Wednesday, August 27, 2003

By Bill Schackner, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The University of Pittsburgh, criticized by some for a long-standing practice of omitting minorities and athletes when calculating its average freshman SAT score, modified its approach for the fall term and included those students.

	Previous stories Many students don't count when Pitt figures average SAT, (Sept. 8, 2002) Pitt defends SAT tallying, (Sept. 12, 2002)

Instead of publicizing a single average that left those students out, Pitt this year offered two averages.

The first, 1213, is based on all incoming freshmen. The second average, 1236, was tabulated without the students Pitt classifies as "special access" -- athletes and students enrolled in programs serving "underrepresented populations," including African American and Hispanic students, on its main Oakland campus. A perfect score on the SAT is 1600.

Pitt officials, including Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, have defended the omissions, saying that special access students are admitted under criteria placing much less emphasis on past academic achievement. Therefore, Pitt said, their scores do not reflect the competitive environment most who apply to the university will face.

But some individuals and groups were critical after the practice was detailed in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story last September. Some said the practice, dating to the 1960s, created a misleading impression about the institution and that it was not always made clear that the average publicized was not based on all students.

Nordenberg did not return a phone call yesterday asking about the change. Spokesman Robert Hill said based on news media interest last year "we decided it would be more convenient this year if the consumers received the information published both ways."

Hill said Pitt's online fact book over the years listed the SAT average with a notation saying special access students were omitted. When organizations such as US News & World Report requested SAT data on all freshmen for college rankings, Pitt provided it.

Hill said that both freshman averages could be found in previous years in some college guidebooks, admissions reports and certain other publications.

Yesterday, an official with the National Association for College Admission Counseling said Pitt's revised approach seemed consistent with the group's guidelines for good practices. Those guidelines state that as long as a school provides a score for all freshmen, it also can provide a number in which subgroups are broken out, said Martin Wilder, an association vice president who also is vice president for enrollment at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Va.

An advocacy group in Cambridge, Mass., which last year accused Pitt of test score misuse, yesterday said Pitt was acting appropriately by publishing both scores.

"It's a step in the right direction toward candor. It lets applicants and high school guidance counselors -- at least those who care about average SAT scores -- see what the true range at Pitt is," said Robert Schaeffer, an official with the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which monitors exam practices.

"The problem with a statistically manipulated average is that it deters from applying many otherwise qualified kids who have done well in the classroom and could succeed at Pitt," he said.

Hill yesterday alluded to an increase in the average freshman SAT score at Pitt of more than 100 points since 1995, the year Nordenberg became chancellor.

"We are extremely pleased with the continuing improvement," he said.

Pitt's overall average would have risen at a slightly faster rate in the 1990s if all the scores had been counted, though the average yearly number it publicized would have been lower.

Last year, Pitt said the number of special access students whose scores were not counted amounted to roughly one in 10 freshmen, or 305 students, and in years past it has excluded as many as 448 students.

This year, Pitt said there were 288 special access students out of a total freshman class of 2,916.

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