Bye Bye Standardized Tests?

It's a good day for tried-and-true test-taking failures like yours truly.

According to the New York Times, reputable small colleges have caught on to what I've been saying for years: standardized tests are a total sham. Okay, well, they're not saying they're a "sham," exactly, but admissions officers *are* coming to their senses about the fact that the testing ground is uneven, and that the SAT is a poor indicator of actual intellectual potential, achievement and curiosity. Many of these colleges are now making college applications test-optional:

“'We felt the system had gotten out of whack,' said Steve Syverson, dean of admissions at Lawrence University, which admitted its first test-optional freshmen this year. 'Back when kids just got a good night’s sleep and took the SAT, it was a leveler that helped you find the diamond in the rough. Now that most of the great scores are affluent kids with lots of preparation, it just increases the gap between the haves and the have-nots.'"

He's got a point, you know. And I love that he uses "whack" to dismiss the SATs. What would the college board say about that?

Full disclosure: I really hate standardized tests because I don't perform well on them. Never have. Don't know why. Just can't seem to fill in the right bubbles (although I hear they've put everything on computers now), and I don't care about circumferences and radii. And the thing is, I constantly have to remind myself that how I perform on a test is not a measurement of my self-worth, but sometimes it's impossible when I'm surrounded by Super Test Whizzes (i.e. practically all of my friends). I went to Brearley. I went to Williams. I have a job where people believe me to be literate and competent. I'm like the little number two pencil that could.

Anyway, back to the point. I think this is a great step. While I'm sure it will create a great deal more work for the admissions offices -- really scrutinizing essays and activities and high school grades more than ever -- I think it's going to diversify the college student body (as the NYT suggests) and stop making people like me feel so inept. Hopefully grad schools will start coming to their senses soon, too. At least before I apply. And if not,

I think I can, I think I can.

who else does this, anyway?

I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the people who read this blog because well, there are a WHOLE lot of them out there (blogs, I mean). Last week, I received in my Inbox these interesting facts about the blogging world, and thought, since you read blogs, that you might find them fun, too.

* Thirty-nine percent of U.S. Internet users, or about 57 million Americans, read blogs; 8 percent, or about 12 million Americans, write a blog; and more than half of bloggers are under the age of 30.

* Pew found that 37 percent of bloggers cite "my life and experiences" as what they blog about, while only 11 percent cited public issues as typical topics. Sixty percent of bloggers are white, while 74 percent of the country's Web users are, according to the data. Fifty-five percent of bloggers write under a pseudonym.

* 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.

* Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46% of bloggers and men 54 percent.


* 76% of bloggers say a reason they blog is to document their personal experiences and share them with others. Sixty-four percent of bloggers say a reason they blog is to share practical knowledge or skills with others.

* Seventy-seven percent of bloggers have shared something online that they created themselves, such as their own artwork, photos, stories, or videos. By comparison, 26 percent of Internet users as a whole have done this."

(From a phone survey of 7.012 people conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project, and posted at Mediapost.com.)

not just another pretty face: warmup at PS1

I've been to some great parties in New York, but I just can't get enough of this one in particular: warm up at PS 1 MOMA. Held every Saturday during the summer at the museum's contemporary arts center, it is a vibrant dance party in the middle of an otherwise depressing, concrete-ridden warehouse area of Queens. I've been to it twice, and any excuses people might make based on its potential pretentious factor, or on its "distance" from Manhattan are basically, well, silly. Take my word for it.

The party does boast an unusually large number of attractive people in stylish and bizarre clothing (so writes the New York Times style section), but the fact that it is held during the day takes the intimidating edge off of such a gathering. Even though there's a $10 entry free, and some hype, there's no velvet rope, no boneheaded bouncer perched on a stool shaking his head, and the VIP section is always overcrowded and its occupants bored. Besides, this is a fiesta where you want to be in the thick of the partygoers, giggling at the people who lurk around the perimeter of the dance floor, sipping beer after beer and playing wallflower in an open-air space where there's really nowhere to hide. Back on the concrete dance floor panels, completely different people are dancing around in broad daylight, shirtless and with abandon. It's just that kind of party.

For great pics, click on this blog.

There's more I could write about the architectural structures designed each year to adorn the courtyard where the event is held, or the wading pools where people chat and lift their skirts above their ankles and dip their feet, or the special rubber-curtained room strewn with large blocks of ice for cooling off [but not sitting down], or the special misting machines or the world-class DJs that come spin or the history of the party, but I don't know too much about it. What I do know is that the party draws an amazing cross-section of New Yorkers -- from hip to prep to the stroller set -- and I love to people watch while I'm there.

