The year in review

Last week, Ms. Maglio and Ms. Prugh presented to the Board of Trustees to share the college news for the Class of 2015 and also some “newsworthy” items from the past year. Here is some of the national news that we presented to the board. Next week we will share the matriculation list for the Class of 2015!

Noteworthy National News in College Admissions

·         Set to debut one year from now, the newly redesigned SAT will require students to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of subjects they study in school. In place of the infamously tricky questions, the exam will be a more straightforward test of material that students encounter in the classroom. The essay will require students to provide evidence in support of their arguments and will be graded on both analysis and writing. Vocabulary will move away from the obscure language for which the SAT is noted, instead emphasizing words more commonly used in college and the workplace.  The new SAT will launch in March 2016 and the PSAT/NMSQT in October 2015.

·         In his January State of the Union Address, President Obama announced a plan to eliminate two years of tuition for community college students. The proposed program would be open to any student who has completed high school and will cost $60 billion over the next decade.  He also announced that the Department of Education is working on a new ratings system that will measure college performance so that students and families can select colleges that provide the best value.

·         In March, the board of Sweet Briar College, a 114 year old women’s college in southern Virginia, voted to close the school “as a result of insurmountable financial challenges,” leading many to wonder if other colleges would face a similar outcome. 

·         In November, Rolling Stone Magazine published a 9,000 word article that described the assault of a freshman student at the University of Virginia in 2012 and how the university mishandled the incident. The article sparked a conversation about sexual assault on campus and how schools nationwide often respond to brutal crimes with indifference. Rolling Stone has since retracted the article after a review conducted by the Columbia University School of Journalism concluded that it was “a journalistic failure that was avoidable.”

·         In March, The Economist published data from a report by PayScale, a research firm, calculating the returns to higher education in American universities. Top universities may be growing more and more selective but the returns on a college degree depend far more on the field of study than the selectivity of the university itself, the report finds. Engineering and computer science students earn the most, achieving a 20 year annualized return of 12%. Engineers were also the least dependent on the prestige of the university- graduates from less selective schools experienced only a slight decrease in average returns. Business and economics degrees also pay well but degrees in the arts or humanities provide more mixed economic returns.