<p>CB, a couple questions for you. First is a comment really. Drawing a link between Iowa’s admissions requirements and some arbitrary list of college acceptances is a pretty dubious affair. Now, IF you’re suggesting that this list represents the acceptance of high-caliber candidates and IF the lack of Iowa mention shows their lack of interest in Iowa and IF this in turn means that Iowa is a low-end school which is SOMEHOW because of the RAI system, well, by golly your logic holds water. But that logic is obscure and twisted.</p>
<p>I’d ask you CB, why it is your posts concerning Iowa have changed from positive and optimistic to generally negative. This shift occured shortly after your arrival on campus last fall. I am guessing you are not enjoying your time there? Are you finding the academics lacking? Most of your posts seem to deal with the school’s shortcomings.</p>
<p>Lovemykids2, the RAI is a recent tool used by the University and by Michael Barron’s admission it is an experiment. Whether it “works” or not is, like most aspects of college admissions, a subjective and complicated question. Personally I would not be surprised if the weights applied to different factors get changed. The current RAI formula heavily weights the number of college prep courses and underweights ACT score and GPA, in my opinion. So what does this mean about the caliber of accepted candidates? I have no idea.</p>
<p>While it’s clear that Iowa’s requirements are not as high as Illinois’ or Wisconsin’s or certainly Michigan’s, any suggestion that it’s a cakewalk school are foolish. My son is a freshman in biomedical engineering and he is getting his a__ kicked. The recommended courseload for this semester is 18 credits: two math courses, chem, physics and computer science. No elective, no humanities. You tell me if that’s tough.</p>