rigor revisited -- Capella U.

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd start a new thread on this, instead of adding to the huge rigor thread of last week.

I'm back in the U.S. at my Capella residency (wow, talk about reverse culture shock!), and we got some news today that I think will be of interest, considering several of the comments made on the older rigor thread regarding the almost open admissions policies in DL Ph.D. programs, and how these programs don't do much to weed out potential students.

The way comprehensives stand at Capella right now, you basically have as long as you want, with unlimited (mostly) iterations, to pass comprehensives before moving on to the dissertation. Apparently, starting Jan 05, Capella is changing this, to comprehensives that last a month, with only one shot at iteration. In other words, you write your comps, turn them in, get a chance for a rewrite, and if you don't pass on the rewrite, then you're out of the program.

I spoke to a School of Business faculty member about this, and he said this is one of the changes that Capella is making to become more discriminatory and add more rigor to their program. That makes sense, as this new system of comps is much more like traditional residency program comps.

Just thought I'd pass it on -- I'm quite happy with the change, and think it'll definitely help.

Regards,
Adrienne

P.S. For those of you who don't know, the current comp system at Capella is you propose 10 comp questions, then your committee selects 6, for which you write 25-30 pages on each. It is recommended that this is done in 1-2 quarters, but in reality, students can take as long as they want on this process. Then, after iterations, you "defend" them during a conference call. The new system is 4 questions, which the student has a voice in writing, but the committee actually writes the questions, each is 15 pages, and you have a month to write and submit them all. You get one chance to rewrite, and then the oral defense.

 

Adrienne - this certainly sounds like a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see how many students fail and are asked to leave. I'm not in favor of flunking students just to flunk students - but if you aren't selective in admission, you may well have to say "no" to some.

When do these comps take place in your program? One problem I see is that if students have invested a lot of time and money, schools may be reluctant to say "no" to students. They can face a lot of backlash from students who say - "look, I've invested $xx,xxx in this program and worked for x years - what do you mean I'm out!" I wouldn't be surprised if some of these cases end up in court.

One advantage of strict admission standards is that you say "no" before a person has invested a lot of time and money on a program. Selective admissions is a challenge in that you have to find a reliable set of measures to use in determining who to admit. But at least you don't "lead" students on and take their money.

Also when you say you have a month to write your comps - I assume this means that the exam isn't proctored. Also, from your description it would appear that your committee is involved in grading your comps. My experience at NSU was a proctored situation - we had 8 hours to write our comps, but we were in a supervised situation. Further, NSU used a blind grading system with at least two graders on each question.

Regards - Andy

 

reply to Andy and followup

Hi Andy,

You make some valid points regarding the time at which discrimination is made, and in fact this is something that I brought up with the president of Capella tonight at one of our functions. By the way, he told me he had no problem with me posting what we discussed here.

He said that Capella takes issue with the GMAT and GRE as valid measurements for adult learners that have been out of school for a while (something that came up in the earlier rigor thread here). However, he acknowledged and supported the need for earlier discrimination than the comps system. What Capella is also moving toward is having this rigor and discrimination in the "first course" -- in other words, the first required course of any school that all learners must take (it's not transferrable). The rigor is to be increased in this course, and at that point, if the student is not measuring up, as Mike (the prez.) put it, they will be "counseled"out. In other words, they have to make the "grade", or cut, in the first class. If they don't, they are out, and subsequentially are not investing large amounts of time and money in a program they cannot hope to complete (this is a paraphrase of Mike's words).

Mike also said that as a for-profit school, Capella is very sensitive to the accusation that they exist to milk as much money as they can out of the student. Mike states that this is contradictory to the mission and vision of Capella, and that the improvements that are being implemented will help to guard against and prevent this scenario from happening.

So, there's the latest Capella update. I must admit, I'm quite satisfied with a uni prez. willing to discuss such controversial issues with a learner, and be willing to be citied/quoted on it.

Regards,
Adrienne

P.S. Forgive the typos -- it's after midnight, and the somewhat copious amounts of alcohol I had tonight are not helping my typing ability! God help me in my meetings with faculty members tomorrow.

 

Andy,

Sorry, I realized I didn't answer your question in my post. Comps are administered after all coursework is completed, and must be passed before the dissertation proposal. As you state, this is quite late in the program to fail out a student (although I think this happens quite often in B&M schools). To address this issue is the nature of the "first course" -- see above. Comps are not proctored, but that in it of itself is not unusual. In my dept. at FSU for my Master's (and for my husband's doctorate) -- B&M, BTW, comps were not proctored -- you were given the questions, and you sat in a certain room to do them, but you were alone, with no supervision. In fact, I brought my laptop in to do my comps, and although I did not, being an ethical type of person, I could have easily had all sorts of cheat sheets saved on my computer for reference to pull from, and no one would have been the wiser. So, I don't think proctoring is a big issue for these comps, given the parameters of what is expected of the student in terms of production.

Regards,
Adrienne

 

Re: reply to Andy and followup

Why is that? The extra time out of school learning new vocabulary is going to make the verbal portion easier. I suppose that an "adult" learner my not read or write very much, but why should someone who doesn't read or write be given a break for entering grad school? Also, it seemed to me that the math on the GRE is easier than the math on the SAT. Tell me why an adult learner should be given a leg up for not being able to give good results on a test easier than the SAT?

