Education: February 2024 Archives
Dartmouth: SAT/ACT Requirement Restored | National Review
"The cruelest joke about removing the standardized-testing requirement for elite colleges is that the policy -- designed specifically as a way to increase minority enrollment -- achieves the exact opposite of what colleges intend. Rich and privileged mediocrities used to have their parents donate to secure admission to elite schools. Now, in an era of exponentially increased competition for admission, the rich simply hire six-figure 'college counselors' who stage-manage a child's entire life down to the em dashes in their admissions essays."
In addition to being a pioneer of web development and a visionary in the field of mobile technology, Russ McGuire is a board game developer. This article is a detailed and fascinating discussion of the trade-offs involved in small-scale board game production.
MIT Alumni Association Selection Committee Ballot - Candidate Profiles
Steven Carhart '70 is running for one of three open seats on the MIT Alumni Association Selection Committee. I applaud his manifesto, which compares the present moment to his years as an undergraduate in the turbulent late 1960s. (Emphasis added.)
"Today I believe we are facing challenges of comparable depth. They seem to come from the hubristic premise (hardly unique to MIT) that educational institutions can solve large social problems, protect students from confronting difficult emotional or substantive challenges, and simultaneously maintain educational quality. The means to achieve these goals seems to be an ever-growing number of administrative offices. However lofty their intentions, they seem to have produced greater internal conflict over social issues, a distracted and burdened faculty, and the highest administrative cost per student of any Ivy Plus university.
"If elected to the AASC, I will seek to nominate candidates who will proactively urge the Institute to renew its focus on providing the world with rigorously trained STEM graduates, attracted from all communities of talent regardless of means, and taught by the best faculty and most innovative researchers."
