Roundup: Week of March 26 - March 30

Limited Impact of Merit Scholarships on Enrollment

A new study conducted by James Monk at the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute found the correlation between merit scholarships and higher yields of targeted students at private colleges may be "in the eye of the beholder." Monk tracked the impact of merit scholarships in an experimental aid program carried out by an unnamed institution, believed to be the University of Richmond. A group of 319 top-rated applicants who qualified for no need-based financial aid were offered $7,000 renewable merit scholarships, which covered 17 percent of tuition and fees. The number of these top-rated students who enrolled was compared to the number of top-rated students from the previous year who received no such scholarships. The yield of top-rated students increased only 3.9 percent. Monk concluded that merit scholarships have only a limited impact on enrollment, and that the aid package must be fairly large to spur a substantial yield difference.

AP Courses Audited for Rigor

As the number of Advanced Placement (AP) courses taught in high schools continues to expand rapidly, the College Board has become concerned that schools may be lowering the rigor and standards of courses labeled "AP." In the last decade, the number of AP courses offered nationwide has doubled. The College Board had previously exercised little oversight over the content of AP courses. Now, the board is auditing all 130,000 AP courses to make sure they reflect the rigor of college-level learning. Teachers must submit their course syllabi to the College Board for review and approval. The College Board expects a decline in approved courses as a result of teacher non-response, but hopes to approve around 105,000 courses. Since January 23, syllabi for 55,000 AP courses have been submitted, and 74 percent have been approved.

What "Holistic" Admissions Looks Like

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) allowed a reporter from the Los Angeles Times the rare opportunity to observe its new "holistic" admissions process. This year for the first time, UCLA is simultaneously reviewing students academic and personal qualifications, instead of assigning the two areas to different sets of readers. They also added an additional "supplemental review" option that sends questionnaires to students bordering on admission but whose applications are missing crucial information or need clarification of extraneous circumstances. The university hopes this new system will be fairer to all applicants. The admissions change was made after African American enrollment in the current freshmen class dropped to approximately 2 percent, the lowest enrollment in 30 years. Since the passage of Proposition 206 in 1996, the university has not been allowed to consider race as a factor in admissions.