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From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu
Subject: Re: University entrance regulation
Summary: Entrance requirements should be meaningful, and not credentials
Keywords: What kind of regulation does your university have?
Message-ID: <1797@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 20 Dec 89 22:21:23 GMT
References: <1432@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <10@tygra.UUCP>
Reply-To: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Followup-To: comp.edu
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Lines: 41

In article <10@tygra.UUCP> jpp@tygra.UUCP (John Palmer) writes:
>
>I'm not an official with Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, but
>I know that people need either a high school diploma or a general education
>certificate.
> 
>The ad-hoc admission standards should be eliminated for the good of everyone.
>Even when there are standards in place, there must be some overseer to make
>sure that people can't circumvent them.

Having much experience in the matter, I disagree completely.  Purdue does not
usually admit students without high school diplomas, but only good students
in that category.  The problem is with students who have a high school 
diploma which states that the student has had certain courses with certain
grades; even this is not trustworthy, and the course contents may be almost
non-existent.  Meaningful standards do not mean grades and credentials.

>I have personal knowledge that this occurs at Wayne State - particularily
>in the Computer Science Department. The university bulletin states that a
>student must have at least a 3.0 G.P.A. to be admitted to the Master's 
>Program, but I know that there are many students (especially foreign
>students) who have GPA's under 3.0, some of them with 1.5's and 1.6's.
>The only time that the CS department pulls out the rule book is if someone
>in charge of admissions has something personal against the applicant, or
>is a friend of someone who has such a grudge. The moral of the story:
>"Be sure to have a very strong overseer".

I know much more about admissions to graduate programs, and I assure you that
foreign students are scrutinized much more carefully than American students.
Are you sure that you understand a foreign transcript?  Do you know what the
grades mean?  I have much less difficulty in assessing a foreign student than
an American student, and I doubt that CS departments are more desperate than
mathematics or statistics departments are.  In mathematics and statistics,
finding American students for the PhD program is a real problem, and I under-
stand that this is also the case in CS.  Most departments will not support
foreign students who are not interested in a PhD, and a typical MS program
does not lead to a PhD program.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)