<p>My turn,
Floroda A and M has absolutely no academic standards whatsoever, has incompetant leaderaship, has been riddled with scandles of embeslement for years, has had it’s accredidation placed on probation and if you call them for any kind of customer service, you see the type of people they hire not only don’t place a value on good service, they as a group are just incapable of doing a good job.</p>
<p>Middle 50% of First-Year Students Percent WhoSubmitted Scores
SAT Critical Reading: 410 - 500 70%
SAT Math: 410 - 500 70%
SAT Writing: - -<br>
ACT Composite: 17 - 21 72%</p>
<p>noreally-
I see no problem with highlighting schools that are not worthy to be on par with the pack. Especially if these schools are public. If the tax payers are paying for a sub par product, they have a right to know and demand higher standards. That is a fundamental tenant of our governmental system. You also have a right to disagree with someone highlighting sup par quality products that are tax funded, but it doesn’t make it wrong by any means. In fact, it may not be a popular thing to do, but it is a responsible thing when someone highlights these things to the public.</p>
<p>There are many high school students with rocky records who grow up and make the most of a second chance that colleges like this offer. The point ought to be that there is a place for everyone.</p>
<p>dipping into a sub 20 ACT is not the same as the top 20 percentile of the ENTIRE student body sitting at 21, or 1000 SAT. Surely you realize this, right.</p>
<p>As far as judging, the act of judging is simply analyzing. Judging is not a bad act. Conclusions or actions as a result of judging can be good, bad or neutral, but the act of judging, by definition is 100% neutral.</p>
Of course. In the second case, the entire school should be eliminated, according to your logic. In the first case, only the low-performing programs should be eliminated, based on the same logic.</p>
<p>So at a school like Minnesota or Indiana, it would be quite justifiable to eliminate the football program (and probably certain other athletic programs as well). After all, low performance is low performance, regardless of whether it affects an entire school, or only a distinct sub-part of it. Surely you realize this, right?</p>
I think it’s a waste of time & money to scrape the barrel. Perhaps there shouldn’t be a place for everyone. Those people are better served learning a trade or two instead of doing business or english or whatever.</p>
<p>^ i’m sorry to read this sentiment. as a former ‘remedial’ student who went on to grad school at an ivy league university and who now teaches, i believe there should be a place for the thousands upon thousands of students who have potential, yet lacked the resources and support to present themselves in a more favorable light with regard to test scores and g.p.a.'s. there is no ‘bottom of the barrel’ here. people are people. their contributions to the greater good of society can be enhanced with the continued education that these so called ‘worst colleges’ provide. these universities are populated with folks who believe in the power of knowledge, the idea of a vibrant and curious community of learners, and are passionate about their field of scholarship. i, for one, am grateful for these schools. my contribution to society is better b/c of them and i, humbly, believe it is not a waste of the taxpayers money.</p>
<p>“So at a school like Minnesota or Indiana, it would be quite justifiable to eliminate the football program (and probably certain other athletic programs as well). After all, low performance is low performance, regardless of whether it affects an entire school, or only a distinct sub-part of it. Surely you realize this, right?”</p>
<p>Surely you realize that the contribution of the athletes can be quantified in REAL DOLLARS, a lot of them for these schools. Based on the return on investment, there is a solid justification for NOT eliminating these programs, and for allowing the athletes into the school. </p>
<p>There is no justification for funding crappy institutions with tax money. Well, there is, actually- it’s called political correctness. If someone has had a “rough” upbringing yet they have intellectual potential, they can still pull themselves up by the boot straps, go to the local library and borrow a Barrons SAT prep and score well.</p>
<p>I think you should judge a school more on the graduates it produces than on the students it admits. There are many, many schools that admit students with weak academic records and low scores. So what? The real question is, what happens next?</p>
<p>I think you could get into the state school I attended with a 13 ACT - isn’t that the grade you get for putting your name on the paper? However, the program of which I was a part was highly selective - with a school student body of 20,000 +, the program admitted 20 students a year and was nationally ranked. The school also had some other terrific programs. You can’t judge a school by its admissions stats alone. </p>
<p>(Of course, with respect to Texas Southern, they have a law school and their bar pass rates range between 40% and 60%…kind of telling if half the students fail the bar exam every year.)</p>
<p>What matters is what happens after they get there. </p>
<p>If the school is basically collecting tuition, encouraging students to rack up huge debt, and graduating few students with a 4-year degree and providing few students with the skills or qualifications to get a decent job or transfer to a school that does graduate students, then it’s a bad school.</p>
<p>If a school is serving the same academic population and providing them with useful job training and a useful credential–think CCs in many areas–then it could be considered a good school.</p>
<p>The bigger question is what is “college” and should everyone go. It is clear to everyone with an ounce of sophistication that all BA degrees are not created equal.</p>
<p>BTW, my H taught for one semester as an adjunct at a local college where at least 50% of the students registered in pre-calc flunk the course every year. The school continues to shovel their ill-prepared students into this meat grinder, and does not provide the foundation math courses that so many of their students clearly need to progress. (The students who take this course do so because calc is required for their desired major.) I think that that meets the criteria for a “bad” school.</p>