I'm sitting in a big room where a bunch of faculty members are meeting one-on-one with incoming freshmen to advise them on fall classes and help them put together a schedule. Over the next two weeks I'll be devoting five long afternoons to this endeavor, and I'm impressed by how well prepared a few of the incoming students are. Nevertheless, there are a few sentences I'm already tired of hearing:
"I just don't test well." That's why we've scheduled you for a special class designed to sharpen up your reading, writing, and thinking skills so you can excel on the kinds of testing you'll encounter in college.
"But I don't belong in a remedial class!" That's what everyone who gets put into a developmental class says.
"But you can't rely on my test scores! I'm smarter than that!" Yes, it's undeniably true that test scores are not always a reliable indicator of how well you'll do in college, but experience suggests that students with scores in this range will benefit by taking some time to develop the skills they'll need to succeed in college classes.
Yes, I'm already sick of hearing myself make all these same tired old arguments. Isn't there a way I can test out of freshman registration? I don't belong in this class!
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