"Diversity." The word is used liberally throughout every IU orientation brochure as an incentive for attracting prospective students. And it's true; IU's student body contains people from all walks of life. A major reason for this is that although the University recruits some of the nation's brightest students through its competitive law, business, humanities and science programs, the school's reasonable admissions standards bring in less competitive students to round out the population.\nIt's difficult to get a clear picture of a student's academic potential based solely on high school grades and test scores. While low marks in these areas can certainly indicate a lack of focus and determination, they often leave out a large part of the story. Low grades can result from trouble at home, from having to hold down a job while attending school or from the depression and anxiety that strike so many teenagers.\nBy the time the situation has stabilized, it's often too late for these students to bring up their grade point averages. But thanks to schools like IU, the students in this group who are eager to work toward a degree can to attend a Big Ten school instead of a lesser-known community college -- or no college at all.\nThe generous admissions standards are also beneficial to inner-city students, many of whom attend high schools that lack the funding to keep their students in step with peers from better-equipped high schools. The University's current admissions process accommodates students under these circumstances as well.\nAccepting such a broad range of students is beneficial to them, and it benefits the University. Keeping admissions standards manageable brings in a large number of students, which brings in more money.\nIU has managed to maintain its solid reputation for years while allowing average high school students the opportunity to improve themselves academically. High school students who didn't make the honor roll every semester deserve a chance at a good education.\nWe are a public, state institution. Let's act that way by continuing to embrace every student who has the potential to succeed and challenging all students to meet their potential.
Dissent\nRaise admissions standards because elite reputation matters\nOut in the professional world, a university degree is like a car. Much of what you pay for is in the name. A potential employer is not likely to know IU's student-professor ratio, or be able to name the starting lineup of our soccer team.\nWhat they will know is a reputation.\nIt's a reputation based, rightly or wrongly, on exclusivity rankings, academic program rankings and IU's basketball performance.\nBy accepting the students who are likely to struggle or drop out in their first year, all we're doing is calling freshman year a weeding-out period to separate the wheat from the chaff.\nPerhaps the answer doesn't come in lowering admittance rates. A tougher application process with a mandatory essay could help ensure the most deserving of the resources of IU are accepted.\nBy raising admissions standards and thus decreasing admittance rates, we can increase IU's reputation and better serve our future graduates with a brighter student population that inevitably affects IU's national reputation.
