New York University has just announced that it is pulling out of the National Merit Scholarship program, which awards funding to those students who score particularly well on standardized tests in high school.
NYU is at least the ninth school to stop funding the program on the grounds that it refuses to award students financially for merely doing well on a standardized test. According to Shawn Abbott, an assistant vice president of admissions at NYU quoted on Bloomberg’s website, the university does not feel that “enrolling a larger number of National Merit finalists is a necessary way for us to attract the most academically qualified freshman class.”
Many see a school’s participation in the National Merit Scholarship program as a way to artificially boost the average SAT score at a particular school, thus inflating its national ranking.
Boston University is currently listed under participants in the program, awarding selected students scholarships if they score high enough and choose to designate BU as their first choice.
Instead of funneling money into the Merit Scholarship program, BU should consider creating a more extensive array of financial awards not based on testing, but rather on more multi-faceted pursuits.
By giving out scholarships based on students’ ability to excel in areas beyond the realm of test taking, the school would attract a more varied and talented student body. Perhaps it is difficult to quantify this on a summary of national rankings, but it would contribute greatly to improving both the diversity in the environment and the caliber of the university itself if other aspects of academic excellence were rewarded.
Some schools hold that the best way to ‘track’ the most academically qualified freshmen is through the National Merit Scholarship program, but they would do well to realize that the factors that contribute to the makeup of a qualified student often add up to much more than a number at the top of an SAT test.
The SAT was always and still remains a valid method with which to measure a student’s academic ability, but as the years go by, a growing number of institutions are beginning to realize that the most qualified candidates cannot be boiled down to a test score. The financial rewards that these institutions bestow should be adjusted to fit the modern view of the academically qualified student.
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