My two cents: Megan Hurley’s (a University of Arizona journalism junior) recently published article “Admission standards should be regulated” appears to have clearly offended one of her readers; a Jin Zhang. In her article Hurley talks about the different admission criteria applied to students from different countries, more specifically she is referring to lower admission criteria that University of Washington appears to be requiring from its Chinese applicants. There are usually two sides to every story. It is true that many U.S. colleges and universities admit international students without SAT or ACT scores, however in such cases, those international applicants are typcially admitted on conditional basis, which either require them to take the required test(s) and achieve a minimum acceptable score before they complete their first academic year and before they can be allowed to register for the following semester or they may be simply allowed to instead take additional preparatory courses in lieu of the SAT/ACT. While Zhang accuses Hurley with racism, which I don’t agree with, it is also important to note that international students bring cultural diversity, and yes, financial revenue to our campuses. As a matter of fact they contribute over over $21 billion to the U.S. economy through their expenditures on tuition and living expenses, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce (IIE Open Doors 2011). Regardless of the value international students bring to our campuses and to our economy, Hurley is right, there should not be different admission criteria for students from different countries. And in most cases, there isn’t!
All this misunderstanding appears to be started because of a recent New York Times article; “Taking More Seats on Campus, Foreigners Also Pay the Freight” After reading the article I decided to pay a visit to University of Washington’s international undergraduate admissions website! Following quote is from UW Int’l Admissions Website:
SAT or ACT Scores. Although the SAT and ACT are not required for international student applicants….
As an international educator I am honeslty glad to see that international students are so welcomed at UW Campus, but I am also saddened to see that this flexibility on SAT/ACT requirements were not accompanied with a conditional admission case.
My two cents…