RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ivy-league-acceptance-rates-fall-to-record-lows-due-to-covid-19-11617767857?mod=searchresults_pos1&page=1
Ivy League Acceptance Rates Fall to Record Lows Due to Covid-19 Harvard accepts just 3.4% of applicants, while Columbia admitted 3.7%

A pandemic-fueled surge in applications translated into record low acceptance rates this year for the country’s elite colleges, including most of the Ivy League.

Harvard University admitted 1,968 candidates, or 3.4% of the 57,435 people who applied. The previous lowest acceptance rate was 4.6% two years ago. Applications surged 43% over last year.

Yale University accepted 4.6% of the 46,905 people who applied. The applicant pool grew by 33% over last year, when the school accepted 6.6% of applicants.

Columbia University in New York City was the second hardest school to get into among the Ivies. Of the 60,551 students who applied, just 3.7% were accepted—down from 6.3% last year.

The eight schools making up the Ivy League and several other highly selective colleges late Tuesday notified applicants whether or not they had secured a slot for the coming fall’s first-year class. Notices went out a week later than in previous years to give admission officers time to vet the deluge of applications.

Hundreds of additional colleges, including most elite schools, stopped requiring an ACT or SAT standardized-test score as part of the admissions process this year because it was difficult to safely sit for the exams during the pandemic. The test-optional policy boosted applications as the number of open seats declined when a disproportionate number of students deferred admission due to the pandemic.

“Ten percent of the class entering this fall were admitted a year ago, and decided to take a gap year,” said Christoph Guttentag, dean of undergraduate admissions at Duke University, where a 25% uptick in applications drove the acceptance rate to a record low 5.8% from 8.1% last year. “That left fewer places than usual.”

More than 100,000 students applied to New York University and the school accepted 12.8%—a record low. Among those accepted, 20% are the first in their family to go to college, 20% are low income, and 29% come from traditionally underrepresented groups, the school said.

At Dartmouth, where the acceptance rate dropped to 6.2% from 9.2% last year, 48% of accepted students identify as Black, indigenous or other people of color, the school said, while 17% are the first in their family to attend college.

“It is safe to say this is the most broadly diverse accepted class in the long history of Dartmouth,” said Lee Coffin, vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/systemic-social-justice-activism-college-campuses-jay-bergman/

Amidst considerable fanfare, Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) announced recently the creation of the John Lewis Institute for Social Justice.  In a formal statement marking the occasion, Zulma Toro, the president of CCSU, claimed that the university’s mission was “to prepare students to be thoughtful, responsible, and successful citizens.”

At first glance, this objective seems incontestable, and the advocacy of social justice an excellent means of achieving it.

But when one delves deeper into the purpose of the institute, and learns what exactly social justice means to those who established it, it becomes clear that the institute is a vehicle for turning students into political activists advancing left-wing causes: the next sentence in the president’s statement acknowledges that the institute was created to satisfy students’ desire “to become more informed and involved in social justice initiatives after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.” 

That in the absence of any juridical determination one would describe these two deaths as “killings” is consistent with the common misconception that white police are generically racist and kill black Americans in large numbers because of their skin color.  The truth is the exact opposite: according to Peter Kirsanow, a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, in 2016 police shot to death 16 unarmed black victims and 22 unarmed white victims – while in the same year making 408,873 arrests for violent crime.

The same disparity between perception and reality applies to the larger indictment of America that the creators of the institute apparently share: that our country is “systemically” racist, and absent the intervention of social justice activists like those the institute seeks to generate, irredeemably so.  

This charge is false as a matter of evidence and contradictory as a matter of simple logic.  

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/06/educational-freedom-is-on-the-move/

I wrote early last month that COVID-related lockdowns were leading many states to implement or advance already existing school choice measures. Just a few weeks later, it is happening at breakneck speed.

Legislators and parents have become fed up, and are doing what they can to regain control of the educational lives of children. They have watched as private schools flourish, while many of the government-run variety—typically at the behest of the teachers’ unions—have been shuttered. Also, because of forced online learning, parents have been given a Zoom-view as to just what teachers are—and are not—teaching.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, 50 school choice bills have been introduced in 30 states this year. Kentucky voted in a tax-credit-funded education savings account, its very first school choice legislation. As Lindsey Burke, director of the Heritage Foundation Center for Education Policy, explains, “Students from families with incomes below 175 percent of the federal poverty line will have access to education savings accounts. The program is available to students living in counties with more than 90,000 residents, and will initially be capped at $25 million.”

In North Carolina, House Bill 32 is currently working its way through the legislative process. If passed, the “Equity in Opportunity Act” will increase funding for the existing voucher program and allow more students to apply for scholarships.

Perhaps the most interesting state to advance educational freedom is West Virginia, which on March 29 passed the most expansive school choice program in the country. Under the new law, all parents have unrestrained options. If parents choose a private school for their kids, they will receive 100 percent of their state education dollars—$4,600 annually—to help defray expenses. In addition to private school tuition, parents can use the funding to homeschool or for other education expenses.