Test-preparation services and admissions consultancies are becoming ever more common as students compete to get into (and stay in) the best schools. Stanley Kaplan is one of the most famous test-preparation services (now reaching students as young as 5); two admissions consultants selected more or less randomly are College and School Planning Services and College Research Consultants.

Do you think students who use such services have an unfair advantage? Should any of these services be regulated, or, if not regulated, made available to those without the financial means of using them?

There is a movement in many parts of the country to make colleges less accessible to students judged in need of remediation or not otherwise adequately prepared for college.

Are our high schools falling down on the job? Are colleges right to pick up the slack? What's the solution?

For some ideas and information, consult the following sites:

Graduation, college preparation, and college application rates of high school students, by selected school characteristics: 1993-94. From The Digest of Education Statistics 1996

School Reform: A Student Guarantee-Ready For College Or Work. From Florida School-to-Work On-Line, Sept. 1998.

Open Admissions and Remediation at the City University of New York Mayor Giuliani's Task Force's report on the policy of open admissions at CUNY. Essentially argues that remedial subjects should not be taught at the college level.