University of California may
drop SAT requirement
By Karen Brandon
Chicago Tribune
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News
Services
SAN DIEGO, Calif.--A new law in
Texas guarantees students who
graduate in the top 10 percent of
their high school class admission to
the state's public universities, with
no SAT or ACT' examination
required.
A new proposal being considered
by the University of California
system would eliminate the SAT
from admissions criteria.
With new policies banning racial
preferences in both states, the use
of test scores faces renewed scrutiny
by educators and policy makers
seeking ways to help the rapidly
growing minority populations gain
admission to the top tiers of public
education. At the heart of the debate
are questions about the value of
standardized tests.
"Let's look at the definition of
what constitutes merit," said
Charles Rooney of Fair Test, the
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based
organization that is the chief critic
of standardized tests. "It's pretty
clear that test scores do not equal
merit," he said.
Such tests are closely tied to the
affirmative action question because
of the racial, gender and class
disparities that often emerge in the
scores. For instance, blacks,
Hispanics, women, and students
from low-income families generally
score lower on the SAT than
whites, Asians, males and students
from high-income families.
The College Board, the non-profit
organization of 3,200 schools and
educational organizations that
sponsors the SAT test, says the
MIT student
dies of alcohol
poisoning
By Michael Ellis
BOSTON A freshman student at
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology has dial after slipping
into a alcohol-induced coma
following a drinking binge at a
fraternity house, hospital officials
said Tlcsday.
Scott Krueger, 18, of Otchanl
Park, N.Y., was placed on life
support at Beth Israel Deaconess
Medical Center in Boston after the
Friday night party. He died late
Monday, said Patti Jacobs, a
spokeswoman for the hospital.
Police said he had a Wood alcohol
level that was more than five times
the legal driving limit after a
drinking binge at the Phi Gamma
Delta fraternity.
Officials at MIT, one of the top
universities in math, science at
engineering in the United States,
indefinitely suspcxxkxl the fraternity
where Krueger drank the alcohol and
said they were considering measures
to curtail underage drinking.
The Boston Herald mated that
the boy's parents told police their
son did not drink. That led
investigators to speculate he may
have been faced to drink a large
quantity of alcohol as part of a
fraternity hazing ritual, the Hasid
said.
"Ifs initiation week at the school
but nobody is saying whether this
was part of the initiation. No one is
talking," a source told the
newspaper.
The MIT freshman was bind
unconscious and not breathing in
the basement of the
proposal is to eliminate it is not
appropriate.
"The recommendation is like
breaking the thermometer because
you don't like the temperature," the
College Board said in a written
statement.
In California, the proposal was
made this month by a task force
convened five years ago to find
ways to bring more Hispanic
students into the university system.
Four percent of all Hispanics who
graduate from the state's high
schools meet the university
system's admission standards.
The demographic trends in
California, the nation's most
populous and diverse state, suggest
that 500,000 additional students
will seek entry to public colleges
and universities by 2005, with an
increasing percentage of them
minority students.
In a report released last week,
Rand, a think-tank based in Santa
Monica, Calif., said the situation
poses "a grave danger to society."
"The college degree has replaced the
high school diploma as the entry
card into productive employment,"
the report concluded. "If this degree
is increasingly out of reach for large
segments of the California
populations, then a revolution in
education is essential to avert
increasing social unrest."
The recommendation to eliminate
the SAT would increase the number
of students of all backgrounds
eligible for admission to the
University of California. At present
the state guarantees admission to
the top 12 percent of high school
seniors, but without the SAT up to
18 percent of graduating seniors
would be eligible, said Carla Ferri,
director of undergraduate admissions
for the University of California
personally," who placed in the top
10 among his graduating classe of
325 students.
"Here was a student who
exhausted our math courses,"
Robert Farwell, principal of
Orchard Ftirk High School, told
Reuters in a telephone interview.
"Scott was a quiet leader. He led by
example," MIT President Charles
Vest offent his condolences to the
freshman's family and said in a
statement that Krueger was a
'bright and talented young man."
"We must redouble our efforts to
educate our community about the
risks and consequences involved in
drinking, and do all that we can to
see that this kind of tragedy neva
happens again," Vest said.
In another incident involving
alcohol, police were investigating
the death over the weekend of a 17-
year old girl who fractured her skull
when she fell down a flight of stairs
at a house party in the northern
Massachusetts town of North
Andover.
The girl, who officials said had
been drinking a heavy amount of
alcohol, lay for up to six hours at
the bottom of the stairs while other
..underage drinkers continued to party
around her, police said.
(c) Tribune Media Services, 1997.
