Announcing a move away from Year 12 scores in its selection criteria, ACU Vice Chancellor Professor Greg Craven said the university believed that intellect and character were two sides of the same coin.
The Age reports the decision by the Australian Catholic University could prompt other universities to place less emphasis on ENTER scores, which critics insist are a crude measure of suitability for tertiary study.
The university will this week announce its intention to select candidates based on their community work or "mentality of service", rather than relying solely on an ENTER score.
The scheme will operate at the university's six campuses nationally, including Melbourne and Ballarat. Courses available include arts, business, nursing, education and youth work.
"We need to get away from the idea, in selecting people, that intellect is divorced from character. They are two sides of the one coin," Professor Craven said.
In next year's intake, up to 50 percent of undergraduate places will go to students under the Early Achievers Program, with applications open between July and September. Successful students will receive provisional offers by mid-December, a month before everyone else.
To be eligible, students must have completed three semesters of study in years 11 and 12. They must also demonstrate involvement in their community — through school, church, sport or a cultural organisation — and provide a written recommendation from their principal.
Professor Craven said he believed the program was the first in Australia to consider an undergraduate student's contribution to society as part of the application process.
It also tackled his concern that under the ENTER system, many capable students were overlooked. "At the moment universities select students in an impossibly crude way," he said. "We basically bring students in on the basis of a couple of numbers and we have no idea how they are even derived."
Professor Craven said he believed employers would also benefit, as "they want more than a calculator in a mortarboard".
University of Melbourne higher education professor Simon Marginson welcomed the program, saying it would give selectors a fuller student profile.
Last week Paul Sheahan, the outgoing head of Melbourne Grammar, denounced the ENTER score system as a crude instrument.
SOURCE
Uni expands student selection system (The Age, 28/6/08)
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