Tufts: Creative section of application proves moderately popular

[asteriskea]

<p>According to Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin, the optional creative essay attracted about half of the 15,383 students who applied this year.</p>

<p>

…There were seven questions in the section and each student that decided to complete it selected one.</p>

<p>Drawing a picture, imagining an alternative historical outcome if Rosa Parks had given up her seat on a bus in Montgomery in 1955 and creating a short story about the end of MTV were some of the choices available to students.</p>

<p>The overarching goal of the questions was to provide admissions officers with a way to pinpoint leadership abilities in applicants…</p>

<p>The questions, which collectively comprise the Kaleidoscope Admissions Pilot, were drawn from research done at Yale by Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Sternberg. Coffin was also involved in their creation.</p>

<p>Sternberg’s goal in his research was to develop a new measure of testing for leadership and creativity potential apart from looking at SAT scores and high school GPAs.</p>

<p>Based on his theory of intelligence, students who have these skill are most likely to succeed, he said in an e-mail. “[In] school and life, you need creative skills to come up with new ideas, analytical skills to know if they are good ideas and practical skills to execute your ideas and persuade others of their value,” he said.</p>

<p>Beyond leadership potential, Sternberg said that the questions can also predict academic success. His research has shown that employing new methods of evaluation have “doubled prediction of academic success in the freshman year,” compared to just looking at SAT scores, he said.</p>

<p>Even when high school GPAs were added to the mix, including additional factors can lead to 50 percent increase in accuracy, he said.</p>

<p>These statistics come from a paper by Sternberg that was published in 2006. It reported research conducted while he was at Yale and reflected the results of analytical, creative and practical thinking tests. This research helped him to create the questions on the Tufts application.</p>

<p>Sternberg said he is satisfied with the number of students that filled out the optional essay portion, although he said that he did not have any specific numerical goal.</p>

<p>“I would have been satisfied with almost whatever results we got, because the goal is not to get a certain number of applicants to fill out the new section, but rather to give whatever applicants wish [to] a chance to show a broader range of strengths,” he said.</p>

<p>Although many students fall into this category, there are an equal number who think that the section will not add to or will detract from their application…</p>

<p>Although the responses have been helpful and Sternberg wants to keep them on the application in the future, he said that they will most likely never become a requirement.</p>

<p>According to Coffin, they will also continue to be a secondary consideration, behind academic performance. “Academic achievement remains the most important criteria in our selection process,” he said.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://media.www.tuftsdaily.com/media/storage/paper856/news/2007/03/09/News/Creative.Section.Of.Application.Proves.Moderately.Popular-2770663.shtml?reffeature=popuarstoriestab[/url]”>http://media.www.tuftsdaily.com/media/storage/paper856/news/2007/03/09/News/Creative.Section.Of.Application.Proves.Moderately.Popular-2770663.shtml?reffeature=popuarstoriestab&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[gianscolere1]

<p>Here’s another article:</p>

<p><a href=“http://milton.edu/news/pages/magazine_2006fall_fs.html[/url]”>http://milton.edu/news/pages/magazine_2006fall_fs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

Lee Coffin, dean of undergraduate admission at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, tested the secondary school admission world at Milton. He was dean of admission at Milton from 2001 to 2003. Lee takes mission statements seriously. To the extent that a school’s mission is alive in that school’s culture and priorities, the mission guides the admission decisions: Who would thrive in this environment? In turn, the students who enroll ultimately strengthen the mission. A pilot program that will be filtered into Tufts’ standard admission process aims to improve the chances of maximizing that two-way dynamic.</p>

<p>President Lawrence Bacow expresses Tufts’ mission as forging a community that uses intellect to make a difference in the world. “We celebrate the ideals of citizenship and activism,” Lee explains. “We want to create new leaders for a changing world. Assertive-ness, flexibility, inquisitiveness, creativity, passion and leadership are qualities we seek.”

</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>Interesting article - made me wonder if students from prep schools, such as Milton and CRH, are more aware of the Sternberg experiment and more inclined to tackle the optional essays. I can’t help but think that a student who was well-informed about the project and its intent would not only choose to write it but would spend more time and effort to produce an impressive result.</p>

