by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 22, 2018 | College Admissions
The University of Chicago’s recent decision to go test-optional got me thinking: what if Bob Shaeffer over at FairTest got his wish, and the SAT and ACT were not merely made optional but flat out abolished? Let’s assume – as seems reasonable – that the rest of the system would remain unchanged.
So picture it: a world in which every one of an elite college’s 50,000+ applicants (or more) would be judged entirely on his or her specific merits, as a totally unique and authentic individual, and given full and complete consideration unmarred by input from the ACT or the College Board.
Wouldn’t that the result be a better system, a fairer system, a system that no longer punished disadvantaged students who couldn’t afford expensive test prep classes?
Probably not. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 15, 2018 | College Admissions
(photo by Bryce Lanham, Wikimedia Commons)
The University of Chicago has become the first of the truly elite schools to adopt a test-optional policy, which will take effect for the class of 2023.
From UChicago’s website:
The University of Chicago on June 14 launched the UChicago Empower Initiative, a test-optional admissions process to enhance the accessibility of its undergraduate College for first-generation and low-income students.
A strategic initiative to address key barriers encountered by underserved and underrepresented students, the UChicago Empower Initiative has three areas of focus: the use of technology for greater flexibility in the admissions process, including making submissions of standardized test scores optional; increased financial support, on-campus programming and online resources for first-generation, rural and underrepresented students, with full tuition aid for students whose families earn less than $125,000; and new scholarships and access programs to recognize those who serve our country and local communities. Each aims to empower historically underrepresented communities in the highly selective admissions process by increasing equity and access. (https://news.uchicago.edu/story/uchicago-launches-test-optional-admissions-process-expanded-financial-aid-scholarships)
Chicago’s justification for going test-optional is similar to that of other test-optional schools, but I do think that something a little more interesting is going on here – rhetorically at least. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 4, 2018 | Blog
Recently, a colleague who is foreign-language classroom teacher told me the following story: since she started teaching around a decade ago, she’s always made sure to introduce her beginning-level classes to the concept of cognates – words that are very similar in English and the Romance language she teaches, and that are derived from a common root.
Every previous year, her students had been perfectly receptive to the concept, but this year they would have none of it: they mocked the term cognate as an obscure “SAT word” and insisted that they shouldn’t be forced to learn it.
My colleague then asked her students how they expected to be able to read high-level material in high school and college without a strong vocabulary.
Nothing. Blank stares. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 31, 2018 | ACT English/SAT Writing, Blog
Not to long ago (5/30/18), I happened to post the following Question of the Day on Facebook:
It wasn’t that long ago that putting food in liquid nitrogen was something you’d only see in a high school science class, but it’s also becoming a mainstay of modernist cooking. It’s odorless, tasteless, and harmless because it’s so cold (–320.44°F to be exact), it boils at room temperature and evaporates out of your food as it rapidly chills it.
A. NO CHANGE
B. tasteless, and harmless, and because
C. tasteless and harmless, because
D. tasteless, harmless and because,
(more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 28, 2018 | Blog
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Selingo recently published about an article about an entirely predictable consequence of grade- and score- inflation on the selective college admissions process — namely, that the glut of applicants with sky-high GPAs and test scores is making those two traditional metrics increasingly less reliable as indicators of admissibility.
It’s not that those two factors no longer count, but rather that they are increasingly taken as givens. So while top grades and score won’t necessarily help most applicants, their absence can certainly hurt. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 25, 2018 | Blog
While browsing through Daniel Willingham’s blog the other night, I came across a link to an intriguing — and very worrisome — article about students’ media literacy that seemed to back up some of my misgivings about the redesigned SAT essay and, more generally, about the peculiar use of the term “evidence” in Common Core-land.
The authors describe one of the studies as follows:
One high school task presented students with screenshots of two articles on global climate change from a national news magazine’s website. One screenshot was a traditional news story from the magazine’s “Science” section. The other was a post sponsored by an oil company, which was labeled “sponsored content” and prominently displayed the company’s logo. Students had to explain which of the two sources was more reliable… (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 19, 2018 | Blog, General Tips
If you’re just starting to look into test-prep for the SAT or ACT, the sheer number of options can be a little overwhelming (more than a little, actually). And if you don’t have reliable recommendations, finding a program or tutor that fits your needs can be a less-than-straightforward process. There are obviously a lot of factors to consider, but here I’d like to focus on one area in which companies have been known to exaggerate: score-improvement.