The party ends the weekend before Labor Day, so go if you can. If dancing's not your thing, the price of admission gets you entry into the museum, where you can look at ART (some of it silly, some of it really good). Art!

america

I went to dinner with my mother yesterday in a small modern Chinese restaurant on Mott Street called Shanghai Cafe, where we ate soupy dumplings and something on the menu called, "General Chicken." During dinner, my mother just gave me a CD of more than 700 pictures to browse through from her motorcyle trip out West, and I loved this one so much that I made it my desktop background.

Isn't it beautiful?

One of the things I have been most embarrassed about when I talk about my travels is that I have seen so little of America. I suppose two things factor into this: a) I'm not much of a driver, and b) I hate feeling like a tourist in my own country. (Even when I'm lost in New York, I refuse to ask for directions.) I don't know if I'm going to get a chance to do the cross-country road trip rite-of-passage. Can't seem to find the time, or the vehicle, or the right traveling buddy. One day!

Back to the Wonk

Went up to Maine last week for a few days to breathe fresh air, spot birds, spend some time with my friend Jill, and, to visit Chewonki, after almost eight years of absence. In 1998, a year that is marked in my memory as one of the hardest I have ever had, I escaped to the Maine Coast to think, grieve, and listen to the sounds of lapping waves, and the wind moving through the canopy.

We hiked here, to this point along the Chewonki peninsula, and sat for a little while thinking about how very young we were when we fell in love with nature and our little community in the middle of the woods.

It's tough to explain what the state of Maine means to me, but I was happiest this summer when I was there. There is something lovely about escaping the crush of New York City, of wondering how I spend so much of my time worrying that I've not done enough with my life to be [almost] 25, and of laughing at the version of myself that believes that any of that is true. I ate well, I slept well, I swam and sunned and realized that I take myself too seriously sometimes.

Oh, and lobster. I just love lobster.

on being a blogging slacker

Have just returned from an almost week-long vacation in southern Maine and promise a proper post tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me as I try and ride my vacation glow into the weekend.

why having a little brother is handy

There are few better excuses than your little brother's 20th birthday to go to a Mets game on a hot night, don an oversized promotion t-shirt and *still* enjoy yourself even though the team you're rooting for ends up losing.

On the lending library

One of the hardest things about living in New York City as a young woman with a B.A. and a job that pays at about an even level with her expenses, is that after health insurance, taxes, rent, utilities, groceries and transportation, the next line item on the budget doesn't usually read: BOOKS. Books. Wonderful books. Hardcover textbooks with receipt-thin pages covered in bar graphs and bold print, and sandy paperbacks that smell subtly of wax, and ink, and glue. Nope, books just don't quite make it into the budget. No longer are we required either to partake in that twice yearly college activity of buying loads of course books. There's just no excuse, really. Much more than books, we need to buy underwear and dishwashing liquid and toilet paper, things they used to replace for you in dorms and at home. So how do I get books back into my life?

Well, I have discovered -- or rediscovered, I should say -- the Library. The New York Public Library. The friend's parent's library. The roommate's library. What is a book for if not to read, love and recommend?

In elementary school, there was a library a couple of blocks away on East Broadway, and it was at this chapter branch that I applied for my first library card, in its token maroon color, graced on one side with a white outline image of the NYPL's roaring lion, and on the other, my very silly cursive signature. I never used the card, really. We had an ample supply of books in all of our classrooms up through 6th grade (I fondly remember the John Bellairs collection, and the David Macauley books about city planning in medieval times), and there wasn't ever any reason to borrow anything from the library except for videocassettes of scary movies for my Dad.

When I got back to New York last summer, my New York Public Library card was a distant memory (and the design no longer in use), but my name and address, inactive for almost nine years, was still in the computers. All I had to do to get a new card was give them a dollar (ONE dollar!) and proof that I still lived there (I don't, but my driver's license says so), and I was back in business. All these books for me to borrow and read and not a cent to pay! I borrowed my first book -- White Teeth -- and needless to say the quality of the book only increased my fond feelings for the library.

Recently my roommate told me that she was feeling much smarter these days because she was reading, and I couldn't have agreed more. I've been borrowing books from her, too, and another family friend, who has been generous with her enormous library accumulated over years of working at the New York Times Book Review. And now that I live in Brooklyn and take a single subway line to work, I feel so much more in control of my commute because I can immerse myself in a book without looking up for forty minutes. Forty minutes every day with my borrowed books.

I'm writing this post because I know for sure that, for some strange reason, lots of people I know are not in possession of a library card. And now that I am a card-carrying member of such an institution, this completely confuses me. I beg of you. Get a library card. While away the hours in the stacks. See who's reading classic fiction. Giggle at the cranky checkout desk people. Borrow some great books. You'll thank me later.

breakfast at Greenwood Lake

This is a photograph of my mother and sister from this weekend. We spent three days sleeping, eating and reading at Billy's house in the village of Greenwood Lake, New York. wonderful.