With application deadlines looming, popular magazines have recently devoted much space to college admissions. TIME's cover story this week highlights changes the College Board has made to the new SAT, noting that it is "an exhaustive revision largely intended to mold the U.S. secondary-school system to its liking." Among the changes to this widely used and heavily scrutinized test: a new essay section, advanced algebra, a section on grammar, and an end to the long-lamented analogies section. Over at The Atlantic, the November issue devotes an entire section to America's increasingly hysterical and chaotic system of college admissions. Worthy of note is Nicholas Confessore's evisceration of the popular U.S. News & World Report college rankings, "What Makes a College Good?" (James Fallows, a correspondent for the Atlantic who edited this special section, is a former editor of U.S. News.) To Confessore, these rankings started as an admirable attempt to put information in the hands of students and parents - put them in the driver's seat, if you will - but have themselves become the driver of much that goes on in higher ed today. Middle-tier schools, looking to boost their rankings, have started to focus on "input" measurements prized by U.S. News - big endowments, per-student spending, new buildings - with the result that less attention is paid to what's happening in the classroom, much less to what students are learning in college.
"Inside the new SAT," by John Cloud, TIME, October 18, 2003
"Our first annual college-admissions survey," Atlantic Monthly, November 2003