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19 November 2003
uwRyan.com This website is meant to provide value to UW student by delivering information. Please provide feedback on what I write as well as give me suggestions of topics to cover. You can send e-mail to me to ryan[at]uwryan[dot]com.
uwstudent.org
Federation of Students 
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Admissions changes improve education
The university is considering changes to admissions procedures to get a higher quality student body. Among the possible changes that will be considered at the December senate meeting are increasing the minimum cutoff for admission to the university and the making of conditional offers to grade 11 students. These efforts to improve the quality of incoming students is well worth it. The proposed change in cut-off would move the minimum from 70 percent to 75 percent. When posing the question to senate this week vp academic and provost Amit Chakma emphasized that the Maclean's ranking should not be the reason to change it, but that senators should not be surprised by in the categories on entering average if it is not made. According this years Maclean's ranking 92.86 percent of UW's first year class had an entering average above 75 percent, of those coming from CEGEP or high school last year. University of Guelph which placed first above UW's second place in the numerical ranking already has a minimum cut-off of 75 percent and scored 99.8 percent in the same category. Despite this difference in cut-off Waterloo still has a higher average entering average tied for first at 85.4 percent compared to Guelph with 83.2 percent at fifth place in the category. This shows that even with more student below 75, Waterloo has even more students with higher averages than Guelph. If the cut-off is raised, it would follow for that to be one of the conditions for the early acceptance of grade 11s, a 75 average in grade 12. What this early acceptance allows is more interaction between the school and the future student leading up to his graduation and entrance to UW. Possibilities range beyond UW president David Johnston calling these students or pre-university enrichment experiences. The quality of incoming students has an enormous impact on the quality of the school. If students at UW were more able, professors would be able to teach at a higher level, students could reach greater heights, and Waterloo would be a better place to choose to educate oneself. This increase in quality would make a Waterloo education more valuable allowing higher tuition. Better students would attract more external scholarships and better students who are rich could pay the higher tuition and fund bursaries for those of lesser means. As the details are worked out for these changes in admissions some things should be kept in mind. The university should not lose the emphasis on other factors in admissions decisions. Marks, as a quantitative measure, are easily compared and the best measure of a student, but the personal information, contest scores and other experiences should all be considered. The 75 average only narrows the pool and the considering of these other factors in addition to marks helps us find the best Waterloo students. If they do not do so already, UW should analyse the performance and characteristics of students compared to their assessment in the admissions process and use this feedback to improve the admissions process. This should include making a comparison of performance and marks to account for grade inflation from secondary schools as is done in engineering with their adjustment factors. While there are many things that can be done to improve our school, as Chakma said to senate, this is something that can be changed now before the admissions process for the next year begins in January. |