Here is a very interesting story from the NYTimes (reg. required). Read about how students who haven't graduated from high school make up 2% of all college students (not including home schoolers!)
It is a story about what is happening in New York. Are such things happening here in Wisconsin?
Can't Complete High School? Go Right to College - New York Times
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4 comments:
WHAT???? This enrages me...I teach at one of the UW 2-years, and was assured by our student services office that this would *never* happen. Gah.
I would not want to see it become common, but I could see making exceptions on a case-by-case basis for non-traditional students.
After all, so many high school graduates are ill-prepared to do college-level work, that possession of a high school diploma is not a good predictor of collegiate success anyway. I think a dedicated high school dropout might have a better chance of success than a B-average high school graduate who cuts classes and goes out to party four nights a week.
If such folks can do the work asked of them and profit from it, what does it matter if they skipped a hurdle?
This is not new, some liberal arts colleges have been doing this for years, mostly on a case by case basis. There are some good reasons why a college might choose to accept someone who has not finished high school. Of course, in most cases, colleges should require a high school diploma. My point is that you should not dismiss this out of hand.
Tom Bickford
The point of the article was not so much that non-traditional students are being admitted, as that students who had failed to complete high school seem to be continuing on to college.
I have to believe that we may be faced with increasing pressure to do such things, with the Chancellor's grand plans for increasing enrollment from an ever-shrinking pool of applicants.
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