Colleges shun SAT, but buy test-takers' names

[The Straight Story]

Colleges shun SAT, but buy test-takers' names
Denison, which doesn't require the exam, pays for lists to identify prospective students

NEW YORK - Colleges throughout the country - including Denison University in central Ohio - dropped the SAT entrance exam as a requirement, saying the test favors the affluent, penalizes minorities and doesn't predict academic success.

What they don't advertise is that they find future students by buying names of kids who do well on the test.

Students are being duped by some schools into thinking that test scores don't matter, when they matter a great deal for marketing outreach and prestige, said Leon Botstein, president of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., which neither requires the tests nor buys names. Test-optional colleges that buy names of high-scoring students are hypocritical, he said.

"They take a stance that looks principled but is strategic," Botstein said. "They say, 'I'm going to show myself to be open,' but in reality they're completely buying into the definition of a good student that is guided by the test."

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/07/20/colleges-shun-sat-buy-names.html?sid=101

[seabeyond]

1. from 7th grade on son got an extremely high score on reading comprehension. his grades are good

but not superior.

last year, his sophomore year in high school, he was inundated with university literature across the nation. top schools. it was from his SAT scores.

i wasn't buying it.