56:606:621:02
Politics and Society:

Who Gets In? The Competition for College Admission
Fall 2008

http://crab.rutgers.edu/~btucker/CollegeAdmissions.html

btucker@camden.rutgers.edu             

 

Instructor: Bill Tucker                          Office: 225-6545

Office: Armitage 345                           Home: 354-0119

Office hours: Mon & Tues 5:00-6:00           Department: 225-6520



Course Description:

     The process of seeking admission to a highly ranked college or university has become a nerve-wracking experience, in equal parts competitive and mysterious.  It has also spawned a whole series of consultants and services that promise to improve SAT scores, counsel students on the best choice of schools, and then market them effectively.   In addition to exerting such a significant effect on the lives of applicants, the process is also a subject of controversy for its attention to social goals as well as individual merit.  In social science literature, public discourse, and the courts, the society debates such aspects of the decision process as affirmative action, the fairness of aptitude tests, and the meaning of equal opportunity.  Through in depth individual accounts and broader social and legal analyses, this course will examine the admissions process and some of the attendant controversies.


Evaluation:

     Grade will be determined by two papers, each weighted 30%, and class participation, weighted 40%.

 

Reading:

Copies provided by the instructor:

  • B.L. Standish, Frank Merriwell at Yale, available (without copyright infringement) from Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11115
  • Selected book chapters as noted on syllabus below


On sale at the university bookstore:

·      J. Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

·      M. Corwin, And Still We Rise: The Trials and Triumphs of Twelve Inner-City Students (Harper, 2001).

·      A. Klein, A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside One of America’s Best High Schools (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

·      R, Suskind, Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League (Broadway, 1998).

·      M.L. Stevens, Creating A Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites (Harvard University Press, 2007).

·      D. Golden, The Price of Admissions: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates (Crown, 2006).

·      B.A. Perry, The Michigan Affirmative Action Cases (University Press of Kansas, 2007).

·      J. Steinberg, The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admission Process of a Premier College (Viking, 2002).

 

Schedule

 

September 2:

     Introduction to the Course

 

September 9:

·      Class Topic:  Social and educational changes in the last 50 years

                                  Admissions in the early 20th century

·      Reading:  Domhoff, “The American Upper Class” (from Who Rules America?)

                            The Chosen, 1-38

                            Frank Merriwell at Yale

 

September 16:

·      Class Topic:  Admissions at the elite schools before the 60s

·      Reading: The Chosen, 39-345

 

September 23:

·      Class Topic:  What is intelligence and how is it measured?  Is the SAT a good measure?

·      Reading: Herrnstein & Murray, “Cognitive Class and Education, 1900-1990” and “Cognitive Partitioning by Education” (from The Bell Curve)

                           E.D. Hirsch, “Literacy and Cultural Literacy” (from Cultural Literacy)

                           D, Owen, “Coaching” and “Beating the Test” (from None of the Above: The Truth Behind the SATs)

                           J. Kozol, “Children of the City Invincible: Camden, New Jersey” (from Savage Inequalities)

 

                          

September 30:

·      Class Topic:  Differences in the high school experience: an “inner city” school

·      Reading: And Still We Rise

 

October 7:

·      Class Topic:  Differences in the high school experience: an elite school

·      Reading:  A Class Apart

 

October 14:

·      Class Topic:  From the Washington DC ghetto to Brown

                                  Instructions for first paper

·      Reading:  Hope in the Unseen

 

October 21:

·      Class Topic:  What are the differences between schools locally?

·      First paper due

 

October 28:

·      Class Topic:  The revolution in admissions

·      Reading:  The Chosen, 349-557

 

November 4:

·      Class Topic:  The institutional view of selecting a class

·      Reading:  Creating A Class

 

November 11:

·      Class Topic:  Who really gets the breaks

·      Reading:  The Price of Admission

 

November 18:

·      Class Topic:  The affirmative action debate

·      Reading:  The Michigan Affirmative Action Cases

                            Herrnstein & Murray, “Affirmative action in Higher Education” (from The Bell Curve)

 

 

25 Nov  -  NO CLASS  (Rutgers is on Thursday Schedule)

 

December 2:

·      Class Topic:  A case study of selective admissions

                                  Instructions for final paper

·      Reading:  The Gatekeepers

 

December 9:

 

     Conclusion; final paper due