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UNL
admission
test scores
rising
Bv Jim FuUerton
While college admission test scores have been dropping,
each year nationally, the average scores at UNL are rising.
According to Al Papik, director of admissions, Scholastic
Aptitude Test (SAT) scores during the past year for UNL
have improved 5 to 10. The SAT' 5s r?jj-irsd ss ths
qualifying examination for the regents scholarship program.
Papik said that, of 6,800 scores submitted last year, 90
of which came from Nebraska high school students, the
mean score was 465 in verbal skills and 521 in math.
The mean score is the point at which half the scores
were above and half below.
On the rational level, mean scores over the last 10 years
have dropped from 473 to 445 in verbal skills and from 502
to 481 in math. 1
Papik said the Nebraska study reflects only a 1-year
increase and that a valid study would have to cover at least
1 0 years of Nebraska SAT scores. '
Still, he said, reasons for the national decline and the
local improvement, if it continues, will be important topics
for educators to consider.
Papik said more students are taking the tests in their
junior rather than senior year, and more low income
students are being tested.
Papik said more high schools are gearing their curriculum
toward vocational education and there is concern over
whether or not this is affecting the overall education of
high school students.
SAT administrators say they have no evidence that the
decrease in mean scores is because of a liberalization of high
school curricula.
In a recent story in the Washington Post, Dr. Lee
Munday, vice president for research for the American
College Testing Program (ACT), said experiments and
changes in the high school curricula have made it harder to
measure scholastic ability nationwide,
UNL educators are encouraged by the rising SAT scores,
Papik said. ,
"We think that incoming freshmen are getting prepared
for their college careers, and this is showing up on the test
scores." J
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Some headway made
in freshman courses
By Wei Albert . , . .
An Academic Planning Committee (APC) study of freshman
courses hasn't led to overnight improvements, but some headway
is being made, APC member Jim O'Hanlon said Thursday. v
He said there has been a reduction in some class sizes and a
broader course selection now offered to freshmen in some
departments, and said the outlook for further improvements
is good, ' ...
'The time is right," ho id. "Faculty response is positive, In a
few years, freshmen will have many more choices of courses and
teaching methods."
O'Hanlon was appointed in September 1973 by Virginia
Trotter, vice chancellor of academic affairs, to follow up
recommendations submitted last April to the APC by a freshman
study commission.
In its report, the 13-member commission called for smaller
classes, more course options and more use of senior faculty
members to instruct freshman courses.
It also called for improved methods of determing freshman
needs.
O'Hanlon said courses such as the College of Arts and
Sciences' small-group freshman seminars are examples of what the
commission considers improvements.
"I provide encouragement to people doing things in line with
the commission's report," he said. "The wheels turn more slowly
than-1 like sometimes, but I haven't found any department where
freshmen aren't considered important.
O'Hanlon said the committee realizes it would be impossible
to limit all class enrollments to 25 to 30 students. But in a few
areas it easily could be done, he said.
"Rather than a big, general program that not everyone may be
able to accept, we're stressing a lot of little projects," he S3id.
O'Hanlon said ha is helping conduct a series of surveys to
determine freshmen's interests.
Information obtained from the surveys is used to help
departments make good decisions about how to structure
freshman courses, he said.
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autumn and spring semastars, axcept on holidays and during
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Copyright 1973. tha Daily Nebraskan. Material may ba reprinted
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Address: The Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34, 14th and R
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daily nebraskan
friday, february 15, 1974