Open Admissions

In Open Admissions Danica Savonick traces the largely untold story of the teaching experience of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich at the City University of New York (cuny) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This period, during which cuny guaranteed tuition-free admission to every city high school graduate, was one of the most controversial in US educational history. Analyzing their archival teaching materials—syllabi, lesson plans, and assignments—alongside their published work, Savonick reveals how these renowned writers were also transformative educators who developed creative methods of teaching their students to navigate and change the world. In fact, many of their methods—such as student-led courses, collaborative public projects, and the publication of student writing—anticipated the kinds of student-centered and antiracist pedagogies that have become popular in recent years. In addition to recovering the pedagogical legacy of these writers, Savonick shows how teaching in cuny’s free and open classrooms fundamentally altered their writing and, with it, the course of American literature and feminist criticism.

A intensely charged, confrontational two character play set in an urban college speech teacher's office, as she faces a brilliant but illiterate Black student. Calvin demands to be taught and not merely shuffled through the system. Alice struggles to help him but is trapped by the double standards of an inadequate educational system.

The implementation of Open Admissions at CUNY led to the development of a unique program of comprehensive services designed to support the Open Admissions student throughout his or her college career. This book discusses that program, with particular emphasis on Hunter College, supplemented by material on Hostos Community College, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Medgar Evers College. This book is not merely a compilation of statistical facts and figures, but, rather, an account of the experiences of students, parents, faculty, tutors, peer advisers, administrators, and various other participants in the system. The authors have been at Hunter College since the inception of the Open Admissions policy and have been personally involved with all of the related programs and procedures.

True or False: Princeton's Director of Admissions hacked into Yale's secured admissions website to find out who Yale had accepted and rejected. Boston College's average SAT score is up to 1370 and Boston University's average SAT score is up to 1320. Carnegie Mellon offers spots on a priority wait-list to students who send in cash and most of these students get admitted. Well, it's all true. An FBI investigation traced Yale's hacked website back to the computer of Princeton's Director of Admissions, Stephen LeMenager. Boston College's average SAT score is the same as Cornell's and close to Penn's (both Ivies). Carnegie Mellon does have a "priority" wait-list-it costs $400 to be on it and the admissions rate is 95%. Welcome to the circus. Dazed and Confused. Students see the college list published by their high school's guidance department listing every acceptance and rejection from the prior year. Next to each entry is a GPA, a SAT score and the number of AP classes taken. The list is usually ordered from highest to lowest GPA. The first entry: 4.19 (unweighted), 1430 SAT, 7 AP classes, Princeton-rejected, Yale-rejected, Harvard-rejected, Stanford-rejected, Columbia-rejected, Vassar-accepted. Ouch. Scan down the list looking for Yale. Did anyone get into Yale last year? Down at the ninth entry: 3.93, 1450 SAT, 6 AP classes, Brown-accepted, Yale-accepted, Georgetown-accepted. Okay, anyone else? Scan down to the twenty-second entry: 3.88, 1560 SAT, 7 AP classes, Yale-accepted, Duke-accepted, William and Mary-rejected. This doesn't make any sense, thinks the student. Many of the students with the best grades didn't get into any top colleges and still others were rejected at colleges ranked lower than the colleges to which they were accepted. Welcome to the world of college admissions. Ever wondered what a private counselor tells an Upper East Side family for $10,000? The secrets are in College Admissions Trade Secrets. College Admissions Trade Secrets is a straight forward guide to: Top 7 Lies Colleges Tell The Real Scoop Behind Acceptance Rates Things That Really Matter When Comparing Colleges How to Write a Great Essay and Prep for a Great Interview Common Mistakes that Result in Rejection Last Minute Tips for Seniors A Scandalous Examination of Harvard's Course Catalogue, Penn's View Book, and NYU's Faculty How Anyone Can Avoid Being in the Pool of Applicants with the Lowest Acceptance Rate

SATs, ACTs, GPAs. Everyone knows that these scores can’t tell a college everything that’s important about an applicant. But what else should admissions officers look for, and how can they know it when they see it? In College Admissions for the 21st Century a leading researcher on intelligence and creativity offers a bold and practical approach to college admissions testing. Standardized tests are measures of memory and analytical skills. But the ever-changing global society beyond a college campus needs more than just those qualities, argues Robert Sternberg. Tomorrow’s leaders and citizens also need creativity, practicality, and wisdom. How can the potential for those complex qualities be measured? One answer is “Kaleidoscope,” a new initiative in undergraduate admissions, first used at Tufts University. Its open-ended questions for applicants, and the means used to score the answers, gives applicants and admissions officers the chance to go beyond standardized tests. Does it work? As Sternberg describes in detail, Kaleidoscope measures predicted first-year academic success, over and above SATs and high school GPAs, and predicted first-year extracurricular activities, leadership, and active citizenship as well. And every year that Kaleidoscope measures were used, the entering class’s average SATs and high school GPAs went up too. What worked at Tufts can work elsewhere. New kinds of assessments, like Kaleidoscope, can liberate many colleges and students from the narrowness of standardized tests and inspire new approaches to teaching for new kinds of talented, motivated citizens of the world.

Reveals practices and issues in higher education admissions, which are critical factors for improving worldwide access and equity.