Report Card

P:Promptly at 9 a.m. local time one day last week, 60,000 high-school seniors trooped into classrooms all over the U.S., Alaska and Hawaii, took up special black electrographic pencils, and addressed themselves to answering 115 questions. Sample: "In a certain factory the rate of absenteeism for the 60 male employees is 10%, and the rate for the 45 female employees is 337%. What is the rate of absenteeism for the factory as a whole?" Two hours later, the 60,000 went home to await word as to whether they had passed the first hurdle towards a National Merit Scholarship (TIME, Sept. 12). Eventually, some 4,000 will find they have, and these will be winnowed down to 2,000 by the College Board Scholastic Aptitude Test. Finally, a special board of educators and admissions officers will select the lucky (and capable) 350. Those who do not make hurdle No. 3, however, will get Certificates of Merit which should prove handy in going after other scholarships.

P:In an unprecedented press conference, Treasurer Paul Cabot of Harvard explained to a group of financial writers just why it is that with an alltime record endowment of $442 million the university still finds it hard to make ends meet. In 1940, said Cabot, when the budget was only $14 million, endowment income provided 42% of it. Today the budget is $55 million, and endowment income provides less than one dollar in three.

P: The U.S. Office of Education reported that enrollments in U.S. schools and col leges, both public and private, have gone up again for the eleventh straight year. Estimated total: 39,557,000--a jump of 1,657,000 over last year.

P:To compare today's students with those of only yesterday, Chairman Herbert B. Nelson of Oregon State's Department of English decided to give 1,800 freshmen the very same examination given in 1927. His findings: yesterday's students knew more about both spelling and grammar, had nowhere near as much trouble with such words as similar, laboratory and apologize. In '1927 the freshmen made 53 errors on 163 questions. Today's average: 66 errors.

P:The National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council an nounced that in cooperation with the American Society for the Advancement of Science, it was about to do something to inspire better high-school science and math teachers. This year a pilot program will start in Arlington, Va. Among the things it hopes to accomplish: raise a scholarship fund to send teachers to any of eight local colleges and universities, open up summer jobs for teachers in local scientific and engineering organizations.

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