To start with, yes, some companies are notorious for deflating the scores of their diagnostic tests in order to get panicked students to sign up for their classes. This is something to be very, very wary of. For the most accurate baseline score, you should use a diagnostic test produced only by the College Board or the ACT. Timed, proctored, diagnostics are great, but using imitation material at the start can lead you very far down the wrong path. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 3, 2018 | AP, Blog
A while back, I happened to find myself discussing the AP® craze with a colleague who teaches AP classes, and at one point, she mentioned offhandedly that with the push toward data collection and continual assessment, schools are increasingly eliminating the type of cumulative final exams that used to be standard in favor of frequent small-scale quizzes and tests that can be easily plotted for administrators’ consumption.
I poked around and discovered that some schools have also eliminated cumulative mid-term or final exams because such assessments are insufficiently “authentic” (read: not fun) or because of concerns about stress, or because so much time is already devoted to state tests.
I wasn’t really aware of that shift when I was tutoring various SAT II and AP exams, but it explained some of what I encountered: students had been exposed to key concepts, but they hadn’t been given sufficient practice for those concepts to really sink in. They were learning only what they needed to know for a particular quiz or test and then promptly forgetting the material.
(more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 21, 2018 | Blog, College Admissions
As discussed in my previous post, application inflation seems to be hitting ever greater heights. With the online Common App allowing students to apply to 15+ schools at the click of a button, it can be hard for applicants to gauge their real chances at a particular school: there’s no way to know just how many of those 40,000 applicants are serious contenders. With so many competing for so few slots, sometimes getting rejected isn’t a matter of doing anything in particular wrong. It’s just “great kid, but only if room” – which, of course, there isn’t.
That said, there are still some specific, common reasons for why the college application process can produce less than stellar results. So if you want to know what NOT to do, I offer you the following list of 10 ways to get rejected from college. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 19, 2018 | Blog
Every year around this time, posts inevitably appear on College Confidential that go something like this:
I applied to every Ivy, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Nebraska, and I got rejected everywhere except my safety school. I have a 4.5 GPA, 35 ACT, and good activities. wasn’t sure about HYPSM, but I thought I was totally set for Northwestern and Hopkins. What do I do???? Help!!!!
This year, there’s a whole long thread on the Parents Forum entitled “Why applicants overreach and are disappointed in April,” and I would strongly encourage anyone just beginning the college search to read through it, before the madness sets in and you fall in love (or your child falls in love) with a school that accepts only 5% of its applicants.
That is, 5% overall — the RD admission rate might in reality be closer to 2%. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 15, 2018 | Blog
The Critical Reader: AP® English Language and Composition Edition is now available for purchase on Amazon. The book is carefully aligned with the revised (post-2014) version of the AP Lang/Comp exam provides a comprehensive review of all the reading and writing skills tested.
Includes:
- A complete chapter dedicated to each type of multiple-choice reading question and essay type.
- Numerous multiple-choice practice questions covering literal comprehension, purpose, tone/attitude, rhetorical strategies, and footnotes.
- Common essay pitfalls, with detailed examples of what to do and what not to do.
- Sample student essays with in-depth scoring analyses.
I’ve also posted a preview so that you can see for yourself.
Now, a couple of notes: (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 24, 2018 | Blog, College Admissions, SAT Essay
Harvard University has announced that it will be dropping the SAT/ACT Essay requirement, beginning with the class of 2023. Along with Princeton, Yale, and Stanford, Harvard was one of the last holdouts to require that students submit this component.
I wrote a series of critiques of the redesigned essay when the new test was first rolled out, and I still believe that it is deeply problematic – I think colleges are justified in viewing it with suspicion. At the same time, however, I believe that there are very compelling reasons for schools to continue requiring some sort of writing sample completed under proctored conditions.
