AMERICAN MORNING


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Full Transcript here AMERICAN MORNING Non-Prescription Morning-After Pill Approved; Syria Threatens to Close Lebanese Border if U.N. Force Deployed; The End of the SAT? Aired August 24, 2006 - 09:30 ET THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: (NEWSBREAK) O'BRIEN: The SAT, the ACT, their dreaded ritual for high school seniors. Well now, George Mason in Virginia is offering a little relief, letting students apply without having to submit test scores. Joining us this morning is Andrew Flagel. He us is the dean of admission at George Mason. Alex Kingsbury is from "U.S. News and World Report." Gentlemen, nice to talk to both of you. Let's begin with you, if I can, dean, why, what was the reason and rationale behind dropping the SAT requirement for some of the students who are applying to George Mason. ANDREW FLAGEL, GEORGE MASON UNIV.: Well, you know, the challenge for every college and university is to select the students who are best suited for that institution. We spent three years looking carefully at our admission process and how students performed once they got into our institution, and we found that for students with very strong academic records, the SAT really wasn't telling us anything. So we decided to create a process that represented better to the students what we were really going to look and allowed students who didn't wish to submit those scores to bypass that if they had appropriate records. O'BRIEN: So is the SAT then a good indicator of how a student is going to do if in fact they are not academically strong, 3.5 GPA and below. I mean, why not just drop it for everybody if it's not a good indicator? FLAGEL: Well, what we found at Mason is for students with a strong GPA, with strong academic courses, that it wasn't a strong indicator at all. In fact, in a few cases it was actually a contraindicator. But we did find for students with records that weren't as strong, that the score could sometimes give us some more information, particularly stronger scores, from students with not as strong records, maybe an indicator that they have some potential, and it gives us an opportunity to look at those student as little more closely. O'BRIEN: Alex give me sense if you think this trend is going to be a trend that we see elsewhere? ALEX KINGSBURY, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Well, I think it is a trend we're seeing elsewhere. There's a list of about 700 schools, more than 700 actually, around the country that don't accept or accept in varying degrees the SAT. So I think what we are see is definitely a move to reallocate the weight that the SAT gets in the admission process, and we're seeing that in a lot schools. O'BRIEN: How is that going to affect the rating that a school gets? Whether it's in a magazine? I mean, obviously SAT Scores are always factored in and play a role in that rating -- Alex. KINGSBURY: Well, it is one of the pieces of information that is taken into account in ranking such as the "Best Colleges Guide" from "U.S. News & World Report." But it a smallish percentage of the overall total, and it's also something that if a school has more than 50 percent of its students submitting an SAT Score then it's taken in anyway. So schools that drop the SAT, even as a requirement for all students, are still going to be ranked in the same way, for our magazine, at least. O'BRIEN: Dean Flagel, clarify something for me -- if you're a student who has a 3.5 GPA and higher everybody knows an 'A' at one high school could be very different really from an 'A; at another high school. They could be totally, completely different. How are you going to gauge the differences and the value? Isn't a standardized test, the whole point was to kind of level the playing field between different schools in different parts of the country, socioeconomic differences, too? FLAGEL: You know, Soledad, it's an interesting case. The SAT was actually originally created to help prove that students from public schools could do as well as students from private schools. But over the years what we found is, at least for those of us at George Mason had increasingly competitive application pools, it's not telling us as much as we like, and so we need to get to know the schools well. We need to look very closely at the courses the students take. Need to look at the essay and recommendations and the other information the students submit. That's the requirement we face. It would be great if the test was giving us that information about who was the most qualified student. Since it's not, we find that it's misrepresenting it to have students think there's so much emphasis on the test. O'BRIEN: Alex, I'm going to give you the final word this morning. OK, I'm a student, I've heard that; I say, great, I don't need to take the SAT. KINGSBURY: Well, it's not quite that easy, and I think what this development and this trend is telling us is that college admissions officers are being very honest when they say from the outset of the process that a holistic process. Look at a whole variety of different factors that go into the decision, and just be honest and be yourself, and I think that that comes through in the admissions process once all the factors are taken into account. FLAGEL: Absolutely. O'BRIEN: All right. Gentlemen, Andrew Flagel, the dean of admissions of George Mason University, and also Alex Kingsbury. He's from "U.S. News and World Report." Thanks for talking with us this morning. FLAGEL: Thank you, Soledad. O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.
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Non-Prescription Morning-After Pill Approved; Syria Threatens to Close Lebanese Border if U.N. Force Deployed; The End of the SAT?

