The Week in Review: Top Five Admissions Stories

April 20, 2012  —  

In this week’s post, the success of MIT’s free online courses, the former Admissions Dean at Claremont McKenna College exaggerating the SAT scores of accepted students, the competition for elite foreign students, the validity of taking your ninth grader on a college tour and the statistics for 2012 College admissions.

But first, watch him go! Look at Steve Marcus’ talk at the inaugural INNOVATE Boston event. And learn more about his story  by our good friends at Bostinno!

MIT and others Launch a Tech Education Revolution

With 120,000 registrations, it is safe to say MIT’s launch of free online courses is a great success! The course called MITx is just as challenging as the courses taught on campus, you can just relax and learn about circuits and electronics without having to hop on the redline and head into Kendall Square. MIT’s courses are not the only ones that have been successful, schools such as Princeton and Stanford are also offering these courses online.

Rankings Did Not Motivate College Official Who Falsified SAT Scores, Report Finds

The truth comes out! In efforts to appease his boss, the former Admissions Dean of Claremont McKenna College exaggerated standardized testing scores of students accepted to the schools. The former dean claimed that the president “had too many goals” so since 2004 he was misreporting test scores as well as class rank. Will this deter students from applying? We shall see..

Colleges Angle for Influential Foreign Students like Bo Guagua

International students strive to attend U.S. universities, especially those born into elite families. Universities will compete for the power, press, prestige and potential donorship that he can bring to an institution.

Yes, I Took My Ninth Grader on a College Tour (and It Was Worth It)

New York Times writer Dave Marcus, (no relation to Matchbox’s CEO Steve Marcus) took his son on a college tour. You may be thinking that is far too early to start the college search, but Marcus’ goal was not to get him interested in a particular school, but rather to demonstrate what the ninth graders’ hard work was going too, giving him direction and focus through his four years of college. And, if his take-away is that campus food rocks, that is okay too!

Colleges Report 2012 Admissions Statistics

The third annual New York Times College Report was just published. The presentation of  data highlights the particularly low acceptance rates in 2012. Stay tuned for Matchbox’s  2012 admissions report.