XPost: ucb.math, alt.society.civil-liberty, ca.environment
XPost: alt.mountain-bike

Barack Obama may have got worse high school grades than George W
Bush after new evidence showed the current president was among a
college class with poor average SAT scores.

Doubts about the supposedly superior intellect of Mr Obama were
first raised after he refused to release his academic record.
He has also made some factual errors during his time in the job
– although he is still a very long way behind his gaff-prone
predecessor.

But now it has emerged that Mr Obama was among a 1981 intake of
transfers to New York’s Columbia University that was at the time
branded one of the worst ever.

The president, who moved from Occidental Community College in
Los Angeles, was among 67 students whose average combined math
and verbal score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test is a 1,100,
according to a report obtained by Breitbart News.

By comparison, Mr Bush – who earned a history degree from Yale
in 1968 – got 1206 out of a possible 1600 points in the same
test he took at Andover boarding school in Massachusetts.

If Mr Obama, who majored in political science at Columbia, were
near the average of that year, it would mean he had worse high
school grades than a president derided by many as the dumbest in
history.

Of course, Mr Obama went on to distinguish himself by going on
to earn the second highest honour in a graduate law degree at
Harvard.

And he became the first black president of the prestigious legal
journal, the Harvard Law Review.

He also taught at the University of Chicago for twelve years –
with eight years spent as senior lecturer in constitutional law.

But, the possibility that he got lower high school scores than
Mr Bush, would take some of the shine off his image as an
intellectual heavyweight.

In his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Mr Obama describes
himself as an unfocused high school student whose mother
criticised him for being a ‘loafer’.

He also describes his attitude toward his studies at Occidental
as ‘indifferent’ and called himself a ‘bum’ who was notorious
for partying.

However, despite his apparent lack of focus, he was able to win
a place at Columbia.

Of the 450 students applied to transfer to the Ivy League
university in 1981, only 67 were admitted, according to the
Columbia Spectator.

This compared to 650 applicants just four years before,
signifying that those who wanted to study there has lower grades.

A November 18, 1981 article in the Columbia Spectator revealed
the SAT average for the transfer intake that year.

It stated: ‘On paper at least, the quality of the students
accepted [as transfers] has declined along with the number of
applicants, the officials say.’

In that story, Robert Boatti, the then Assistant Dean of
Admissions, also attributed the drop in transfer application to
the College’s policy of requiring transfer students to take
courses in its core curriculum and to the limited availability
of financial aid for them.

‘He had said that many come from community colleges, rather than
the nation’s top schools.

‘Even the unhappiest people don’t transfer from Harvard,’ Boatti
added.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2148744/Did-Obama-worse- grades-Bush-New-evidence-reveals-college-class-got-lower-SAT-
scores-Dubya.html
 

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