Aired August 24, 2006 - 09:30 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR:

(NEWSBREAK)

O'BRIEN: The SAT, the ACT, their dreaded ritual for high school seniors. Well now, George Mason in Virginia is offering a little relief, letting students apply without having to submit test scores. Joining us this morning is Andrew Flagel. He us is the dean of admission at George Mason. Alex Kingsbury is from "U.S. News and World Report."

Gentlemen, nice to talk to both of you.

Let's begin with you, if I can, dean, why, what was the reason and rationale behind dropping the SAT requirement for some of the students who are applying to George Mason.

ANDREW FLAGEL, GEORGE MASON UNIV.: Well, you know, the challenge for every college and university is to select the students who are best suited for that institution. We spent three years looking carefully at our admission process and how students performed once they got into our institution, and we found that for students with very strong academic records, the SAT really wasn't telling us anything. So we decided to create a process that represented better to the students what we were really going to look and allowed students who didn't wish to submit those scores to bypass that if they had appropriate records.

O'BRIEN: So is the SAT then a good indicator of how a student is going to do if in fact they are not academically strong, 3.5 GPA and below. I mean, why not just drop it for everybody if it's not a good indicator?

FLAGEL: Well, what we found at Mason is for students with a strong GPA, with strong academic courses, that it wasn't a strong indicator at all. In fact, in a few cases it was actually a contraindicator.

But we did find for students with records that weren't as strong, that the score could sometimes give us some more information, particularly stronger scores, from students with not as strong records, maybe an indicator that they have some potential, and it gives us an opportunity to look at those student as little more closely. O'BRIEN: Alex give me sense if you think this trend is going to be a trend that we see elsewhere?

ALEX KINGSBURY, "U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT": Well, I think it is a trend we're seeing elsewhere. There's a list of about 700 schools, more than 700 actually, around the country that don't accept or accept in varying degrees the SAT. So I think what we are see is definitely a move to reallocate the weight that the SAT gets in the admission process, and we're seeing that in a lot schools.

O'BRIEN: How is that going to affect the rating that a school gets? Whether it's in a magazine? I mean, obviously SAT Scores are always factored in and play a role in that rating -- Alex.

KINGSBURY: Well, it is one of the pieces of information that is taken into account in ranking such as the "Best Colleges Guide" from "U.S. News & World Report." But it a smallish percentage of the overall total, and it's also something that if a school has more than 50 percent of its students submitting an SAT Score then it's taken in anyway.

So schools that drop the SAT, even as a requirement for all students, are still going to be ranked in the same way, for our magazine, at least.

O'BRIEN: Dean Flagel, clarify something for me -- if you're a student who has a 3.5 GPA and higher everybody knows an 'A' at one high school could be very different really from an 'A; at another high school. They could be totally, completely different. How are you going to gauge the differences and the value? Isn't a standardized test, the whole point was to kind of level the playing field between different schools in different parts of the country, socioeconomic differences, too?

FLAGEL: You know, Soledad, it's an interesting case. The SAT was actually originally created to help prove that students from public schools could do as well as students from private schools.

But over the years what we found is, at least for those of us at George Mason had increasingly competitive application pools, it's not telling us as much as we like, and so we need to get to know the schools well. We need to look very closely at the courses the students take. Need to look at the essay and recommendations and the other information the students submit. That's the requirement we face. It would be great if the test was giving us that information about who was the most qualified student. Since it's not, we find that it's misrepresenting it to have students think there's so much emphasis on the test.

O'BRIEN: Alex, I'm going to give you the final word this morning. OK, I'm a student, I've heard that; I say, great, I don't need to take the SAT.

KINGSBURY: Well, it's not quite that easy, and I think what this development and this trend is telling us is that college admissions officers are being very honest when they say from the outset of the process that a holistic process. Look at a whole variety of different factors that go into the decision, and just be honest and be yourself, and I think that that comes through in the admissions process once all the factors are taken into account.

FLAGEL: Absolutely.

O'BRIEN: All right. Gentlemen, Andrew Flagel, the dean of admissions of George Mason University, and also Alex Kingsbury. He's from "U.S. News and World Report." Thanks for talking with us this morning.

FLAGEL: Thank you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Appreciate it.

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