Congratulations on Your Acceptance to Vassar; Except Not

Welcome to Vassar! But not really...

Many high school seniors think the most unfortunate thing that can happen to them is a rejection from the college of their choice. In a recent gaffe, reported by the New York Times, Vassar College proved that there is one more level of ignominy.

On Friday the college sent notification to 122 of its early decision applicants that they had been accepted. There was only one issue - 76 of the students hadn't been. In an error sure to become a horror story repeated by cautious guidance counselors and nervous parents, Vassar notified 76 students in error that they had been accepted when in fact they had not. An hour after the first notification the college did what they could to amend the error, apologizing to the students who were in fact denied and claiming the false notifications were the result of a computer error whereby a test letter was never replaced with an actual one. For some, the simple hand wash was not quite enough, as one student's family is considering legal action on the grounds that the college's word is binding. Whatever comes of the case, file this one under an admissions' office's worst nightmare.

--Benjamin M. Riley

A Problem of Degrees

Majoring in WGST? Good luck out there!“Where did this college degree and tens of thousands dollars of debt get me? Unemployed.” This cry is typically heard at Occupy Wall Street protests. It certainly is not without merit. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that a college master’s degree is worth $1.3 million more in lifetime earnings than a high school diploma. Everyone says that the key to success in life is attending college.

But pretending that graduating from college is a magic bullet for easy employment and lucrative careers is obtuse. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were dropouts and they turned out alright. Alex Tabarrok sees that the problem is not that people do not go to college; it’s that they study the wrong subjects.

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Federal Court Upholds Affirmative Action (Kind of)

Breaking news in the national debate over Affirmative Action:

A divided federal appeals court has struck down Michigan's ban on consideration of race and gender in college admissions. (CNN)

The Michigan law, which prohibits state educational institutions from either discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to applicants based on "race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin," was enacted by a popular referendum in 2006.  Just today, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the measure was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment "Equal Protection" clause, specifying that it "irremissibly" burdened racial minorities.  It doesn't appear that the court's decision has any bearing on whether or not Affirmative Action itself is unconstitutional; rather, it ruled that the State of Michigan cannot prohibit the practice.  The full ruling is available here.

Dartmouth College's affirmative action policy for admissions seems to be rather difficult to track down.  However, the College this year honored with its MLK Social Justice award the original architect of the College's gender diversity initiative in the 1970s, who personally works as a consultant for schools trying to "better achieve their diversity goals;" furthermore, Dartmouth last year joined the QuestBridge program, which matches "underserved" students with universities.

-- Sam A. Ticker

New York Magazine on the Asian-American Achievement Gap

Maybe the title of this post is a little misleading. You might say - what achievement gap, don't Asian-Americans routinely score higher in all educational metrics than their student peers? The answer to that question is assuredly yes. So why the title? Because, as this fascinating article in the most recent New York Magazine details, the tables are quite turned once Asian-Americans graduate from college. I won't spoil the article's startling statistics or anecdotes - it's really a piece that deserves to be read in full. I will however say that the piece is of special resonance to us here at Dartmouth. While Dartmouth's Asian-American student population (14%) pales in comparison to Penn's (23%), the demographic is a significant one. Further, as the readers surely know, Dartmouth is the only Ivy League institution with an Asian-American president. Clearly for Jim Yong Kim, there has been no typical post-college achievement gap. The article, however would suggest that his success is more an anomaly than anything else. I won't spoil the details, though. Go ahead and read the article.