PENNSTATE
gip Erie
National Campus News
system
Raymund Paredes, associate vice
chancellor for academic
development at the University of
California Los Angeles and a
member of the Latino Eligibility
Task Force, said the group settled
on the recommendation after finding
little correlation between Hispanic
students' score on the SAT and their
success in college.
"How well are we measuring
merit? My answer is I don't think
we do it nearly as well as we
could," Paredes said.
The biggest concern, he said, was
not so much possible test bias as
the inability of the test to forecast
with any accuracy how Hispanic
students would fare in college.
The College Board argues that the
way to help Latinos and all students
better prepare for college is to
improve elementary, middle and
high schools and to correct the
staggering
conditions that affect children's
readiness for school.
Others contend that dropping the
SAT requirement would be
tantamount to lowering admissions
standards.
"It seems to me that the
recommendation is driven by the
desire to simply increase the
number of Latinos or to simply
increase diversity," said Ward
Connerly, the U.C. regent who
championed the university's new
policy against racial preferences. "I
believe our admissions criteria
should always be driven by the
desire to increase quality."
He and others said they believed
that eliminating the test would only
lead to grade inflation at high
schools.
Police cite 20
for underage
drinking
By AIMEE HARRIS
Mikiersky Park Daily Collegian Staff
The State College Police
Department issued 20 underage
drinking citations and made two
arrests for driving under the
influence Friday. In addition, six
people may be facing charges for
furnishing alcohol to minors.
Seventeen minors were cited
for underage drinking after police
obtained a search warrant for a
party at Apartment 215,
Cedarbrook Apartments, 320 E.
Beaver Ave., State College
police said.
On Friday night, three police
officers dressed in plain clothes
observed a group of people on the
balcony of the apartment, State
College police said.
The officers entered the
building and got off of the
elevator on the second floor with
about 10 other people, State
College police said. The door of
the apartment was open and the
police officen entered and
observed people, who appeared to
be underage, drinking beer from a
keg, State College police said.
Three women left the party and
the officers asked for their
identification, State College
police said. The women were
underage and signed written
statements at the police station
about where they had received
the beer, State College polio
said.
The officers then obtained a
search warrant and returned to the
apartment before 11 p.m., State
College police said.
The officers identified five
people they saw serving alcohol.
Three of the five were able to
prove they were 21 years old. One
person was 20 years oki and the
other's age is unknown at this
time, State College police said.
The ACT (formerly known as the
American College Test) is used
primarily by schools in the
Midwest.
The SAT, which is taken by
more students, has been more
widely studied. Though no onq
argues that certain minority groups
receive lower scores, no one study
has been able to pinpoint why.
Researchers speculate that the
timed nature of the test hurts
students who are not native English
speakers, presumably because they
need longer to read the verbal
section and the math section, which
contains many word problems.
Students from families with
higher incomes have an advantage
in part because they can afford to
take courses that coach them on
strategies for taking the test.
But the results of the tests often
defy explanation. For instance, in
California, Asians in the lowest
income group scored higher than
blacks in the highest income
category.
socioeconomic
Students themselves say they feel
enormous pressure about the tests,
believing that much of their
academic future can hinge on the
results.
Ann Campbell, a 16-year-old at
La Costa Canyon High School in
suburban San Diego, would like to
attend UCLA and study psychology
there. To help her do well on the
tests, she is taking a preparation
course that runs for 12, three-hour
sessions and costs $695.
"It would be better if the test
weren't so important," she said.
The broader question raised by the
task force recommendation, and by
other critics of the national test, is
whether the SAT and other
standardized tests really do provide a
benchmark.
All five of the people serving
alcohol face the possibility of
being charged with misdemeanors
of serving alcohol to minors,
State College police said.
Throughout the past month,
State College police have issued
citations for underage drinking at
four fraternity parties, resulting in
at least 49 citations for underage
drinking.
State College police said these
citations are not part of a police
crackdown on underage drinking.
In a State College police news
release, the weekend efforts of
police were called "continued
aggressive alcohol enforcement
efforts."
Cpl. Richard Gads of State
College police said the increase
of citings for underage drinking is
not in response to any specific
event.
"Nobody's targeting anybody.
Whenever an incident arises, we
respond, whether it be a
(fraternity) party or an apartment
party," Garis said.
The State College Police
Department has been stepping up
measures to enforce alcohol laws
throughout the past five to 10
years, Garis added.
"If they weren't doing anything
wrong, we'd be wasting our search
warrant.
