Northern Illinois U. Eliminating Use of ‘Unnecessary and Biased’ Standardized Tests
“comes from our deep commitment to making a college education both accessible and equitable for a broad and diverse student population”
Could it be that they’re lowering their standards in an effort to increase enrollment?
The College Fix reports:
Public university eliminates ‘unnecessary and biased’ standardized tests in admissions
Northern Illinois University announced this week that going forward it will be eliminating any consideration of standardized tests in its undergraduate admissions policies, instead admitting every applicant with a 3.0 or above grade point average.
The revised admissions policy is meant to “eliminate unnecessary and biased barriers,” university President Lisa Freeman said in a statement, according to The Chicago Tribune.
High school seniors who apply to the DeKalb, Illinois school will no longer have to submit standardized test scores, the school said. The rule goes into effect for students applying for the fall 2021 semester, starting next school year.
Provost Beth Ingram said that knowing a student’s GPA renders standardized testing scores “irrelevant.” Freeman, meanwhile, said the new policy “comes from our deep commitment to making a college education both accessible and equitable for a broad and diverse student population.”
The primary purpose for the elimination of testing requirements may actually stem from the school’s steep drop in enrollment in recent years. The Tribune reports that two other state schools, Southern Illinois University and Western Illinois University, have implemented similar “test-optional” policies:
The changes in the admissions policy come as NIU has struggled to stem steep enrollment losses. The number of first-time freshman students at NIU has been stable for years. But overall enrollment has dropped 32% since 2009, according to state data.
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Comments
They have to drop their admissions requirements because they need the tuition.
Never mind they implied that the “diverse” students they want to encourage couldn’t pass the standardized tests. If I were one of those “diverse” high-school seniors in Illinois, I would be offended.
They need the students–enrollment at most Illinois colleges is down, the with the exception of the U of I.
The real issue is once they have done this, can the students graduate with any meaningful degree.
I don’t see why not, so long as they don’t also drop their own exams. That would render their degrees worthless.
Define “Exam”.
And how would you know whether or not that was done? It doesn’t show up on a transcript.
This definitely devalues the degree…grade inflation is real and, sadly, the biggest check against it is admission standards. There should be more than that, but there just isn’t.
You should see how it comes naturally nowadays for students to demonstrate their entitlement to a curve when an exam average is in the C range.
Their Philosophy department will offer a Bachelor of Science in Meaning.
As OldProf2 and rochf have noted, enrollment drops are most likely behind this.NIU fall enrollment hits lowest level in 50 years,
That is a drop of about a third in enrollment, from 24,424 students in 2009 to 16,609 students in 2019. As Pravda would have once said, it is no accident that NIU has dropped standardized test scores for admission.
They might try kicking out the anti-American propagandists, firing the diversity bureaucrats, and teaching real subjects to real students with real grades.
But that would be crazy, and at least 16 flavors of “phobic.”
Stupidity is a large portion of the dieversity rainbow.
Northern Illinois U. Eliminating Use of ‘Unnecessary and Biased’ Standardized Tests
“comes from our deep commitment to making a college education both accessible and equitable for a broad and diverse student population”
Please allow me translate this for those who are not quite up to date on the current status of academia in this nation: we are eliminating the use of tried-and-true standardized tests, which are objective tests of intelligence and knowledge, because certain groups of people are somewhat lacking in intelligence and knowledge; this way we can lower standards without actually admitting that is what we are doing so those who should not be in college can attend anyway and we can pat ourselves on the back for having a “diverse” group of students at our school.
Grade point averages are as inflated as to be a joke–butthen so is Northern Illinois University. Given the continuing exodus of population from Illinois because of the terrible climate; crooked politicians; overpaid public employees; and exorbitant taxes, the state has too many fake institutions of higher education