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Baylor officials defend move to allow students to retake SAT
Baylor University officials are defending their decision to allow this year’s incoming freshman class to retake the SAT in June, a move some academic organizations across the country criticize as an effort to pad their average SAT scores.
Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman, however, says the decision to allow the students to retake the SAT was made in early May, with the goal of enabling incoming students to obtain the highest level of merit-based financial aid possible.
“We saw that we had merit aid available and we wanted to make sure that it was distributed to a class of very academically talented students (who) we felt were deserving of that merit aid,” Fogleman said.
Incoming students who opted to retake the test, 861 in all, were given a $300 bookstore credit to defray the cost of books. If students increased their test score by more than 50 points, they were granted an additional $1,000 in merit aid. Fogleman said that 177 students increased their scores to such a degree that they moved into a higher merit scholarship category, beyond the additional $1,000.
Fogleman insisted the school was motivated by the financial benefit for students. “We weren’t writing checks to students,” Fogleman said. “We didn’t just give them $300 and if they wanted to use that for tickets to a rock concert over the summer, that was not the case.”
However, given Baylor’s resolute determination to advance into the top tier of national universities, some question whether the students’ financial health was truly the driving factor and not the school’s desire to improve its national image.
Baylor faculty senate chair Georgia Green said she and other faculty members believe the move backfired in a big way, regardless of the motives.
“Any time the university gets negative publicity on a national level, it’s certainly harmful to the university,” Green said.
Green added, “The faculty was never informed of this. We never got any official notification that this was happening or why, so when we heard about it we could only speculate as to why it was happening. Of course, the first thought is that we’re doing this so we can raise our SAT scores.”
Green said the faculty senate passed a motion of disapproval at Tuesday’s faculty senate meeting — passed with “overwhelming approval”— which states, in part, “This practice is academically dishonest and should be discontinued.”
twoods@wacotrib.com 757-5721
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Comments
By Graybear
October 15, 2008 3:11 PM | Link to this
Even if this was the best of intentions, once again the Baylor leadership uses poor judgement by making decisions with out the appropriate input (faculty). 2012 for all its potential good, clouds some of our actions.
By Robert Schaeffer
October 15, 2008 3:50 PM | Link to this
Even if Baylor’s official explanation were true, the policy of basing so-called “merit” scholarships on SAT scores still represents a violation of the standards of the college admissions profession and the recent recommendations of a blue-ribbon commission on the use of tests in higher education. Standardized exams were not designed to determine eligibility for financial aid — even the SAT’s sponsor admits that its sole appropriate role is as one factor in predicting first-year college grades. Bravo to the Baylor faculty for condemning the administration’s improper practices.
By sam
October 15, 2008 8:23 PM | Link to this
Parts of Baylor has inflated a lot of things and spends tons of money on the most useless things…
Waco is too bama hillbilly to see it and continues to kiss Baylor’s a** while Baylor hardly makes itself available to the community besides BUY our game tickets to see us lose…
The school offers no classes past 5pm meaning no older folks with full-time jobs.
Then again, I don’t want to just be a p** pour sour grapes…but just a comment.
I’m not against going to Baylor if it’s apart of your goals. I’m just saying 2 sides of every coin.
By g0dzilla
October 16, 2008 7:44 PM | Link to this
What a SHAM! WHy doesn’t baylor give that money to the hard working professors and staff. WHy don’t they recruit better professors? baylor should be kicked out of the big 12 and even out state of Texas.