Barron Calls on CUNY Chancellor to Testify on SAT Scores

The chairman of the City Council’s higher education committee is investigating the way in which the City University of New York reports the SAT scores of its undergraduates, accusing CUNY of releasing misleading data about the quality of its students.The council member, Charles Barron of Brooklyn, is calling on the chancellor, Mathew Goldstein, and other top CUNY administrators to testify at a public hearing October 6 that will look into CUNY’s practice of misrepresenting the average SAT scores of students at its senior colleges.The hearing was prompted by a report Friday in The New York Sun that CUNY has portrayed increases in the average SAT scores of its accepted undergraduate applicants as those of its enrolled student body.Mr. Barron said it’s deceptive for the public university “to talk about scores of students that CUNY accepted and not the scores of students that actually enrolled.”“It gives a bogus, unreal perception of progress that didn’t actually occur,” the council member said.Mr. Barron, who opposes the tougher admission standards that CUNY put in place several years ago, said he suspects the SAT scores of the system’s undergraduates have not increased.In public documents and statements, CUNY has referred to SAT scores of its students without making clear that those figures referred only to accepted applicants.Some people close to CUNY, including a former chairman of its board of trustees, Herman Badillo, told the Sun they were surprised that CUNY had released only the SAT scores of admitted applicants.The current board chairman, Benno Schmidt, in a speech last December 16, said, “However, the researchers at RAND and other research organizations that we used would indicate that SAT scores of incoming [freshmen] have increased in CUNY’s senior colleges in the last five years by nearly 200 points,” according to a transcript of the speech.Mr. Schmidt, a former president of Yale University, was referring to the average combined SAT scores of CUNY’s admitted applicants, which increased by 89 points between 1996 and 2004. Mr. Schmidt did not a return a call for comment yesterday.CUNY officials deny the university has misrepresented SAT figures of its students. They said it has consistently reported averages of its admitted applicants. CUNY also maintains that it has always been clear that the averages it reported did not refer to its enrolled students.Members of the City Council are also demanding that CUNY release SAT averages of its enrolled students.“I don’t know what CUNY has to hide,” said another council member who sits on the higher education committee, Gale Brewer, of Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “Everybody is feeling positive about their efforts. CUNY should release the scores.”Last week, a spokesman for CUNY, Michael Arena, told the Sun that the university could not provide those figures. Asked again for the average scores yesterday, CUNY’s vice chancellor for university relations, Jay Hershenson, said the university was “working on your request.”He said CUNY has provided average SAT figures of enrolled students to college guides, including U.S. News & World Report for the magazine’s annual university rankings.Mr. Hershenson said CUNY is confident the university will demonstrate at the hearing the rising quality of its students. “We welcome the opportunity to testify because we have a great story to tell, including increasing numbers of better prepared students since 1999 who are now attending CUNY,” the vice chancellor said.In recent years, CUNY has frequently touted rising SAT scores of its students as evidence that its tougher admissions policies have yielded a more impressive student body. Reports of rising SAT scores and enrollment have helped put to rest doubts expressed by critics of the changes in admissions policies, who predicted a negative effect.CUNY officials have said the university’s elimination of remedial courses at the senior colleges and its requirement that students pass a basic skills test to enroll in its baccalaureate programs have made the school more attractive to higher-caliber students.

Barron Calls on CUNY Chancellor to Testify on SAT Scores

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