Good-bye to the Test?
October 1, 2013
By Sarah Vander Schaaff What does it take to get into college? For that matter, preschool? Two recent stories in The New York Times address changes in the admissions process for some schools and both look at efforts to take the focus off standardized tests. First, there was the attention-grabbing headline: “Private Schools are Expected to Drop a Dreaded Entrance Test.” The test, as the story states, is “commonly known as the E.R.B.” and the organization that is dropping it when a contract expires next spring is the Independent School Admissions Association of Greater New York, which represents 130 schools. E.R.B. is shorthand for many things. Officially, it stands for Educational Records Bureau, a company founded in 1927. Today the… Read More
Not Getting In
January 29, 2013
By Sarah Vander Schaaff Decisions won’t be announced until mid to late February, but Emma feels certain that her daughter won’t get into any of the schools to which they’ve applied. There are more than four times as many applicants as there are slots; she doesn’t “know anyone”; and she hasn’t waged a letter writing campaign of persuasion. So Emma is thinking about next fall and what her daughter might do if she is not in school. Her daughter is two. Emma, who asked not to be identified by her real name, lives in West LA. In speaking with her on the phone this week, this LA mother said that a few months ago she thought, “You find a nice… Read More