Imagine what high school would have been like if you took away the stress of "getting into college." No A.P. classes, volunteer projects, extracurricular activities, and SAT's begone! Begone countless applications and essays... tutors, general brown-nosing around recommendation time. And forget about the torture of waiting for the big acceptance-- will it be a fat or skinny envelope? What's the appeal process if I don't get in? What will I do if I don't get in?
Well, apparently all that hard work we did to get into college was pointless... because kids these days don't even need a high school diploma to get into college-- and all they have to do is complete a few courses to get their high school diploma-- COLLEGE COURSES, while they're there. This is fully deserving of a WTF moment.
The NYT reported on this phenomenon today; The major television news programs will likely follow suit this week (The Today Show suspectly mimics the NYT's major stories the day after...). And, okay-- it's certain caliber schools that are admitting non-high school grads into full time college programs, but again, WTF?
The Times reported that in some cases socially-minded schools are doing so to provide opportunities to students who may not have had them in high school, citing that students failing in high school may not reflect upon their academic abilities-- but outside factors such as home life, attention/interaction with teachers, etc. may have impeded them from succeeding in high school. But do they really think that it's going to be all that better in an often times bigger school? And does removing the student from the home (and many times, they're actually not physically removed from home) really remove them from their reality? Some schools too are doing it to take advantage of federal loans and scholarships-- and studies show that these students more often than not end up dropping out of college and defaulting on their loans-- leaving tax payers to pick up the pieces-- both socially and financially.
Maybe I'm missing something; but to me, it still begs the question, if they don't prove that they're capable of the commitment required for academic success by graduating high school, how can they be successful in persuit of higher education? And what about all those kids who have worked hard and HAVE graduated, who are getting rejected?
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
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2 comments:
This actually is really interesting. My long-time college boyfriend was a high school drop-out but managed to graduate from Northwestern and attend Oxford as an abroad program during his stint in college. I never quite understood how he could drop out of high school yet still be accepted into college and then go on to Oxford. I don't even think he took the GED. If I remember correctly, he dropped out and worked as a bell hop for a year. When he applied to college, he said that his dropping out and subsequent job WAS education -- and better than he was getting in high school. Anyway, it worked for at least one person I know. But I think his case is a rare one.
Craziness! I don't doubt the importance and educational value of "on the job" training, that's for sure... but I'm having a hard time equating the academic rigor of college with lack of academic achievement... but, I'm also the first one to expound on the unnecessariness of standardized tests and how they don't measure intelligence or the ability to do well in school... so maybe this is just another component of that...? I can't decide...
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