Look at how many kids were
cited," Garis said. The citations
were partly in response to the
alcohol-related death of Leigh
Anne Prevatte, a 20-year-old
University student who fell to her
death from an apartment balcony
in February, said Cpl. James
Gardner of State College police.
In other unrelated incidents.
State College police officers
arrested two
underage people fa driving under
the influence. In addition. a 23-
year-old man was cited for buying
several 40-ounce bottles of beer
for an 18-year-old.
The minor was also cited fa
underage drink)*
Thursday, October 2, 1997 The Behrend College Collegian - Page
More students
campus moving
from Macs to IBM
compatible PC's
By Doron Levin
Knight-Ridder/Tribune
News Services
In addition to crushing issues such
as which courses to take aril
whether you or your roommate is
responsible for bringing a
television, today's college freshman
also faces critical decisions
regarding computer technology.
Bring the old computer from
home, buy new, or use one of the
university's computing stations?
Mac or Windows? Laptop or
console?
From anecdotal observations of
computer decision-making by this
year's freshman class and from data
furnished by industry
sources, a couple of trends seem
clear. First: College students, more
than ever before, are bringing their
own machines or buying new—
instead of relying on university
sponsored computing sites.
Second: Apple's Macintosh, once
the clear-cut favorite on campus,
may be dwindling in popularity
among college students.
Declining popularity Bruce
Sipher, an information technology
manager far the University of
Michigan, said a straw poll of
this year's freshmen showed that 70
percent owned or were planning to
buy new machines. Of that group,
60 percent said they owned or were
planning to buy Windows-equipped.
Student
jour
nalist fired
over Chelsea
Clinton
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) - A
columnist at Stanford University's
student newspaper has been fired
over a column about new student
Chelsea Clinton, the San Jose
Mercury News repoited Tuesday.
Carolyn Sleeth, editor-in-chief of
the Stanford Daily, killed Stanford
senior Jesse Oxfeld's column about
President Clinton's daughter last
week after he refused to rewrite a
section of the column, the Mercury
News said.
"We have a policy that we are
not going to run stories or articles
about Chelsea Clinton until she
does something newsworthy," the
Mercury News quoted Sleeth
saying.
"He (Oxfeld) submitted
something and I chose not to run it.
I said I wouldn't be using his
work," she said.
Chelsea entered Stanford
University, near San Francisco, in a
blaze of publicity Sept. 19. Clinton
and first lady Hillary Rodham
Clinton proudly accompanied their
only child to the prestigious
university.
White House _ officials have
expressed hope that Chelsea will be
allowed to lead a normal life at
Stanford, free of media scrutiny.
Sleeth said earlier this month that
the Stanford Daily would not write
about Chelsea unless she thrust
herself into the spotlight.
IBM-compatible PCs, while only
12 percent had or were planning to
buy Macs. The remaining 28
percent were undecided.
The new findings contrasted
sharply with a survey of UM
students just 18 months ago
showing 19,000 owning or using
Windows PCs, 17,000 owning or
using Macs and 3,600 using other
types of formats, including Unix.
Reflecting a historic preference for
Apple's Macintosh technology by
college students, the university
currently operates 1,075 Macs, 285
Windows, and 29 Unix machines at
15 computing sites scattered around
campus.
Sipher, noting the University of
Michigan hospital system recently
decided to replace Macs with PCs,
said, "More people are IBM in the
academic world; the trend seems to
be growing."
The shrinking influence of Macs
on campus, even while students
exercise more influence over which
technology they use, suggests that
Apple needs more market exposure,
not less. Apple Computer's
decision this week to buy back the
license from its most important
maker of Mac clones, Power
Computing Corp.. appears all the
more intriguing in light of its
machine's apparent weakness on
campus.
Oxfeld was crying foul over the
newspaper's hard line on what he
called the "C" word -- for Chelsea
Clinton, the Mercury News said.
"First, why, precisely, is it that
we're all expected to bend over
backward to give Chelsea and her
family a 'normal' Stanford
experience while the first family
itself is under no similar
obligation?" he wrote, according to
the Mercury News.
Oxfeld called the Stanford Daily's
rule on Chelsea coverage
"Clintonian" and described it as
"don't ask (anything about her life),
don't tell (anyone outside the
campus what you might happen to
discover about her life), don't
pursue (her, at all)" -- an allusion to
the Clinton administration's "don't
ask, don't tell" policy on
homosexuals in the military.
Oxfeld, who previously served as
managing editor at the Stanford
Daily, said he had always said he
wanted to be a pundit. "Until
Chelsea came along, I never knew
what my entry-level pundit job
was going to be," he told the
Mercury News.
Sleeth could not immediately be
reached for comment and Stanford
University had no comment.