Letters to the Editor
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‘CUNY Attempts to Boost Its Competitive Status in City’
Your July 30 article on the City University of New York’s plan to raise minimum test scores for admission to bachelor’s degree programs reports on Vice Chancellor Jay Hershenson’s defense of the change [New York, “CUNY Attempts to Boost Its Competitive Status in City,” July 30, 2007].
CUNY, he said, has raised enrollment and improved faculty quality without sacrificing racial and class diversity. This isn’t totally correct . Since 1999, when CUNY first raised its testing requirements, three senior colleges — City College, Hunter College, and Baruch — have suffered sharp declines in black enrollment. At the senior colleges overall, the percentage of black enrollment has remained flat while the other ethnic groups’ percentages have risen.
What’s more, the tests CUNY uses have not been shown to be good predictors of success at the university. Instead of raising its cutoff scores on these tests once again, CUNY should improve its admission policies without penalizing any ethnicgroup.
William Crain
Professor
The City College, CUNY
New York, N.Y.
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