Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing

Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing - Hardcover

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Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing
  • Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing
Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing - Hardcover

Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing - Hardcover

by Nicholas Lemann
$22.95
$22.95

Book Overview

How to make American higher education fairer

In the 1930s, American colleges and universities began to screen applications using the SAT, a mass-administered, IQ-descended standardized test. The widespread adoption of the test accompanied the development of the world's first mass higher education system--and served to promote the idea that the United States was becoming a "meritocracy" in which admission to selective higher education institutions would be granted to those who most deserved it. In Higher Admissions, Nicholas Lemann reflects on the state of America's aspirational meritocracy and the enduring value and meaning of standardized testing.

Lemann writes that the anticipation of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision banning affirmative action, plus the Covid pandemic, led hundreds of universities to stop requiring standardized admissions tests; now many colleges and universities are reinstituting test requirements. The country is preoccupied with the admissions policies of the most selective universities, but Lemann redirects our attention to an alternate path that American higher education could have taken, and can still take--one that emphasizes selective admission less and a significant upgrade of the entire higher education system more. Lemann argues that to improve the state of higher education overall, we should focus not on the narrow chokepoint of admission to highly selective colleges, but on efforts to create as much meaningful opportunity for flourishing in our vast higher education system for as many people as possible. The book includes thoughtful and challenging responses from Marvin Krislov, Patricia Gándara, and Prudence Carter.
ISBN9780691246765
Author Nicholas Lemann
PublisherPrinceton University Press
GenreNews & politics and Education
FormatHardcover
PublishedSeptember 2024
LanguageENG- English
Pages176
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Education Nonfiction Political Science

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More by Nicholas Lemann

Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing

Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing - Hardcover

Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing - Hardcover

By Nicholas Lemann

About Nicholas Lemann

Nicholas Lemann is a staff writer at the New Yorker and dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where he is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism. He is the author of Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream, The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, and other books.

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