Penn in the News

More high-school graduates are taking the ACT college-entrance exam, as states push students to consider their options for higher education. But the test results show a growing portion aren’t actually ready for college. Sixty-four percent of 2016 high school graduates sat for the standardized test, up from 49% in 2012. The jump comes as more states—including Mississippi, Nevada and South Carolina—require districts to administer the tests, in the hope of increasing students’ awareness of college pathways.

Scott Levin of the Perelman School of Medicine talks about the success and progress of Zion Harvey who received a double hand transplant.

Just a few days before North Carolina’s legislature passed House Bill 2, which requires people to use bathrooms that correspond to the gender listed on their birth certificates, Kaleb A. Lyda enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mr. Lyda, an incoming freshman, is a recipient of the prestigious Morehead-Cain scholarship, a four-year merit scholarship that covers full tuition, housing, student fees, books and supplies, and funds to travel. Born a female, he is a transgender man.

Students applying to some top New England colleges will have fewer tests to take, as a growing number of colleges will no longer require applicants to submit scores from SAT subject tests. In the past year, Amherst, Dartmouth, and Williams Colleges have dropped the subject test requirement, reports The Boston Globe. Columbia University first announced the new policy this spring after saying that the exams lend little insight into students’ readiness, and can be detrimental to low-income and minority students.

Victor Pickard of the Annenberg School for Communication writes about the impact of scholar Charles Siepmann’s legacy on the public media’s future.

Dan Ueda of the School of Engineering and Applied Science is highlighted for helping tailor the Research Experience for Teachers program to middle school STEM teachers.

This fall, for the first time, fraternities and sororities at Indiana University must sign an agreement that would allow university employees, including police officers, to enter and search their houses whenever there is reason to suspect laws or university rules are being broken. The agreement is similar to those at many private universities.

Punctuating a string of Obama-era moves to shore up labor rights and expand protections for workers, the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that students who work as teaching and research assistants at private universities have a federally backed right to unionize. The case arose from a petition filed by a group of graduate students at Columbia University, who are seeking to win recognition for a union that will allow them a say over such issues as the quality of their health insurance and the timeliness of stipend payments.

Wagatwe Wanjuki has packed a lot of activism into a few short years. The feminist and antirape activist has worked with Know Your IX, a group fighting for sexual-assault survivor rights on campus, has appeared in the documentary “The Hunting Ground” and is now the co-founder of Survivors Eradicating Rape Culture. Wanjuki has started a new online campaign, called the Just Say Sorry campaign, to empower survivors and draw attention to university failures to address the needs of sexual-assault survivors.

The plight of high-achieving, low-income students who "undermatch," enrolling in less-selective colleges than their grades and test scores suggest they could, has gotten a lot of attention. At least one prominent effort is underway to provide advising and information to help such students get into and through top colleges. Now a new book intends to expand the definition of match to include factors beyond selectivity and to extend the concept to a broader group of students.