Although some of my initial concerns about the SAT essay were unfounded, the principal issue remains that it is fundamentally a nonsense assignment, one presented in muddled language that says one thing and means something else. It asks students to analyze how an author uses “evidence” to build an argument, but seeks to remove outside knowledge from the equation. In reality, this is an absurd proposition: any even slightly substantive analysis of “evidence” is impossible without actual knowledge of a topic. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 12, 2018 | Uncategorized
Wiki Ezvid, a video-based research site, has named The Complete Guide to ACT English, Third Edition, one of the ACT Prep books of 2018.
It’s ranked #1 in the “high end” (!) category, and #6 overall.
You can see the full list here.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Feb 3, 2018 | Blog, GMAT
If you look at many lists of GMAT® idioms, you’ll likely find dozens upon dozens of preposition-based constructions, e.g. insist on, characteristic of, correlate with. Although the GMAT does sometimes test these types of idioms, it is important to understand that they are not the primary focus of the test. Because of an increase in the number of international students taking the exam, the GMAC has elected to shift the focus away from idiomatic American usage and toward more issues involving overall sentence logic.
That said, there are still a handful of fixed constructions that the GMAT does regularly test. Many, but not all, of these fall into the category of word pairs (aka correlative conjunctions). Particularly if you are not a native English speaker, you are best served by focusing on these constructions, which stand a high chance of appearing, as opposed to memorizing dozens of preposition-based idioms that have only a minuscule chance of being tested on any given exam. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jan 12, 2018 | Blog, GRE, Vocabulary
If you’re studying for the GRE® and want to learn some words for which ETS has, shall we say, traditionally shown a strong predilection (i.e., proclivity, penchant, propensity, bent), the Critical Reader is now offering a Word of the Day email program.
One email with a top word, a GRE-level example sentence, and a list of must-know synonyms/antonyms, every day, direct to your inbox, plus periodic quizzes, every day for 100 days.
Click here to sign up.
(more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jan 6, 2018 | ACT English/SAT Writing, Blog
Note: this exception is addressed in the 4th edition of The Ultimate Guide to SAT® Grammar and the 3rd edition of The Complete Guide to ACT® English, but it is not covered in earlier versions.
Both SAT Writing and ACT English focus test two specific aspects of the who vs. whom rule.
1) Who, not whom, should be placed before a verb.
Incorrect: Alexander Fleming was the scientist whom discovered penicillin.
Correct: Alexander Fleming was the scientist who discovered penicillin. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jan 5, 2018 | Blog, GMAT
I’m putting up this post because I’ve received a number of queries from people who are interested my The Complete GMAT® Sentence Correction Guide but who aren’t really sure what differentiates it from other guides on the market or whether it meets their needs. So instead of continuing to respond to people on a case-by-case, I thought I’d address some of the most common questions/concerns all in one place.
While the book does by necessity cover many of the same general concepts and strategies as the other books on the market, albeit with a different organization, there are a handful of key points that bear emphasizing.
First and most importantly: the book is designed as a “bridge” to the actual exam. All of the rules covered are derived exclusively from an in-depth study of GMAC-produced questions, and each chapter ends with a list of relevant questions from the Official Guide and Official Verbal guide. In addition, specific questions are periodically referenced during in-chapter discussions. Although there are categorized Official Guide question lists circulating online, there is no other published guide that includes this type of concept-by-concept breakdown. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jan 1, 2018 | Blog, GRE
Update to this post: I’ve now put a few sample exercises that approach GRE vocab prep from the ETS-based perspective outlined in this post. You can find them on the Quizzes page. More to come soon.
I’ve spent some time recently investigating the world of GRE® prep, and I’ve learned a few things that really surprised me. When I started reworking my old SAT® vocab material for prospective graduate students, I more or less assumed that the GRE prep world was similar to the SAT world: that is, there was a relatively cohesive network of independent tutors who shared tips, strategies, materials, etc., as well as established, well-trafficked online forums à la College Confidential where students applying to Masters and Ph.D. programs regularly congregated.
In poking around the web and talking to current/former GRE takers, however, I’ve gotten the impression that prep for this exam is a different story entirely. College seniors or recent graduates often take the exam before they know for sure whether they want to apply to grad school and, as a result, tend to have much less specific score goals. They know they should prep, and so they dutifully sign up for a class with one of the big companies but don’t end up learning much. (more…)