<p>The Milton article had a good section on how Tufts evaluates applicants:</p>

<p>

How will it work? Tufts will launch a pilot program in the 2007 admission season, although it won?t apply to all applicants in the initial year. Tufts, like most colleges and universities, evaluates each applicant in three areas: academic achievement; extracurricular activities and talent; and personal qualities. At Tufts, admission officers use a scale of 1 to 7 to rate these attributes; a score of 1 represents outstanding achievement. The evaluation for academic achievement is the most important element and represents the ?first cut.? Applicants with scores higher than 5, approximately a quarter of the applicant pool, are out of the running. At the other end of the range, applicants in the top two ratings represent the top 20?25 percent of Tufts? applicant pool. In the middle of these two groups sit the ?3s? and ?4s,? academically ?qualified? candidates who constitute the broad, talented middle of Tufts? pool. Last year, nearly 8,000 of the 15,291 applicants fell into this band. Lee hopes the Rainbow Project?the pilot system to assess for the successful intelligence?will help sort this qualified middle more effectively. “At a place like Tufts, where the overall acceptance rate is usually 25?28 percent,” Lee notes, " the admission process is inherently subjective. We hope the Rainbow measurements will offer additional, quantifiable indices to measure the ?intangibles? that populate our work."</p>

<p>Students will be offered seven optional essays that have been designed to get at evidence of analytical, creative and practical skills; wisdom will also be probed…</p>

<p>Using the Sternberg scale to grade the essays or the timed exercise, Tufts will introduce additional admissions evaluations. What impact will this grading have as admission officers try to make decisions? "We will admit approximately 2,000 students from this middle band of 8,000,? Lee says. Imagine, for instance, that 10 have earned a ?distinguished? level of creativity. That?s a relevant additional data point. That would prompt a different conversation. We had one essay from a person who grew up in a household and community as a member of a completely underrepresented political group. He talked about how he learned how to listen, how he went about getting things done. He demonstrated a high level of practical ability. If, as a nation, we’re trying to foster civil political discourse between people with opposing viewpoints, why wouldn’t we admit this student?

</p>

<p>The related Rainbow project’s pilot 40 question"Self-assessment" carried out at CRH is also optional:</p>

<p>“Sternberg Tests Proved to be Strenuous, yet useful”</p>

<p>

After seven years in the making, a new test may now join the roster of common ?standardized tests? used in school admissions?SATs, ACTs, GREs, and the like. On Monday, April 17th, third formers trudged up to Ruutz Rees Dining Hall to complete the 30-page test and contribute to the research for Choate?s own admissions evaluation, which is being developed by Dr. Robert J. Sternberg, a national psychology expert and a former Choate parent…</p>

<p>According to Director of Admissions Ray Diffley III, “[Choate receives applications from] tons of great applicants… frankly, it’s hard to distinguish many from another… We had to figure out a way to find students and to make the best decisions… [about those who possess the] qualities that they would need to succeed at Choate.” Choate has been developing the new admission test, in conjunction with Dr. Sternberg and his team of Yale University associates, for this purpose.</p>

<p>Ali Smith '09 was among the third formers who took part in Sternberg testing, as the study has been known around campus. She explained that “the questions were in four parts: what you would do in a situation, rating choices for a situation, write a story from a list of [titles], and logic questions.” Another third former said the test also contained questions on ethical issues, as well as questions that tested ability to extrapolate information after reading a passage. Finally, there were some questions regarding adaptation to boarding school life.</p>

<p>Freshman students who participated in the research testing had mixed reactions. Some found it interesting to be part of the study, while others did not know why they were taking it. Dean of third form boys John Ford told The News, “the reaction from the students was a combination of frustration and… some thought it was just funny, and I think overall [taking the test three times] might have made them take the test less seriously.” Sofia Gearty '09 commented that she knew the research was important “but the tests were really too long. I think it was unfair of them to ask us to take thirty-page long tests and respond thoughtfully and carefully for each question”…</p>

<p>Choate is the first among the secondary schools to develop its own admissions test, and Mr. Diffley mentioned that “our peer schools are very interested at what we’re doing… and very much supporting us, eager for us to succeed ? because everybody is looking for something other than an SAT or an SSAT to try to figure out who are the students who have what it takes to succeed.” The new admission test will enter the trial phase as an optional element for prospective students in Choate admissions starting the fall of 2007.</p>

<p>“The bottom line is, this is the kind of test where if someone tries to “beat it”, they’ll only be learning how to be successful,” said Mr. Diffley. “We’d love for people to beat this test and learn how to make the best decisions and how to navigate their environments, develop their creative sides. [The Choate application] has a couple of questions that try to address the creative side… [and we have received] endless amounts of comments about how Choate’s application is different from other schools they’ve applied to; Choate’s campus environment is more lively, more creative, more energetic. In part, it’s who we are and what we’re looking for, so in a way this assessment matches up wonderfully with who Choate is as a school.”

</p>

<p><a href=“http://thenews.choate.edu/files/EEuyuAVFAFOzsOfYIt.php[/url]”>http://thenews.choate.edu/files/EEuyuAVFAFOzsOfYIt.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;