Higher Admissions: The Rise and Fall of Standardized Testing
Nicholas Lemann
Sep 2024 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Terrence Kidd
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4 hr 19 min
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About this audiobook
In the 1930s, American colleges and universities began to screen applications using the SAT, a mass-administered, IQ-descended standardized test. The widespread adoption of the test accompanied the development of the world's first mass higher education system-and served to promote the idea that the United States was becoming a "meritocracy." In Higher Admissions, Nicholas Lemann reflects on the state of America's aspirational meritocracy and the enduring value and meaning of standardized testing. Lemann writes that the anticipation of the Supreme Court's 2023 decision banning affirmative action, plus the Covid pandemic, led hundreds of universities to stop requiring standardized admissions tests; now a handful of elite universities are reinstituting test requirements. The country is preoccupied with the admissions policies of the most selective universities, but Lemann redirects our attention to an alternate path that American higher education can still take-one that emphasizes a significant upgrade of the entire higher education system. Lemann argues that to improve the state of higher education overall, we should focus not on the narrow chokepoint of admission to highly selective colleges, but on efforts to create as much meaningful opportunity for flourishing in our vast higher education system for as many people as possible.
About the author
Nicholas Lemann is a staff writer at the New Yorker and dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, where he is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism. He is the author of Transaction Man, The Big Test, and other books.
A seasoned playwright, Terrence Kidd uses his skill as a storyteller to bring life to any genre. He loves narrating nonfiction best, but Terry's engaged, informed, and warm tone illuminates everything from potboiler crime thrillers to romance. A longtime bartender, Terry now narrates from his home studio in Massachusetts.
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