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They Went to College Early
was essential at any college admitting youthful
students—not a system uniquely for them, but one which they
could share with the rest of the student body.
Finally, the
Scholars and the Comparison students stressed the need for a "good
fit" between the individual students and the individual college.
"This requirement," Pearson noted in his report, "came out in an
amusing way in a number of essays where special and fervent pleas
were made for confining early admission to small liberal arts
colleges, or to large universities, or to highly selective
colleges, or to engineering and technical schools. If one were to
be guided by the sum total of these suggestions, one would conclude
that early admission is a necessary feature at all American
colleges and universities."
THE
VERDICT OF THE INDEPENDENT EVALUATORS
The
Pearson Evaluation
The principal
conclusions reached by Pearson after his analysis of the senior
essays can be summarized as follows:
-
The evidence
is that adjustment difficulties were by no means limited to early
admission students, although more Scholars than Comparisons
reported such difficulties. The conclusion is that early admission
was a contributing factor—but not the sole factor—in
the existence of adjustment difficulties among the Scholars.
However, although the Scholars were faced initially with a greater
adjustment problem than the Comparison students, they were able to
effect as successful an over-all adjustment as the Comparison
students.
"Borrowing
from Toynbee, the response to challenge, rather than the challenge
itself, becomes a measure of success of the experiment and in these
terms we would record our conclusion that the experiment was a
success for the students whose essays we have considered in this
report."
-
The Scholars'
definition of early admission as an exception to general
educational practice underscores a concern
that