Thursday, May 5, 2011

Five Biggest Myths About College Admissions

Time.com
By Andrew J. Rotherham
Thursday, May 05, 2011

Now that all the college-admissions acceptance and rejection letters have been mailed, students and parents are taking stock of their lot. Some are happy, but a great many more probably feel disappointed. An enormous amount of energy and anxiety is expended in trying to get into college, but the truth is that the admissions process is much more haphazard than people like to think. The good news? In the long run, it's generally less important too. Here are the five biggest myths about this annual angst-a-thon:

Myth No. 3: Affirmative action rigs the process.
These days, other factors tilt the scales more than race-based affirmative action, which the Supreme Court has ruled cannot be an overriding factor for admissions at public universities or used in formulaic ways. State schools, for instance, need to make sure their classes represent all parts of a state. Being an athlete obviously helps. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of schools with strong athletics programs found that their athletes had substantially lower SAT scores than other students.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2069625,00.html#ixzz1LWX6KRQk

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