If you gave the survey as part of the admission process, the students would know the responses could impact admission and would answer each question accordingly.
The survey was given during orientation.
Clearly, since you could be dismissed based on your answers, that last statement is a lie.
Hmmm, don’t these types of companies have an “up or out” (weed-out) culture?
Seems like if the school believes that students will not succeed, and the school does not have the resources to significantly improve their chances of success, it should be “weeding them out” when making admission decisions, not after they enroll.
According to Collegedata, Mount Saint Mary’s University is only moderately selective:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1059
Retention and graduation rates:
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg06_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1059
The school’s actual 58%/64% 4/6-year graduation rates are higher than the predicted 32%/58% from:
http://www.heri.ucla.edu/GradRateCalculator.php
In other words, the school is already doing significantly better in graduation rates than one would expect for schools of its level of admission selectivity.
For what it is worth, my D1 works for a company that makes software and provides consulting services to colleges to help them improve their retention. She says her peers and managers have been discussing this over the past few days, and are appalled. It may be a business, but not everyone in it is that cold blooded.
This language is so unbelievably harsh, I’ll be shocked if he keeps his job. As for whichever of them (president or board chair) who thought emails don’t come back to haunt you, all I can say is how unbelievably naive that is in this day and age.
Mods - Can the first post be edited to indicate Mount St Mary’s in MD - I read it and thought St Mary’s, the school affiliated with Notre Dame.
What on earth?!
I struggled significantly my first month or so of college. Within a week of classes starting, I lost the man who was like my second father- he took care of me after my dad’s accident and we were very close. That led to me missing assignments and doing poorly. But, I worked with professors and got back on track. I graduated PBK with many grad school offers (and am now in a top-ranked PhD program).
This is just… disturbing.
This is so beyond the pale.
Misleading students about the consequences of answers on a survey supposedly to “help them” at orientation.
President of said institution trying to advance argument in favor of flunking students extremely early by using language like “putting a Glock” to the heads of the bunnies/students?!!
Forcing the student out within the first few weeks of the semester without giving them a reasonable chance/time to prove themselves?
This is OUTRAGEOUS!!
The chance to “weed-out students” at the outset is at the admissions stage. If the college adcoms admit them…the college has the responsibility to educate these students and give them a fair chance of at least a semester/year to see if they are viable students*.
How hard is for someone with that level of social experience and intelligence to realize that it is a school that he is now working for?
Google “Executive Function Disorder.” Discover that some ADHD and Aspie kids lack executive function skills in a catastrophic way. Realize that for many kids, these things cannot be taught fairly quickly.
I would pay a staggeringly large amount of money for someone to teach organizational skills to my National Merit Semifinalist son. Believe me, these things cannot be taught fairly quickly. If you don’t have a kid with executive function disorder, you have no idea.
You know who “gets drowned” or “has a Glock put to his head”? A college president who doesn’t understand public relations. Bye, Felicia.
Of course if someone has executive function disorder it would be very hard to teach him/her that particular skill. It goes without saying.
If a kid can pick up organization skills quickly when it’s necessary, that kid is not the one who is in danger of flunking out. They’ll probably pick up the skills, possibly after a bad semester. The ones who are going to fail for organizational reasons are exactly the ones for whom oldfort’s plan of teaching organizational skills quickly will not work. In other words, old fort’s claim to teach organizational skills quickly would either be superfluous or ineffective.
A larger issue raised by this bunny outrage is **what else do colleges do to manipulate their ranking? **
Colleges also relegate their “weaker” new freshman admits to Spring term matriculation, because those students’ stats don’t figure in the ranking formula. Only the the data for Fall new freshman matriculation is used.
CF - you are missing the point because you are too focused on your child. A post up thread made a claim that some students could do well in high school, but fail in college, due to overly helpful parents while living at home. I disagreed with that statement. This discussion had nothing to do with kids with any sort of disability. We were referencing AVERAGE student, not students with disabilities.
It would be like someone were to say, “It is not that hard to teach people how to put a color coordinated outfit together,” and another person to jump in to say, “Not if that person is color blind.” Well yeah, it would be hard in that case.
Agreed, but that kid may flounder for the first few months in college before getting on track. A student with disability will probably always need special accommodations and assistance. I am sure the school would be informed in that case.
I wish we had access to the questions used in the Dead Bunny Survey™. Since they already had access to GPA, class rigor, and test scores, what question on a survey would trump those factors and put a student on the to be “asked to leave” list?
Remember, no wrong answers!
Mount St. Mary’s president’s defends his proposal:
He is spinning it now. Yes, it could save some students some money. But the school has a procedure in place already, as pretty much all schools do, to put students on probation and ease them out after some warning and opportunity to improve. I bet he is thinking that they could cut staff if his proposal is adopted, too. Students who need less help need fewer office hours, right? So profs could then teach another class. Bain, Bain, Bain… through and through.
This may be an enrollment-balancing scheme at many schools, although it may have the above side effect.
Re: #35
The Temple example is different in that it is done in the admission process, not after the student has enrolled.
@ucbalumnus #37
The colleges get a “2-fer” out of it-- how awesome! But they put the “weaker” stat admits in the Spring entry cohort. The professors regard them as 2nd rate goods.