I’ll repeat here, that I don’t care if they do or they don’t, […]
This is one of those posts where I’m trying to figure out where to start, and which direction to take it. So let’s just start with the facts. ACT and Revolution Prep yesterday announced a “strategic” partnership that makes the latter one of the former’s “Preferred Test Prep Partners.” For the low, low price of […]
Spoiler alert: Neither “F” stands for free. I have written before about the strange way in which Jeremy Singer was tapped to lead the fix of the FAFSA last year. Everything about it, from the late Friday announcement, to the strange choice of a College Board executive (given College Board’s legendary abuses of student privacy […]
Five years ago on March 25, 2020, all the public universities in Oregon announced that they had adopted a test-optional admission policy for first-year students. Although other institutions around the country were making similar announcements about the same time due to the onset of COVID and cancelled SAT and ACT administrations, the Oregon public universities’ […]
I guess the answer depends on whom you ask. You know about the big glitch in the March 8th SAT. Or, because the College Board has not yet publicly acknowledged it, maybe you don’t. The people at Compass Education posted about it. There have been a few articles about it. But not a word from […]
That is, if you have very low expectations. College Board, as you all know, is a private company that works for itself, via a Board of Trustees who are hand-selected for candidacy by, well, the College Board. They’re a business, and we should understand that. Still, among my many quibbles with the corporation, in the […]
We shouldn’t be surprised. But before I tell you what they’re doing again, let’s remember what they did. During the COVID-19 pandemic, College Board moved to a 45-minute, online AP exam. It was a time of great stress and uncertainty, of course, and with regard to logistics and mechanics, they had no choice but to […]
I’m sick of this crap. To reiterate, I don’t care about tests, other than to point out repeatedly the essential absurdity of the very concept. Use them if you want, Love them if you want. I work at a university that doesn’t require them, and I work on the west coast, where they’re essentially meaningless. I’m retiring in three […]
Two quick stories might help you understand how the FAFSA delays and how you deal with them are not just mechanical or operational: They’re cultural. Many years ago, back when we used to get our reimbursements as physical checks instead of direct deposits, I grabbed mine and walked to the Student Accounts Office on campus […]
Jon Boeckenstedt's Admissions Weblog 