GMAT AWA #2 Please rate In 2-3 lines. It would be of great help.

Question

Question: 
The following appeared as part of a recommendation from the financial planning office to the administration of Fern Valley University.

"In the past few years, Fern Valley University has suffered from a decline in both enrollments and admissions applications. The reason can be discovered from our students, who most often cite poor teaching and inadequate library resources as their chief sources of dissatisfaction with Fern Valley. Therefore, in order to increase the number of students attending our university, and hence to regain our position as the most prestigious university in the greater Fern Valley metropolitan area, it is necessary to initiate a fund-raising campaign among the alumni that will enable us to expand the range of subjects we teach and to increase the size of our library facilities."

Answer: 
The report sent from the financial planning office to the administration of Fern Valley University is based on assumptions which do not strongly support the mentioned reasons. It states that teaching and library resources have been the main sources of dissatisfaction for the students. The flaws can be explained in three major ways so as why the funding-raising campaign among the alumni would fail to achieve the desired goal.

Firstly, it has been mentioned that due to poor teaching and lack of adequate library resources have been the major reasons for the dissatisfaction of the students which has led to the poor mouth publicity. This point is not strong enough there is no evidence proposed so that this will fulfil to achieve the goal. Instead, the focus should be on recruiting highly experienced faculties so as to improve the quality of education which will eventually serve a positive result.

Secondly, it also does not justify how increasing the number of subjects and increasing the library facilities would be beneficial to the students. The focus should be on the quality of subjects taught and not on the number of subjects. Doing this may make the alumni give back to the university in several ways one of which is recruiting the graduating students. This is more convincing than fund-raising among the alumni.
Thirdly, there is no target amount set to be achieved for the fund-raising campaign. This shows that the financial planning is flawed. Also, the fund-raising should not be limited only to the alumni and be carried out on a bigger platform. Marketing should be a key strategy. Apart from the funds concentrated on spreading the word would show a new transformation of the Fern Valley University.

Thus, the above reasons demonstrate the major flaws which should have been under consideration instead of the existing ones. And it should be kept in mind the number of students attending the university does not make a university prestigious but the smartest of all. In order for the report to be convincing the financial planning, the office has to strongly ponder on the pointed flaws and work on the facts provided.

Thank you.

Shri15kumar · Answer

Guys,

please rate my essay on a scale of 6 too. Thank you

Would appreciate any words of wisdom from  GyMrAT ,  GMATNinja ,  MagooshExpert ,  egmat ,  mikemcgarry

DavidTutorexamPAL · Answer

- The structure is very good - good job! 
- the first critique is off the mark: we  do  know that teaching and library resources are the reason for student dissatfication - they told us! the question is: is this dissatisfaction the reason for low enrolment? and will the steps taken reverse it? 
- the second critique makes a good point, but is too strong - the fact that quality is more important than quantity is just your opinion... present it as a possibility, not as the truth 
- the third critique is off the mark: the fact that this argument does not mention a target amount (or any other detail) does  not  mean this does not exist.

MagooshExpert · Answer

Hi Shri15kumar , Happy to help

Here's how I would break down the scoring of your essay: Quality of Ideas: 3 Organization: 5 Writing Style: 3 Grammar & Usage: 3 Total Score: 3.5 As David mentioned above, the structure and organization is great, but your specific critiques are a bit off. Try to work on identifying the underlying assumptions of the argument, which will not necessarily be explicitly stated, rather than just critiquing the actual statements in the arguments themselves. That's how you show off your critical reasoning skills

Hope that helps!

-Carolyn

gvij2017 · Answer

Seeing the decline in enrollment and admission application in FVU due to poor teaching and the lack of sufficient library resources, the author from financial planning department writes to administration of university to raise fund from alumni to expand the range of subjects to teach and library resources. The presented argument by author seem unsubstantiated and fall flat on many logic grounds which are expounded ahead. According to author poor teaching and poor library facilities are the supreme reasons for decreased in number of enrollments.

Firstly, the author states that most prominent reason of the decline in enrollments and admission application can be figure out from students who cites the poor teaching and inadequate library resources. The author assumption to consider voice raised by students might be partly correct or the students who raised their concerns over library and teaching facilities are proportionally very less of total strength of university. Moreover, if a student is dissatisfied with available books in library or teaching methodology, it does not indicate that resources are not sufficient in university.

Furthermore, the author has assumed that university can regains its prestige in Farn Valley metropolitan area with increase in the number of students. The correlation between the number of students in university and prestige seems strongly positive. However, it also could be true that students enrollments are plummeting because of either the hefty fee structure of university or the less chances of campus placement. The university reputation depends on many factors such as educational curriculum, sports and extra curricular activities. To attract the large chunk of students for enrolling in university, the university has do project its achievements in various segments such as education, sports, research, infrastructure, safety and placement. Therefore, to espouse the his recommendation, the financial planner, has to make it clear that university is performing up to the best in all segments except library resources and teaching methods.

The author recommends that university initiate fund-raising-from-alumni campaign to expand the range of subjects and to enhance the size of library. The financial planning person has assumed that fund raised from alumni will be sufficient to enhance the library. But how much fund is required for this upgradation must be mentioned and will it be suffice to appease the fund requirement. It might be possible that alumni will not contribute unless he is provided with all details of fund requirement. Moreover, since university has faced declining enrollments in past years, there might not be sufficient alumni to deposit their contribution.

In summary, the author has presented fallacious and specious argument which is not convincing on the basis of given reasoning. Without details of fund requirements for library and teaching facilities and university plans to achieve a certain level of reputation, the author's conclusion is ill-logical and purely based on unstated facts.

Shri15kumar · Answer

Thank you  DavidTutorexamPAL . I'll keep in mind about discussing the critique on point. Very helpful of you.

Shri15kumar · Answer

Thank you so much!  MagooshExpert  for your response. I'll make sure to identify the assumptions of the argument and demonstrate it well!

GMAT AWA #2 Please rate In 2-3 lines. It would be of great help.

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