It is surprising to me to know that the schools in America have a
different SAT requirement for Asian students. I was wondering if I can have
more proof on that to confirm the information is true. I am not saying I do not
trust the information given from the blog, GOVT2305. It is just unbelievable to me that the schools here can do something
like that without getting in any trouble, such as racism issue. As an Asian
immigrant with the permanent residency moving to American two years ago at the
age of 35, I was not required to take SAT to enter college. However, I went to
Australia and England for my two master’s degree, I was never told that the
requirements on our TOEFL or IELTS scores are any higher than other students of
different races. That is why I really want to know whether what is mentioned on
this blog is true.
I agree and disagree with the ideas of the blog. The part I agree is
that the requirements should be made equal for students of all races. Any difference
in the requirements is a sign of unfair competition.
The part I disagree is “we
should reduce the focus on SAT and increase the focus on individual student’s
character and skills, etc.” Schools are the place for Academic activities;
therefore, it is understandable that your eligibility of entering a university
should be decided according to your academic success. However, if you are
applying to work in a strip club, your academic success will not matter even if
you had a law degree from Harvard. Therefore, I think the focus on the SAT
should not be reduced, or maybe we can add other academic ability tests similar
to the ones people do to apply for graduate schools, such as GMAT and GRE.
Moreover, I do not like the idea of grading someone according to his/her
character since those things are totally subjective and ambiguous. Besides, who
are the teachers to decide which students’ characters should be admitted to
this program and whose should not? If I got rejected by a school when I know a
girl who got a much lower SAT than I did, and she got admitted, I would just
think there might be a possibility that she slept with one of the examiners,
one or some of the examiners were her parent’s close friends, or even some of
the examiners were bribed by her wealthy parents. Therefore, transparency and
objectivity are the most important elements to anything controversial. When I
worked as a lecturer in Taiwan, I maximized the transparency of the way I
graded my students to minimize any possible grading unfairness by giving all
the weights of the exams, quizzes, and extra credit, so that my students would
not think I gave someone a better grade just because I liked her better. When I
applied to get into the nursing program here at ACC a few months ago, we were also
given the formula ACC use to calculate the ranking points we have, and I really
appreciate that, so that I was confident that none of us was ranked unfairly
just because some of the students are better at “socializing” with the
professors. Sadly, it is not always the case in the real world, but I believe
that is right way to do things.
P.S. If by any chance the author of the blog, GOVT2305, knows that I
made a comment on her blog, please don’t get mad at me. Professor Seago made me
do this!
