Scholarship Scenario...

Great Debates
1

Here’s a scenario. With regards to the TV show Ed, where it originates. We were talking about it in chemistry class a couple weeks ago.

A student (we’ll call him Student A) wins a scholarship to a good college. His grades are essentially perfect- you know the type. Except he is failing gym. The requirements state that 20% of one’s grade is based on participation/effort, and the other 80% is based on ability. Now, Student A fails gym, and thus cannot accept the scholarship.

Is this fair? Should we bend the rules? Many people would say yes. However, there are complications… Enter: Student B.

Student B wins a scholarship based on his basketball record. It is highly probable that he will be courted by the NBA after leaving college. The problem is, Student B is failing English. As hard as he tries, he is unable to pass English, and so must forfeit the scholarship.

Are these two different scenarios?
One could argue that Student A will never need to use gym in his life and he has tried. However, the same goes for B - he’s tried hard to pass English, and will probably never need to fall back on his knowledge of high school English.

Not a clear issue. The debate/question is…should one of them have been allowed the scholarship? Both? Neither?

2

I think they are two different situations,mostly because the purpose of a college is for the study of academic subjects, such as English, and not to provide an opportunity to play sports. To give someone who failed English a scholarship because he’s a good basketball player would be like giving someone who can’t play baseball a scholarship to a baseball camp because he’s good in academic subjects.

I don’t agree with this at all:

Student A may not even need to use gym in college. (My college didn’t require any gym classes.) Student B will need to understand written material and be at least a passable writer to get through the first semester of college. In fact, except in the case of a non-native speaker, I don’t see how someone could be unable to pass English, but yet pass the other academic subjects.

Bend the rules? Personally, I think a gym grade that depends 80% on ability is kind of strange. Maybe I went to an unusual high school, but the only way to fail the required gym,art and music classes was lack of attendance/participation.

3

Okay well, to get back to you…

Let’s say the class the jock guy (er, Student B…) is failing isn’t English. How about Math or Science. In other words, something he isn’t going to be relying on much. (I know, I know, it isn’t really fair to assume that a certain subject is unimportant just because one may or may not use it- but its not very believable that a star athlete would be failing gym.)

And yes, I’m aware that in gym its mostly based on participation and this is an unusual situation. Let’s just assume these modifications…does that change anything?

4

Lots of different scholarships out there. Just find one that fits, rather than fiddle with the requirements.

For myself, I was tossed as a finalist in a full multi-year scholarship for being too old. Spent a morning discusing it with the scholarship’s lawyer and ended up with a job offer, but no scholarship.

Another time I won one for no particular reason. The only explanation I could get was “We like you.”

Like I say, just find one that fits, and don’t worry about the ones that don’t.

More to the point, who is to say what a person will rely on in later years, and who is to say what will lead to being a better person in better years? The scholarship trustees simply set out what they think will best result in what they are after, which in the OP’s example would suggest a somewhat well rounded individual.

Neither A nor B are well rounded, so the prize would go to C, who might not be the best at anything, but is overall pretty good and keeps things in balance. Meanwhile, A and B could pick up specialist scholarships. (If they are not too old, grumble grumble grumble.)

5

I think the key difference here is the ability to improve a fixed amount in a limited time period.

Academic subjects are generally designed so that everyone in the class should be capable of learning the material at least adequately in the time available. It would unfair to throw a kid who barely spoke English into an honors English course. He should instead take a remedial or ESL course where his grade is based upon how much he has improved by the end of the quarter, even if he is still way behind the regular English class.

On the other hand, gym class has all levels of kids. A standard class of 30 kids is going to have some kids who are so talented in some endeavor (running, doing pushups, football, etc.) that certain other kids could never achieve that level of performance even if they practiced 5 hours a day for the rest of their lives. Therefore, it is inappropriate to punish those kids for not reaching an essentially unattainable standard.

