The Undergraduate Finance Committee gave Dartmouth's Student Assembly $85,000 on Tuesday for its budget for the upcoming year, which is $10,000 more than the committee allocated to the Assembly last year. Former Student Body President Travis Green '08, who chaired the committee this term, attributed the budget increase to the detailed budget proposal submitted by current Student Body President Molly Bode '09. The Assembly, in its last meeting of the term Tuesday night, voted to allocate $5,000 of the UFC-provided budget for the Summer Assembly's use. The Assembly also elected Miesha Smith '09 Fall term treasurer and Uthman Olagoke '11 Fall term secretary on Tuesday. The organization recognized several of its members for their work throughout the term with "SAMMY" awards, a play on the television industry's Emmy Awards. Corey Chu' 08 won the "Member of the Year" award, while Neil Kandler '09 took the award for outstanding service. Anne Kasitaza '08 and Karen Doster '11 both won "New Member of the Year" awards.
Wake Forest University and Smith College have joined a growing group of liberal arts colleges that have stopped requiring applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. The change will take effect with the Class of 2013, according to The Boston Globe. Both institutions said their decisions will lead to a more diverse applicant pool, which has been the case at similar universities that also ended the standardized test requirement, The Globe said. These schools have seen no decline in academic performance following the policy change, which calls into question the tests' ability to predict academic success in college, according to The Globe. Although students no longer need to submit the scores, the majority of applicants still provide them.
While the College Board has historically sold student information to colleges looking for students with certain attributes, the company is now piloting a program that will provide information that specifically identifies students from low-income backgrounds, Inside Higher Ed reported on Tuesday. The College Board included similar financial information in its reports more than 20 years ago, but the company discontinued the program after some colleges began advertising solely to wealthy students. In reinstating a more regulated version of the program, the College Board hopes to help schools increase socioeconomic diversity. Poor students have the lowest representation at colleges and universities, which many experts believe is not due to a lack of financial aid, but instead a lack of information about how to access the aid, Inside Higher Ed said.
