Looking… 
I may need a bigger looking glass.
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Many smaller states simply do not have a talent bench deep enough to provide an appropriate peer group for their brightest students, even if they all stayed in state for college.
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I see only 4 kids in top25 who don’t go to MIT
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How many from University of Alabama?
Then advocate for scholarships. I am sure there are exceptionally bright students who would benefit from being around equally impressive peers, but I have to eye roll a bit. My own bias is seeing parents pay for a gifted label when the kid is 5 and then claiming the kid must not be challenged enough when they don’t do well in school. For every truly gifted child, I would guess there are 50 whose parents are convinced they are.
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This is exactly why I support test optional admissions. There are plenty of students who are intelligent, hardworking, and have potential with below 20 ACTs.
Some of them don’t even need remediation. I’ve given examples of students like this before, so won’t bore people with that again.
I appreciate this discussion and also your willingness to think big and outside the box.
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There are also intelligent hardworking kids with terrible scores which reflect their utter lack of preparation and most certainly do need remediation, which may or may not be successful.
Just finished my 15th alumni interview for the year. The difference in preparation among applicants is just heartbreaking and I agree with others who note we need to address this in elementary school. Some of these kids really have no idea how far behind they are already.
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Exactly. Too many students have lost way before they get to college admissions.
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Address in Elementary School for the win. Thank you Roycroftmom.
I’m no expert on higher ed- but I’ve seen, participated in, created, helped fund, taught various employee training programs ranging from very sophisticated to pretty basic. Companies spend tens of millions of dollars a year-- some of it very practical “Here is the new safety equipment and how to use it” and some of it more skill-based- effective time management tools, how to give or get feedback, six ways to say “You are wrong” without saying the word “Wrong”, etc.
Companies have an abysmal track record teaching basic, elementary school skills to adults. When employees- or prospective employees- show up without the core reading, writing, computational, social studies/geography type skills a kid is supposed to be developing in elementary school- it is very, very difficult to turn that person into a competent employee doing anything requiring even a modicum of contemporary complexity.
Even for the trades- even for what is disparagingly called “blue collar” work. Safety reports- they require interpreting a pie chart. Just in time inventory production- requires understanding what a variance is. A request to your boss for more coverage for third shift-- needs to be able to put three coherent sentences together in a brief email. I’m not talking about the sophisticated computer based roles-- these are basic factory floor jobs which can no longer be performed by someone reading at a second grade level or someone who hasn’t been taught decimal points or percentages.
Do you want your mom’s chemo meds administered by a tech who doesn’t know the difference between a kilo and a lb? Or who doesn’t know that 5 mg can cure someone but 50 mg can kill someone? It is tough to teach the “on the job” components for a lot of roles when the person- tragically, a human being-- had a hugely sub-standard elementary education.
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There was a time when a high school diploma ensured basic literacy and numeracy. No longer.
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High school graduation standards were not higher a few decades ago. Indeed, what I remember was that they were lower.
However, the post high school paths have become more educationally demanding as the world and most professions have become more complex. So higher high school graduation standards now may be less sufficient than lower high school graduation standards back then.
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Addressing this in elementary school is not as simple as people want to believe. I have worked for many years in all levels of k-12 education. Lots of time, money, resources (blood, sweat, and tears) have been dedicated to this for longer than I have been in education.
I do agree there is a point where people need to face they don’t have the skills or abilities for certain jobs, programs, or universities. But I don’t see underserving kids getting into competitive schools ahead of the “I’m so gifted it’s hard for me to relate to most people” kids.
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The difference is that high schools actually enforced those standards in the past rather than passing through students who are illiterate. Diplomas were actually not automatic for attendance. Fewer kids graduated, but those that did had at least some level of skill.
Not from my experience in high school a few decades ago. The motivation and achievement of students in elective courses not exclusively chosen by students aiming for four year colleges was quite low (some just did enough to earn the D grades needed to fulfill credits for high school graduation).
The “good old days” memories are often distorted or selective.
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I don’t see undeserving kids getting in AT ALL, let alone crowding out the allegedly gifted. So I agree with you there.
I don’t believe the solution is simple- at all. My parents were teachers. One parent was a literacy specialist and taught in a wide range of settings- under-funded urban schools, well funded suburban schools, very fancy suburban schools where every other kid was either gifted or had LD’s so parents could make sure the kid was getting services or enrichment.
It’s not easy, no matter the setting. Even for a kid with no learning challenges-- how is a book, a plain, old book… supposed to compete with what the kid sees and does after school? Every app, every game, every video (and this was before X and Tik tok, god help kids now) promises fun, noise, rah rah, instant gratification.
You’re going to teach kids how to “sound it out” when that takes patience and practice and for some- a pretty laborious process?
I don’t believe it’s simple and I apologize if my post implied that it was. Thanks to you for your years of hard work!
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IME post pandemic everyone graduates regardless of skill or effort at many high schools. Some choose to actually learn something.
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Back in that day, people could also get a decent job without a high school diploma. Now, you can’t be the custodian without at least a GED. There is also a downtrend in vocational schools. It’s not a simple comparison when the stakes have changed.
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Then let me clarify, the stakes may have gone up due to credential creep at the same time that student performance with those credentials is trending down.
I am no martyr. I’m cynical. I would really struggle if either of my kids wanted to pursue a career in education.
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Chicken and egg 