Hi folks, It looks like this issue of the Atlantic is going to be very interesting reading. Due out later this month...
THE ATLANTIC COLLEGE-ADMISSIONS SURVEY "Calm down!" the deans and counselors say. This month The Atlantic Monthly introduces the first installment of what will become an annual feature devoted to the increasingly unpredictable, commercial, and manic world of American college admissions. In this issue: The New College Chaos by James Fallows College admissions officers say they have many, many more applications than they know how to handle���and, often, less reliable information to help them decide which students to admit The Late-Decision Program by V.V. Ganeshananthan Most people have heard of early-decision programs. But there's also a little-known safety net at the other end of the process, to catch those who don't get in anywhere What Makes a College Good? by Nicholas Confessore A new survey seeks to get beyond the well-publicized���and much criticized���college rankings and measure schools by how good a job they do of actually educating their students The Selectivity Illusion by Don Peck Look at the data closely, and the neat hierarchy of "selectivity" begins to fall apart. By way of experiment, The Atlantic gathered data on America's most selective schools and created a ranking of the top fifty. Such a ranking appears to provide clarity���but under scrutiny that clarity turns out to be an illusion. A case study of the misleading nature of statistics The Bias Question by Jay Mathews In a surprising challenge to the SAT's reputation as an unbiased measure of student learning, one researcher has argued that blacks do better than matched-ability whites on the harder questions of the SAT���something he believes their scores should reflect ............................................................................ ... Nancy Melucci Long Beach City College Long Beach CA
--- Begin Message --- The Atlantic Monthly | November 2003 Preview
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November 2003
Columbia's Last Flight
by William Langewiesche
The mission was supposed to be a yawn—a low-priority "science"
flight forced onto NASA by Congress, postponed for two years, and
launched as much to clear the books as to add to human knowledge. Then,
at 7:59 a.m. on February 1, all that changed: Columbia broke apart as it
re-entered the atmosphere, killing all of the astronauts on board and
setting in motion a highly charged investigation not only of the
accident itself but also of NASA's entire reason for being. Granted
inside access to the investigation, The Atlantic's national
correspondent William Langewiesche—a former professional pilot and
the author of "The Crash of EgyptAir 990," which won a 2001 National
Magazine Award—re-creates the last minutes of the doomed flight,
flies NASA's shuttle simulator, and lays bare the personalities and
politics involved in one of the most high-pressure official
investigations in recent American history
Young Rumsfeld
by James Mann
The Donald Rumsfeld of thirty years ago was a lot like the man we know
today—a divisive figure who relishes bureaucratic combat, aims to
shake up the established order, and is tenaciously committed to his own
ideas and ambitions. But he was also a social moderate and a dove
THE ATLANTIC COLLEGE-ADMISSIONS SURVEY
"Calm down!" the deans and counselors say. This month The Atlantic
Monthly introduces the first installment of what will become an annual
feature devoted to the increasingly unpredictable, commercial, and manic
world of American college admissions. In this issue:
The New College Chaos
by James Fallows
College admissions officers say they have many, many more applications
than they know how to handle—and, often, less reliable information
to help them decide which students to admit
The Late-Decision Program
by V.V. Ganeshananthan
Most people have heard of early-decision programs. But there's also a
little-known safety net at the other end of the process, to catch those
who don't get in anywhere
What Makes a College Good?
by Nicholas Confessore
A new survey seeks to get beyond the well-publicized—and much
criticized—college rankings and measure schools by how good a job
they do of actually educating their students
The Selectivity Illusion
by Don Peck
Look at the data closely, and the neat hierarchy of "selectivity" begins
to fall apart. By way of experiment, The Atlantic gathered data on
America's most selective schools and created a ranking of the top fifty.
Such a ranking appears to provide clarity—but under scrutiny that
clarity turns out to be an illusion. A case study of the misleading
nature of statistics
The Bias Question
by Jay Mathews
In a surprising challenge to the SAT's reputation as an unbiased measure
of student learning, one researcher has argued that blacks do better
than matched-ability whites on the harder questions of the
SAT—something he believes their scores should reflect
............................................................................
...
The Agenda
* Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics,
makes an urgent case for the forgiveness of Iraq's debts
* Philip Jenkins—the author of "The Next Christianity" (The
Atlantic's October 2002 cover story)—on the most important figure
today in the Anglican world: Nigeria's powerful Archbishop Peter Akinola
* Mark Steyn on the death of Diana Mosley—"the last person alive
to know both Churchill and Hitler."
