The president of Grove College has recommended that the college abandon its century-old tradition of all-female education and begin admitting men. Pointing to other all-female colleges that experienced an increase in applications after adopting coeducatio

In this argument, the director of the alumnae association concludes that Grove College should maintain its century-old tradition of all-female education. To support this claim, the director cited to the annual surveys of incoming students and the survey of Grove alumnae; however, this conclusion cannot be accepted as it is in that it rests on a number of premises all of which can be challenged in one way or another.

The first problem with the argument is that the director just takes incoming students in the annual surveys. However, the students who have plans to study at Grove College in the future are practically are omitted from the surveys. Maybe, these students have a different viewpoint about Grove College’s all-female tradition rather than incoming students who attended in college now. Therefore, the director should take the students who have plans to study at Grove College as participants in further surveys, If the director wants to provide reliable information.

Another problem with the argument is that the director explains that all-female education is essential to the very identity of the college. However, the arguer fails to consider other aspects of this plan. Maybe, this plan has some negative feedbacks among students that ignored by the director. For instance, all-female education may not fully develop female students’ personality and creativity, to establish a close relationship with their teachers. Therefore, the director should provide more evidence to ensure robustness of this claim.

A third problem with the argument is that the director claims majority of respondents strongly favored keeping the college all female. However, the director refers to a survey while no accurate number of respondents are mentioned. Even if it is assumed that enough participants took part in the study, there is still another problem with the sample, and that is, the author provides us no more information about the method of surveying. Therefore, the findings of such a study are neither reliable nor valid.

In the final analysis, the writer’s conclusion cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in the body paragraphs above, it depends on a number of assumptions each of which is questionable. To bolster it the writer has to provide consider students that have planned to attend Grove in the annual surveys, think over about all feedbacks and effects of this plan, and provide numerical information about survey participants. So, the conclusion can only be accepted if the weakness already referred to are all removed.