Joanne Jacobs
The trauma of the non-traumatized student
It's the start of the college application season, and 12th-graders are searching their lives for subject matter for essays, writes Robert...
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Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 6
- 1 min
Tests may be 'optional,' but not if you want to get in to an elite college
Yale is not “being honest about the reality of our admissions process” because the university is “denying 98 percent of the students who...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 5
- 2 min
The college pitch: How students write personal essays
Minority students are only slightly less likely to write about their racial or ethnic identity in college admissions essays, according to...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jun 8
- 1 min
Young and gay
The Ivy League is not very heterosexual, notes Rod Dreher. You'll see that the percentages of LGBTQ+ students nearly tripled at Brown...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 19
- 2 min
Drop the admissions essay, and bring back the SAT
It's time to dump college admissions essays, writes Matthew Levey on The 74. Test scores and good grades in challenging courses are...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 6
- 2 min
Ivy crazy
Getting Aidan or Abigail into a bumper-sticker-worthy college doesn't come cheaply. In addition to $800,000 or so for 13 years at a top...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 6
- 2 min
Dartmouth will require SAT/ACT scores to help low-income students
Dartmouth will require applicants to submit standardized test scores such as the SAT or ACT, ending a long "pandemic pause," reports...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 28
- 2 min
More than ever, college applicants are writing about race
Writing about race is more popular than ever for black, Hispanic and indigenous college applicants, writes Bernard Mokam in the New York...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 9
- 1 min
To gain public trust, make college admissions less 'murky'
College admissions are "murky," and getting murkier, writes Peter Arcidiacono, a Duke economics professor, on Persuasion. "Test-optional"...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 9
- 2 min
Why Americans don't trust higher ed: It's the lying and the whining
Only 36 percent of Americans expressed "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of trust in higher education in a 2023 Gallup survey, down from 57...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 8
- 2 min
SAT/ACT scores predict success, open doors for 'diverse' students
Want equity? Require college applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. The progressives' "war...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 14, 2023
- 2 min
College fail: Are the Covid kids ready to learn?
"(Are you ready?) Yes, I'm ready . . . I don't even know how to hold your hand Just to make you understand But I'm ready (ready) to learn...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 22, 2023
- 2 min
Ivy dreams, but what's realistic?
"Safe to say Harvard is out," Demar Goodman, who's black, told a friend when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected race-based college...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 16, 2023
- 2 min
Disarming grades
"Handwringing" about grade inflation is "inflated," suggests Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post. She offers a piece by Jack Schneider...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 27, 2023
- 1 min
SAT scores fall, as the number of test takers rebounds
Despite the surge in colleges going "test optional," the number of students taking the SAT "is growing back to pre-pandemic figures,"...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 26, 2023
- 2 min
America needs strivers
Rewarding mediocrity is a losing strategy for America, writes Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion 3.0, on Education Next. U.S....
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 25, 2023
- 2 min
'A' is for 'awesome,' 'awful' and 'average'
"The most popular high school grade in America" is "A," writes Tim Donahue, who teaches high school English at Greenwich Country Day...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 11, 2023
- 1 min
Rejected by 16 colleges, 18-year-old takes Google job: Yes, he's Asian
Stanley Zhong earned nearly perfect grades (3.97 unweighted, 4.42 weighted) and SAT scores (1590 out of 1600). He founded his own...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 16, 2023
- 1 min
Yale changes admissions, avoids bias lawsuit
Elite colleges have "rolled out new application questions this fall to provide students with opportunities to discuss their racial...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 5, 2023
- 2 min
No tests, inflated grades and now AI is writing admissions essays (instead of Mom)
Colleges are trying to figure out whether to ban chatbots or see AI as a way to level the playing field for students who don't have Mom...
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