Non Traditional Colleges Are Allowing Non Traditional Entrances
According to various reliable sources including: U.S. News and World
Report, The College Board, admission office websites and others,
colleges and universities have been altering their admission policies in
order to allow Non-Traditional students a more attainable approach to
their college education leading to a degree. This is due to many
factors:
- Having a learning disability
- A pronounced learning style that leads to lower than expected scores on multiple -choice bubble tests
- Problems arising from a student speaking English as their Second Language
- Being educated abroad or in a school that de-emphasizes standardized testing.
The SAT is a test that is designed so that only the highest
performing segment of students will do well. Most students’ scores are
fairly consistent with their academic preparation. Sometimes they are
not.
So what is happening is that colleges, including those in the Ivy League, are relying on the holistic assessment of the entrant.
They are looking basically at factors such as his/her academic
achievements in their courses as well as contributions in society like
service learning, community involvement, social involvement (clubs,
organizations, societies) and, most importantly, who the person really
is (what books he/she reads, what does the person have in his or her
mind and heart.
There are currently eight hundred schools around the nation that do
not require the SAT or any other standardized test for admission
purposes. They range from community colleges to some of the top Ivy
League institutions. A handful of these are Arizona State University;
Berkley College, NYC; Briarcliffe College, NYC; Byrn Mawr College, PA;
Cambridge College, Mass; DePaul University, Chicago; Fashion Institute
of Technology, NYC; Gallaudet College (Top School For The Visually
Challenged), Washington D.C.; John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NYC;
Texas A & M, Texas; and Metropolitan College , NYC.
Every year new colleges are becoming more holistic by making
standardized entrance tests optional. As well as undergraduate schools,
there are graduate schools that are getting on the bandwagon. For the
same reasons that the undergraduate schools making entrance tests
optional, the graduate schools are making GRE (Graduate Record Exam) and
other graduate entrance exams optional.
There are currently over one hundred such institutes of higher
learning, for example St. Joseph’s University, Loyola University,
University of Maryland, California State University, University of New
Mexico, East Stroudsburg University, Bridgeport University, and Iowa
State University.
This relaxing of admission requirements has opened up more legroom
for the non traditional student. By the year 2015, there will be over
two thousand entrance test optional colleges and universities if this
trend continues.
