Samuel Niu ’15, Wilson Smerconish ’16: In an attempt to relieve the entire community of congestion in the dining hall serving line, EA will be holding its first ever Elimination Exams. These exams, which are to be administered only in the Upper School, will determine which students will be offered a position of enrollment for the next school year.
Head of School Dr. T.J. Locke voiced his support, explaining his reasoning behind these exams. “Because of the overcrowding in the lunch room and the increased demand for J-Term, we are going to be giving all students a test and then narrow the enrollment based on the results. We just cannot offer top-notch experiences with a full school. The exams will gauge knowledge of calculus, Kardashian trivia, and expertise in social media. We have found the intersection of those three skills helps to gain admission to the nation’s top colleges.”
While overcrowding in the dining hall and the subsequent complaints are the driving force behind the implementation of this new policy, crowding in the library has also become quite an issue. Jennifer Phiambolis, Upper School Librarian, stated, “During Domino block, kids flock into to the library like seagulls, filling the air with a cacophony of squawks. I can barely hear myself think. Ideally, the library would house books and nothing else, but seeing as books must be read by someone, I suppose that a select few of the most quiet, contemplative and studious individuals could be allowed in. These exams would bring peace back to the library.”
Photo Courtesy of Leigh Adelizzi ’15
Phiambolis is also on the council that writes the questions for these exams. She gave Scholium an example of a free response question, saying, “What was the universe like before the big bang? Please provide evidence in your answer.” These are the types of questions that students should be prepared to answer if they plan on graduating from EA.
Dr. Thomas Goebeler, member of the Upper School Math department, is also on this council, and shared his support for these exams, telling Scholium, “Naturally an institution such as ours wishes to demonstrate our standards of rigor. Therefore we should immediately institute admission exams, exit exams, and continued-matriculation exams. I don’t want to see anything very difficult. Just a few questions that verify students currently enrolled really belong here. It could be eight short-answer questions from across the curriculum.”
Goebeler also gave Scholium a sneak peak into the making of the exams, citing the following as possible exam questions: “Detail how the grandmothers of first ladies exerted posthumous influence on your favorite 15 presidencies…Translate a passage from Portuguese into Icelandic…Lay out a sketch for a realistic painting with seven distinct vanishing points.” The goal of these exams is clearly not to trick students, but merely to verify that all the students currently at EA truly belong here.
The student body has also been very vocal in their approval and excitement for such testing. Josh Owsiany ’15 expressed his excitement, saying, “I think the tests are a good idea. I like to think I’m pretty smart, so I would be able to stay in school and hopefully get some prime real estate in the cafeteria. I can’t wait for these tests!”
There has, however, been some opposition to these exams. Eunice Ju ‘15 voiced her strong dissention, saying, “These tests are just going to add unnecessary stress. The school already expects so much -sports, arts, extracurriculars, etc. Its unfair and unreasonable that we’d be expected to confirm our intelligence year after year.” Ju continued, “Also, this just seems a little extreme. I mean, can’t we just stagger the lunch periods or something? There’s got to be a simpler, better solution.”
More serious resistance to this project was manifested in a debunked resistance group’s plan to hinder the finalization of these exams, an operation known as the Episcopal Academy Takeover Project, no affiliation to the Mainline Takeover Project. This obstacle has nevertheless been dealt with and the Elimination Exams will proceed as previously scheduled.