How to Degrade Academic Excellence, Lesson #1: Make SATs Optional

In Bacon's Rebellion, Jim Sherlock makes a novel point that I haven't seen discussed elsewhere. The University of Virginia and other elite higher-ed institutions are thriving in an age of declining student enrollment because they are perceived as elite. That perception depends in large measure upon the fact that some of the smartest, highest-achieving students in the country go there. However, by extending the decision to make SATs and ACT scores optional and substituting subjective admissions criteria, UVa is admitting a student body marked by a greater variability in academic aptitude. It remains to be seen if the decline in academic exclusivity will undermine its reputation as an elite institution. But it very well could.How will UVa reconcile the tension between subjective admissions criteria and its pretense to be an exclusive, elite academic institution? Will it accept a higher attrition rate of less academically prepared students? Will it bolster lower-achieving students with intense tutoring and academic support? Will it steer the lower-achieving students into "gut" courses and majors? Or will it lower academic standards and embrace grade inflation?Given the acceleration of grade inflation at UVa in the past five years, Virginia's flagship university appears to be settling for a policy of incrementally compromising its standards of academic excellence. The obvious advantage of this approach is that it is hard to detect and easy to deny, and the results won't be evident until the current leadership has retired or moved on.-- JAB

James Bacon

After a 25-year career in Virginia journalism, James A. Bacon founded Bacon’s Rebellion in 2002 a blog with the goal of “Reinventing Virginia for the 21st Century.” Its focus is on building more prosperous, livable and sustainable communities. In recent years he has concentrated more on the spread of “woke” ideology in K-12 schools, the criminal justice system, higher education, and medicine.

In 2021, he co-founded The Jefferson Council to preserve free speech, intellectual diversity, and the Jeffersonian legacy at his alma mater the University of Virginia. He previously served as the organization’s executive director, now serving as congributing editor.

Aside from blogging, Bacon writes books. His first was Boomergeddon: How Runaway Deficits Will Bankrupt the Country and Ruin Retirement for Aging Baby Boomers — And What You Can Do About It, followed by Maverick Miner: How E. Morgan Massey Became a Coal Industry Legend and a work of science fiction, Dust Mites: the Siege of Airlock Three.

A Virginian through-and-through, Bacon lives in Richmond with his wife Laura.

https://www.baconsrebellion.com/wp/
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How to Degrade the Honor Code: Issue "Warnings"

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The Trivialization of Honor