Please take the time to read and sign our petition and proposal by sending a protest email to Loyola (available at the above link) after you familiarize yourself with who we are.
Our organization was formed to protest and seek the reversal of, Loyola University Maryland (formerly Loyola College in Maryland)'s recently-announced decision to abandon both the SAT and ACT exams as required standards for undergraduate admission. Loyola's decision to join the so-called "SAT Optional Movement" concerns us deeply.
First and foremost, even though the SAT is imperfect in its own ways, it remains nonetheless a widely-accepted industry standard used by colleges and universities across these United States. Its purpose is to provide a means of standardizing the GPAs earned by high school/college preparatory school students. Private and public-sector employers---fairly or unfairly---judge a given university or college by how well it conforms to certain industry standards of measurement. This includes not just the SAT but also other criteria such as number of tenured faculty, student retention ratio, amount of financial aid awarded, etc.
Why does Loyola wish to limit itself to merely subjective criteria alone? A comprehensive approach which takes into account the SAT or ACT---but which also realizes that it doesn't deserve to or need to serve as the "be all, end all" of an admissions file---in addition to the many subjective criteria used when evaluating admissions decisions, is best.
Furthermore, why was this decision kept from the public, and the current alumni, students and parents?
These are just two of the many concerns and questions we have.
In very real terms, the value of the degrees granted, as well as the perceived level of academic prestige, will both suffer as a result of this decision. Loyola's reputation both within and outside of academia will suffer; its reputation among employers will suffer as Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, Black and Decker, AT&T, Microsoft, JP Morgan, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, etc. inevitably come to regard Loyola as a "mediocre university" due to its abandonment of accepted industry standards for admission.
PLEASE JOIN OUR MOVEMENT. We are an organization of several HUNDRED alumni, students, parents, faculty, administrators and friends of Loyola Maryland who are organized in our opposition to the proposal to lower Loyola's admissions standards and sacrifice its academic reputation. This decision was not well-thought out, and the alumni, parents and students were never consulted.
Please join our Facebook group, read and sign our proposal take the time to read the Baltimore Sun coverage (and post comments on their website if you so wish), and... send a protest form email--with your own comments added--to Loyola to let them know how upset you are at this decision.
Together---only with organization and persistence--can we save Loyola from itself. Let's unite to send a clear and unified message to the institution into which we have invested so much time, effort and money.