Discuss.The City University of New York is beginning a drive to raise admissions requirements at its senior colleges, its first broad revision since its trustees voted to bar students needing remedial instruction from its bachelor’s degree programs nine years ago.
In 2008, freshmen will have to show math SAT scores 20 to 30 points higher than they do now to enter the university’s top-tier colleges — Baruch, Brooklyn, City, Hunter and Queens — and its six other senior colleges....
Dr. Goldstein said that the English requirements for the senior colleges would be raised as well, but that the math cutoff would be raised first because that was where the students were “so woefully unprepared.”
In the fall of 2005, for example, more than 40 percent of students in introductory math courses — pre-calculus, college algebra and calculus — either failed or dropped out of the classes, numbers typical of many universities nationwide.
[emphasis mine]
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Saturday, July 28, 2007
CUNY Plans to Raise Its Admissions Standards - New York Times
CUNY Plans to Raise Its Admissions Standards - New York Times
You don't expect me to be surprised, do you?
ReplyDeleteOffhand, I would say that a 510 isn't horrible....
ReplyDeleteI took a sample SAT last fall, after finishing Saxon Algebra 1.
It was hard!
Actually, it wasn't hard, but I didn't know any of the algebra material. I ended up with a score range of 580-620, iirc - and I know algebra 1 pretty well, certainly well enough to apply it and to build on it while learning algebra 2.
So I'm guessing 510 puts you in striking range of being able to handle college math.
Although....it doesn't put you in range of being able to take calculus.
An SAT 510 says you're ready to take geometry & algebra 2.
Were this an essay question on an exam, I would choose to "discuss" the labeling of "pre-calculus, college algebra and calculus" as "introductory math courses".
ReplyDeleteGranted, I believe that algebra was a college course in the 1950s when my parents were in school, but what they are calling "college algebra" seems to be what I took in 10th grade as "Algebra II" in 1979-1980. That's elementary algebra, not abstract algebra -- see Wikipedia's description of the difference.
I'll concede that calculus is an introductory math course even in rigorous engineering schools.
BTW, for wandering around math topics, I highly recommend MathWorld.
An SAT 510 says you're ready to take geometry & algebra 2.
Wow, a 510 SAT says that after four (or three, if you got your 510 SAT in junior year) years of high school math, you're ready to take -- high school math.
Wow, a 510 SAT says that after four (or three, if you got your 510 SAT in junior year) years of high school math, you're ready to take -- high school math.
ReplyDeletewell.....
I think that's got to be true.
As I say, I scored in the 580-620 range on a sample test, and that was at the end of Saxon Algebra 1.
As soon as I finish Saxon Algebra 2 I'll retake the test and see how I do.
If I do substantially better, that's going to be alarming in its own way, because Saxon Algebra 2 is just the 2nd book in his 3-book high school series.
Algebra 1
Algebra 2
Advanced Mathematics