* The World in Numbers: Murder by the State
* Primary Sources (selections from recent reports, studies, and other
documents).
Excerpt from Primary Sources: "What does George W. Bush, the first U.S.
President with an M.B.A., really think of the federal government's
management performance? The latest 'Executive Branch Management
Scorecard'—released by the White House this summer, at
www.results.gov
. . . offers some idea. . . . The overwhelming majority of agencies and
departments are deemed to be failing."
Books & Critics
* Christopher Hitchens on a new biography of Mark Twain
* Caitlin Flanagan on two new wedding books
* Thomas Mallon on The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard's first novel in
twenty years
* Scott Shibuya Brown on The Early Stories: 1953�1975, by John Updike
* Robert Kaplan on The Iraq War: A Military History, by Williamson
Murray and Major General Robert H. Scales Jr.
* Michael Gorra on My Life as a Fake, by Peter Carey
* Corby Kummer on Everything Was Possible: The Birth of the Musical
Follies, by Ted Chapin
* New & Noteworthy: What to read this month, by Benjamin Schwarz
Also in the Magazine
* Cullen Murphy on the launching of a semantic crusade by Godless
Americans
* Fiction by Max Apple
* Poetry by David Barber and Erica Funkhouser
* Word Court, by Barbara Wallraff
* The Puzzler, by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
Letters to the Editor: Excerpts
People Like Us
by David Brooks (September 2003)
—"David Brooks is certainly right that Americans tend to
congregate with like-minded souls. But his examples all seem a little
one-sided, suggesting that liberals are the ones who need to mingle with
conservatives. I would suggest that the latter are no less in need of
enlightenment. . . . Maybe the folks in Branson, Missouri, need to spend
some time chatting with the folks in Boulder, Colorado. And how many
liberal academics would be welcome at an evangelical Christian college?
I'll venture a guess that their faculties are more 'closed' than
Princeton's. Everyone needs an open mind, not just liberals." (Kate
Shapiro, Julian, Calif.)
—"At Harvard in the 1950s, despite a wide-ranging effort to
recruit students from many sources, I was one of less than a handful of
students with a farm background. Equally sparse were evangelical
Christians and political conservatives. . . . As an academic in the late
1970s, I was told in several interviews that I was the ideal candidate
for the job—if I were only a black female. . . . That is how I
came to be a sawmill operator. . . . In our national rush to honor the
roots of people concerning whom we feel guilty, we are as a nation
ignoring our own cultural, political, and institutional roots. I am not
sure the result will be a very good polity." (Bruce P. Shields, Wolcott,
Vt.)
Founders Chic
by H.W. Brands (September 2003)
—"I enjoyed H. W. Brands's attempt to demystify the Founding
Fathers. . . . However, on the final page Brands posits the reaction
that the Founders would most likely have toward several contemporary
constitutional controversies, and I have to take serious issue with his
supposition about one in particular: campaign-finance reform. He
believes that 'all the Founders would have been shocked at the
overwhelming role of money in modern politics.' . . . Given the enormous
size of the modern American economy, the cost of running elections is
still a tiny fraction and a good bargain. The drafters of the
Constitution could not possibly have envisioned the electoral system
that would be needed to serve such a huge and powerful nation, but they
would have been hard pressed to create one that did the job any better .
. . than what we now have." (Ken Braun, Lansing, Mich.)
—H.W. Brands replies: "Ken Braun thinks America is getting good
value for its campaign dollars and suggests that the Founders would
think so too. I can't disagree more. In the first place, the Founders
didn't envision a democracy, and therefore didn't anticipate that
candidates would have to be 'introduced' to voters by the millions. . .
. But even if they had envisioned our modern democracy, they would
hardly have been happy with the enormous role of money in making it
work. If the Founders agreed on one thing, it was the importance of
civic virtue in a republic, and though—conceivably—some of
them might have considered our current mode of campaign finance
efficient, they wouldn't have considered it virtuous. George Washington
pressing the flesh at fundraisers? The mind boggles."
............................................................................
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The November Atlantic goes on sale at newsstands October 14th, 2003.
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For media inquiries, please contact:
Julia Rothwax
646-935-4147
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