I'm sure that the reasoning for this is WAY over my head since I haven't devoted my career to evaluating the capabilities of grad students. But as a paying customer (i.e. student), I only want the best and brightest in my class so that when and if I get through the program I will feel like I accomplished something. I understand that this has much less importance in programs where the students work is very independent (Thanks Rich!); however, in class-based programs I think weeding out unqualified students before they take their first class is important.

Perhaps the reasoning is that adult learners are competively at a disadvantage to students comming right out of an undergrad program. In that case I could see looking at the adults scores in a slightly different light; however, it seems logical to me that there exists a minimum score under which the applicant should be denied. Graduate students need to be able to read, write and do high school arithmetic.

 

Re: Re: reply to Andy and followup

Hi JoAnn,

I think this is evidenced by the fact that Capella Ph.D. students already have a Master's.

The point our prez. was making on the GRE/GMAT is that apparently (and I don't have the stats at hand on this -- I'm repeating what he said) that these tests don't have the same strength of correlation to sucess among adult learners who have been out of school for awhile as they do students coming directly from a lower degree.

Regards,
Adrienne

 

Re: reply to Andy and followup

I know Mike Offerman (President of Capella) quite well, and used to work for him in several previous positions. I can tell you from personal experience that he is a high integrity kind of person, and will definitely "tell it like it is", even when the topic is controversial and uncomfortable. He's a wonderful person, and Capella is very lucky to have him at the helm of their academic management team.

 

JoAnn,

Adults, like myself, who have been out of school for 20 years, have a tendency to concentrate on the writing and math that is pertinent to our jobs. Additionally, we come to rely on tools that are not necessarily available to use on a GMAT/GRE. It has no bearing on our abilities, but more a function on the day to day nuances of making a living. If the GMAT/GRE were a requirement for any school that I wished to attend then I would meet those requirements or look elsewhere. However, you might want to consider that folks who have employed their skills in multi-million dollar projects in multi-national efforts may have something to offer the class regardless of their GMAT/GRE scores. Let their work and the professors weed the marginal students out.

You may not have noticed but there are many programs that will help a person study expressly for the GMAT/GRE. Essentially these courses defeat the measurement that you speak of for weeding out the "unqualified".

There is more to being successful than being the best and the brightest (althought these attributes can't hurt). I would also argue that based upon your concerns that perhaps a raw IQ score would be a better measure of the brightest. Success will determine the best.

Regards,

 

There is certainly plenty of precedent for not requiring GRE for graduate program entrance. When we associate rigor, whatever that means, to academe, I think most of us would agree that on face value, Columbia University sits right up there with the best of them.

Why does Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism specifically not require an entrance exam, including GRE for their Masters programs. Maybe the same reason Capella and others choose not to use it. Maybe it is a different reason. But the bottom line is that there are numerous examples of high profile universities that have graduate programs that do not require GRE.

Obviously there are many programs that do require it. I think this demonstrates a clear lack of unanimity of purpose and value ascribed to the GRE. There is much research and evidence showing value and lack hereof in its use as a predictor of success in graduate school.

If one is using this as the filter to determine which schools will provide the greatest challenge, there is no clear evidence that this approach would result in the desired outcomes.

 

Why does Columbia administer their own writing test for admission into the MA program? What testing does Capella use?

Why does Columbia require the GRE for admittance into the PhD program in Journalism?

Until lower rung schools start acting the part of exclusive, rigorous schools they will always be perceived as something less. As a paying customer, I'm willing to pay the price to make sure that my school is well respected. Because I (and others) are willing to pay for exclusivity, there is a market and thus a need for programs like Columbia. Columbia is certainly on the top of my list for a future graduate school. God willing, I will be accepted.

 

Keep in mind that the person that achieves a successful completion of a non GRE Masters program at Your State University is probably not spending too much time considering the differences in perception between Dartmouth and Your State University.

I can understand a qualitative emotion over the difference in perceptions. I am not too sure what quantitative value can be ascribed along the somewhat nebulous continuum that separates the exclusive from the non-exclusive.

 

You know, I agree with you because anyone can go out and buy study guides to any test and learn what it takes to score well on that test...like the LSAT. But then, look at all of the people who get into law schools and don't have what it takes to make it through the entire program!

I think that the point is there has to be a balance when there is any type of screening process for entrance into a program. GRE or not, it shouldn't be the sole deciding factor...there should be a balance of GPA, Professional Standing (if you have been out of school and a CEO in a fortune 500 company for 20 years; that should trump something), GRE or Standardized Test Score, Writing Proficiency, etc.

 

I confess that I have no experience with Doctoral level "comps" and have little understanding of how this is typically handled, or if, in fact, there is a typical case. Despite this, I found myself wondering about such things as Bar exams in the legal profession, licensing exams in Social Work and Psychology, etc.. Clearly there is a difference in that comps are academically oriented exams and the others I've mentioned are professional licensing exams, but in the former you get one or two chances and in the latter you get unlimited chances? If this is the case, what does this say about the "rigor" of licensing exams? Further, is the idea of limited chances a part of the definition of rigor? What if they gave unlimited chances but raised the expectation in regards to the score required to "pass?" Would this be more rigorous? Less?
Just asking.
Jack