Academic Acceleration

ON the basis of achievement tests in various subjects, an ever-increasing number of Dartmouth freshmen are being placed in advanced sections of basic courses or are having these requirements waived altogether. The five-year-old Committee on Proficiency and Placement, reporting to the faculty last month, stated that although a good bit of progress has been made, there is still much to be done, especially in the field of accelerating students of exceptional ability. Many colleges throughout the country are becoming interested in academic acceleration and Harvard, for example, has already adopted a program of admitting some students directly from secondary school to sophomore status.

Currently Dartmouth, waives requirements or advances students on the basis of three kinds of tests. The College Board advanced placement tests, initiated in 195354, are taken in May by high school seniors whose academic work was of an exceptional or advanced nature. In the Dartmouth Class of '62, 34 students took 57 of these tests and twenty exemptions or advanced placements were given.

The regular College Board achievement tests are usually taken in the spring as an afternoon session of the required College Board admission tests; and a total of 98 exemptions or honors placements were granted to members of the Class of '62 on the basis of these tests.

The third series, familiar to most alumni, are the placement tests prepared by the departments of the College and given during freshman week in the fall. This year 44 exemptions were granted by the language and science departments, and an additional 84 exemptions were given for the basic European and American history courses.

The placement practice of the English Department differed markedly for the Class of '62 from that of past years. Under the new three-term curriculum, English 1 and 2 have been revised and the department now automatically places the most competent quarter of the class in the English 2 sections, which are seminars. The department uses an index of competence derived from College Board tests and other credentials, and 199 '62s were directly assigned to English 2 this year. Many of these and some other hopefuls then took a special writing test, and the thirteen men who passed were exempted also from English 2. Of these, eleven elected to take English 3, a special and advanced course set up for them

One of the most important duties of the Committee on Proficiency and Placement is recommending candidates for advanced standing to the Executive Committee of the Faculty. This is normally done at the beginning of the sophomore year when a good number of proficiency exemptions and the candidate's high caliber of work indicate that he may be capable of graduating early. The Committee has been conservative in advancing students and many of the students themselves have been reluctant to accept such advancement once they have become socially oriented to their class and workload. Since January 1958, five men have been recommended for advanced standing and only one will graduate as much as a year early, the others being accelerated under the new curriculum by one or two terms.