News & Events

Admission officers at Colgate and numerous other universities and colleges this week heard again from the College Board, the organization that administers the SAT exam, that the tests of yet more possible applicants had not been rescanned for errors.

The disclosure, the College Board’s third in two weeks, means that additional potential errors and underreported scores in the exam had been used by thousands of schools, according to The Washington Post.

Colgate’s Dean of Admission Gary Ross voiced his opinion on the contentious national higher education issue in today’s edition of the Post. 

“It’s incomprehensible to me that there have been three separate discoveries of scoring errors on the same exam,” he told the newspaper.

“It’s a disgrace that upon discovery of the first series of scoring errors the College Board was not able to get to the bottom of the problem.”

Ross has been informed that Colgate received just 57 incorrect scores. But the College Board only reports the ones that were erroneously lowered, not ones that were mistakenly raised.

“They owe all of us a detailed explanation of what went wrong and how they are going to avoid these kinds of mishaps in the future,” he added.

In addition to the Post, the university was also featured in The New York Times — though for a somewhat less controversial topic.

A “Week in Review” piece traced the origins of spring break to Colgate, where according to Internet lore, the tradition was born.

According to the article — and an archived issue of The Colgate Scene, from which the Times reporter did his research — swimming coach Sam Ingram was partly responsible.

In 1935, Ingram was concerned about his team getting out of shape during the Christmas vacation, so he arranged for him and seven swimmers to become the first Northerners to train in the new Olympic-size municipal pool in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the father of swimmer Art Pulis ’36 lived at the time.

Word quickly spread among college students and the custom of visiting Fort Lauderdale caught on – in the winter, and, within a few years, spring.

Since then, spring break has come full circle at Colgate.

This year, instead of beach vacations, many students chose “alternative” trips: to Washington, D.C., to explore careers with nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations; to Louisiana for Hurricane Katrina relief work; and to Tennessee for a Habitat for Humanity homebuilding project.

No matter the destination, Colgate’s Student Health Center offered “Safe Break Bags” to all students.

The free zip-lock baggie contained sunscreen, Band-Aids, ibuprofen, antacid tablets, antiseptic ointment, a condom, and a card offering advice in the case of emergency.

For more coverage of Colgate in the News, click here.