The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of the Cheshire College Preparatory Academy:
“ We recommend that Cheshire College Preparatory Academy dispense with the use of standardized tests as an entrance requirement. Cheshire has been an elite school for more than 100 years, but we have recently seen a decline in enrollments. We have had particular difficulty in attracting students from non-legacy families (those who have never had a member attend Cheshire). We do not require entrance exams for legacy applicants, and those enrollments have not declined. Cutting the standardized entrance requirement will allow us to better compete with Surrey Academy, which recently dropped its exam requirements and concurrently overtook Cheshire in enrollments.”
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered to decide how likely the stated recommendation is to yield the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The Board of Directors of the Cheshire College Preparatory Academy claims that by dispensing the use of standardized tests as an entrance requirement, Cheshire College Preparatory Academy will see an increase in enrollment. While the board of directors provided their reasoning, there are still many factors outside of standardized testing that may cause the problems in enrollment. As such, the board needs to answer various questions and provide more evidence before we can move forward with their recommendation and predict its impact on enrollment.
First and foremost, there are many factors that influence enrollment. Among these factors are curriculum, tuition fees, advance placement options, college competitiveness, extracurricular activities and athletic departments. When parents decide which school to send their children to, advanced academic curriculum, low tuition fees and proximity in location are factors that can attract a parent’s interest. The board of directors did not share with readers such conditions of Cheshire College Preparatory Academy. For example, if the school increased tuition fees significantly in the past few years, the additional expenses are probably the main culprits of low enrollment. As such, we need to know if there are any other policy changes at Cheshire College Preparatory Academy in the past few years before we can determine the factor that is causing a decrease in enrollment. If the school can show that no policy changes have been implemented, we can then give their recommendation to dispense with the use of standardized tests as an entrance requirement more consideration.
Furthermore, as the board of directors mentioned in their statement, Cheshire College Preparatory Academy has faced difficulty in attracting students from non-legacy families. They claim that the only difference between entrance requirements for students from legacy families and for students from non-legacy families is the use of standardized testing, and the enrollment of students from legacy families remained consistent while the enrollment of students from non-legacy families have declined. However, there might be other reasons that impacted the enrollment of non-legacy students. For example, the school might need to step up their PR efforts, as non-legacy families might not be aware of the school and its eliteness because no one in the family has attended it before. Another reason why non-legacy families might be turned off from the school might be the lack of diversity. Legacy applicants are traditionally white, and the lack of diversity of the school might turn families away to a more inclusive environment. As such, a survey needs to be done of non-legacy students and families so that we can ascertain what factors attract or disinterest them to Cheshire College Preparatory Academy so that we can provide better recommendations as to improve enrollment.
Last but not least, the board of directors cited dropping exam requirements as the reason Surrey Academy overtook Cheshire College Preparatory Academy in enrollment. The board of directors then proposed that if Cheshire College Preparatory Academy dropped exam requirements as well, enrollment will improve. To strengthen their argument, the board of directors need to provide us with more data. Did Surrey Academy make any other policy changes besides dropping exam requirements that would attract enrollment? For example, Surrey Academy might have recently hired a world-renowned college admissions counsellor to their academic staff. Surrey Academy might also recently started offering scholarships for students who are academically advanced. As such, unless all things being equal, we cannot confidently conclude that dropping exam requirements was the main factor causing the enrollment increase at Surrey Academy. If the board of directors can provide evidence that the conditions of both schools were equal besides exam requirements, their argument would be strengthened.
In conclusion, more evidence needs to be provided by the board of directors on the conditions of both schools. If the board of directors can prove that there are no other distinguishing variables between Cheshire College Preparatory Academy and Surrey Academy, as well as evidence that dropping exam requirements can lead to higher enrollment rates, we can then give their recommendation serious consideration.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 15 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 6 2
No. of Sentences: 27 15
No. of Words: 664 350
No. of Characters: 3677 1500
No. of Different Words: 255 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 5.076 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.538 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.995 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 289 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 251 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 176 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 107 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 24.593 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.382 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.667 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.352 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.527 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.223 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, besides, but, first, furthermore, however, if, may, so, still, then, well, while, as to, for example, in conclusion, in fact, as well as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 22.0 19.6327345309 112% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 28.0 12.9520958084 216% => Less auxiliary verb wanted.
Conjunction : 13.0 11.1786427146 116% => OK
Relative clauses : 19.0 13.6137724551 140% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 93.0 55.5748502994 167% => OK
Nominalization: 41.0 16.3942115768 250% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3754.0 2260.96107784 166% => OK
No of words: 664.0 441.139720559 151% => Less content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.65361445783 5.12650576532 110% => OK
Fourth root words length: 5.07623851424 4.56307096286 111% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.08388286138 2.78398813304 111% => OK
Unique words: 264.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.397590361446 0.468620217663 85% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 1188.9 705.55239521 169% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.8 1.59920159681 113% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 14.0 2.70958083832 517% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 27.0 19.7664670659 137% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.6641721896 57.8364921388 103% => OK
Chars per sentence: 139.037037037 119.503703932 116% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5925925926 23.324526521 105% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.25925925926 5.70786347227 92% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 10.0 4.67664670659 214% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.398233138309 0.218282227539 182% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.128611944925 0.0743258471296 173% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.14816242043 0.0701772020484 211% => The coherence between sentences is low.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.277022418489 0.128457276422 216% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.106029242112 0.0628817314937 169% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 17.5 14.3799401198 122% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 30.2 48.3550499002 62% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.1628742515 156% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.0 12.197005988 123% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 15.79 12.5979740519 125% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.16 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 140.0 98.500998004 142% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 12.3882235529 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Write the essay in 30 minutes.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.