Furthermore, athletic ability (and room for improvement) is probably much more difficult to assess than is academic ability. It would be very difficult and unfair to say “If you can currently run a mile in 10 minutes, then you need to be able to run it in 9:37 by the end of the school year to get a C, 9:22 to get a B, and 9 minutes flat to get an A.”

Finally–and I’m including this last because I just thought of it, not because it fits best here–academic classes test what one has learned, not how much one has improved an existing ability. This is why it’s easier to assess grades academically: Johnny comes into the class not knowing how to do algebra; Johnny should leave the class knowing how to do algebra (or at least he should have demonstrated the ability to do so at some time during the class, even if he later forgets) in order to pass. A similar test can not be done athletically, as I stated earlier.

Sorry for the longwindedness and lack of flow. I guess this is why my AP Euro teacher always told me to write an outline before I launch into an essay!

6

What kind of scholarships are these, exactly? There are scholarships funded by schools (when Brown University offers a scholarship for say, chemistry), as well as scholarships provided by outside groups (when the Chicago Amateur Golf League offers a golf scholarship, which can be used by the recipient at any college with a golf program) and also many degrees in between (the Duke Alumni Association offers a golf scholarship, giving first preference to Duke students, but then distributing any remaining funds to students at other schools).

The organization granting the scholarship almost always reserves the right to apply the stated criteria as it sees fit. There are published guidelines, but when it comes down to the nitty gritty, the scholarship committee may decide to make special cases that might be outside the letter of the guidelines.

Even when an individual endows a fund at a college with very specific requirements, the institution can decide to review those requirements and change them if necessary. At our school, we had a scholarship established in 1850 that provided money for a white, male student who was engaged in community service and enrolled in the Teacher Education program. Needless to say (or, I think it’s needless) the school has since dropped the white and male requirements. That’s a rather extreme example, but the point is that the estate of the original donor would not be able to challenge the decision of the school to change those guidelines. In a slightly more related (and recent) example, one year the scholarship was given to a student who was not in the Teacher Education program. He was a biology major whose work in community service was establishing weekend science clubs at local elementary schools. The school felt that this particular student best met the spirit of the scholarship, in that he was involved in both service and education.

This is a very long-winded musing on my basic question as to why this ended up in a courtroom. Were they state funded scholarships? Very few scholarships of any type are automatic (such as the National Merit Scholarship), most rely on the recommendations of a committee. That committee is charged with making exceptions as it sees fit. There are some things that impact the committee’s decisions. In the case of Student B, the college might say “hey, let’s have the kid play basketball, even if he’s failing English” but does the college really want to risk an NCAA censure over the issue? Colleges play by the NCAA’s rules for athletic scholarships, because it is in their own best interest.

Somehow I doubt the Association of American Chemists is going to boycott a college because they are up in arms about a chemistry scholarship recipient not being very good in gym.

To make a long post even longer, let’s say we now have Student C, who applied for the same scholarship as Student A. Student C also has excellent grades, AND is passing gym. What happens if Student C complains that he/she was denied the scholarship given to Student A? The scholarship committee might say that in their interview, Student C was average, but Student A presented an amazingly articulate and convincing argument as to why gym is not important in evaluting one’s future in higher education. The committee reserves the option to say that Student A, having demonstrated a more compelling and dynamic intellectual ability, best meets the criteria of the scholarship, even though Student A does not fall within the general guidelines of the scholarship.

7

I worked as a college prof for 6 years and was heavily involved with scholarships. We didn’t put much weight on high school gpa since the correlation between college success and hs gpa was slim. There was a much, much stronger correlation between college success and the score on the SAT. Therefore, we put about 75% weight on the SAT and 25% on ‘other’ like activities, hs gpa, and uniqueness of experience that makes you stand out (ex-military, etc.)

Blink

8

A story from Harvard Law School. After the Pfor has described the disposition of a partiular case, as cutdent raises his handm and cries our, “But, that isn’t fair!”

The Prof points out the window at another building and responds, "If you wanted fairness, you should have enrolled over there, in the Divinity School.