(06-27-2017 11:57 AM)Purplehazed Wrote: We may need to keep separate subjects separate...
Admission at W&M/UVA/JMU after completing a 2yr program is not the same subject as incoming freshman not submitting an SAT score.
If W&M and UVA are following the same path as JMU, fine, if JMU is allowing students to take the path of least resistance, we are moving backwards as a university. In this is the case, W&M and UVA are protecting a reputation and JMU is not.
I don't give two ***** what an lifer academic claims as support for watering down a diploma. You are the peer group you keep.
Agreed. If JMU were not already trending in the wrong direction, I doubt I would see this change as a big deal. But we have been slipping in the US News rankings for years now, and also slipping in competitiveness in admissions as well (we are
clearly behind VT now in terms of competitiveness), so you'll have to forgive me for being a bit skeptical as to the motivations here. If our President weren't a diversity attorney, I'd be a little less skeptical as well.
The list of "testing optional" schools from the Washington Post that was posted above did not read to me as a "who's who" of schools an aspiring state-funded "national university" would want to be lumped in with. Basically, with a few rare exceptions it's private liberal arts or religious colleges, and crummy state schools. Our in-state peers on the list include ODU, CNU, MWU, Radford, Hampton and Marymount. Sorry, but that's pathetic company to keep. Reminds me of the schools on the "no COA" letter our esteemed President penned a while back.
It seems to me that JMU, under Alger, has a crisis of confidence.
(As an aside, did anyone notice that ODU is listed as a "National University" on that WaPo list? I wonder what they could possibly have going for them that we don't.)