Twenty years ago, only half of the students who graduated from Einstei

Question

Please supply feedback, it's my first attempt at writing an essay under the 30 minute time standard and I know I have lots of work to do, open to any and all feedback, thanks in advance.

Prompt:
"The following appeared in a speech delivered by a member of the city council.

Twenty years ago, only half of the students who graduated from Einstein High School went to attend a college or university. Today, two thirds of the students who graduate from Einstein do so. Clearly, Einstein has improved its educational effectiveness over the past two decades. This improvement has occurred despite the fact that the school's funding, when adjusted for inflation, is about the same as it was twenty years ago. Therefore, we do not need to make any substantial increase in the school's funding at the time."

Essay: 
A member of the city council stated that Einstein High school does not need an increase in funding, as evidenced by their 2/3rds graduation rate of students who attend college, an increase from the ½ rate 20 years ago. This argument is seriously flawed. Does the ratio of college attendees accurately depict an increase in the overall number of college graduates? Does it even argue that these graduates live successful lives afterwards? Does today’s current economic climate have alternative considerations beyond college for post-grad high schoolers?- is student debt a consideration? The lack of specifics and general language of the city council member bring serious doubt to their argument.

It may be true that half the graduates went to college 20 years ago and now it’s 2/3rds- but what do the actual numbers demonstrate? For example, what if the school had 5,000 students 20 years ago, and 2500 of them went to college. Whereas now it has, say 1,000 students- so only about 700 or less go to college after graduation. Is this change something to be proud about? Or a solid reason to refuse additional funding? In addition to the lack of specifics regarding the numbers, there’s also a serious assumption about college equaling success for individuals after high school- which may or not be true, especially with today’s student debt crisis.

The speaker states that Einstein Highschool has “clearly improved their educational effectiveness” over the past 20 years, but one could definitely question the metrics they used to define “effective”. What if half went on to college 20 years ago, and the other half went on to promising union jobs, or trade skill oriented jobs that offered them equal or better living than their college educated peers- what if the same is happening today with the 1/3rd that aren’t going to college? They could be getting apprenticeships, learning trade skills such as plumbing or welding- all while avoiding the massive amounts of student debt that their peers are being crushed under.

The argument the speaker makes would be much stronger if it included additional metrics to assess the real-world preparedness of their graduates. Further analysis of additional metrics may prove to the speaker that their graduates are not prepared for life after high school- at which point, they will be forced to recognize that Einstein High School may indeed need additional funding to start programs that teach students about paths after high school that don’t involve enormous amounts of debt.

The vague ratios about the high school’s graduate college attendance rate, combined with the questionable measures of success through the link to college, create a poorly thought out argument for the speaker to suggest that Einstein High school does not need additional funding.

DisciplinedPrep · Answer

StoneWallYoda - Welcome to GMAT Club!

I do not want to sound difficult but you will need to work on the AWA section, to improve your score on this section. The first red flag is the lack of structural keywords; however, I also see a number of issues related to modifiers, parallelism, subject-verb, pronoun, among others. You will have to put in little more effort to improve your performance in the AWA section. Did you get a chance to review GMAT Club's chineseburned AWA template?

How to get 6.0 AWA on GMAT: https://gmatclub.com/forum/how-to-get-6 ... 64327.html

daagh · Answer

Einstein School essay.

Essay: 455 words. 
A member of the city council stated that Einstein High school does not need an increase in funding, as evidenced by their 2/3rds graduation rate of students who attend college, an increase from the ½ rate 20 years ago. This argument is seriously flawed. Does the ratio of college attendees accurately depict an increase in the overall number of college graduates? Does it even argue that these graduates live successful lives  afterwards?  Does today’s current economic climate have alternative considerations beyond college for post-grad high schoolers?- is student debt a consideration? The lack of specifics and general language of the city council member bring serious doubt to their argument. say afterward and not afterwards

Bring – say brings

It may be true that half the graduates went to college 20 years ago and now it’s 2/3rds- but what do the actual numbers demonstrate? For example, what if the school had 5,000 students 20 years ago, and 2500 of them went to college. Whereas now it has, say 1,000 students- so only about 700 or less go to college after graduation. Is this change something to be proud about? Or a solid reason to refuse additional funding? In addition to the lack of specifics regarding the numbers, there’s also a serious assumption about college equaling success for individuals after high school- which may or not be true, especially with today’s student debt crisis.

Equalling—Sp. Say equalling. drop the second 'l'

The speaker states that Einstein Highschool has “clearly improved their educational effectiveness” over the past 20 years, but one could definitely question the metrics they used to define “effective”. What if half went on to college 20 years ago, and the other half went on to promising union jobs, or trade skill-oriented jobs that offered them equal or better living than their college-educated peers- what if the same is happening today with the 1/3rd that aren’t going to college? They could be getting apprenticeships, learning trade skills such as plumbing or welding- all while avoiding the massive amounts of student debt that their peers are being crushed under.

Split Highschool into High school

The argument the speaker makes would be much stronger if it included additional metrics to assess the real-world preparedness of their graduates. Further analysis of additional metrics may prove to the speaker that their graduates are not prepared for life after high school- at which point, they will be forced to recognize that Einstein High School may indeed need additional funding to start programs that teach students about paths after high school that don’t involve enormous amounts of debt.

'don't' should be 'doesn't '

The vague ratios about the high school’s graduate college attendance rate, combined with the questionable measures of success through the link to college, create a poorly thought out argument for the speaker to suggest that Einstein High school does not need additional funding.

Review and rating

1.Construction – Ok

2.Length 444 words --- Ok.

3.Flow --- ok.

4. Proofreading – okay; looks like auto –proofed

5. Paragraphing--- okay; buts lacks the use of transitional words such as evidently, however, eventually, primarily, In addition, etc. and so on. This is a major
flaw.

6. Opening---ok but could be better with some relevant exciting questions such as “ is the company run by financial experts?

7. Closing --- ok but could be more striking or creative such as -- the takeaway – The School Admin need to be trained in SWOT analysis. Or they should know the definition of mass psychology, critical volume, break-even, opportunity costs and etc. 
 
Include some old sayings like proverbs or quotes. Such as ‘today the funding may be sufficient. But will it be so tomorrow? Wouldn’t a prudent ant want to save for the rainy day? Please ponder.

Content:

8. Rhetoric: Perhaps you could have given some data, study reports, anecdotes or examples. They are the hallmarks of a strong argument.

9. Grammar --- Though very few, they are basic too. That is a problem.

10. Flow --- easy and smooth.

11. Style – fairly good

12. Rating – 5. with one or two good statistics, it could easily go up. But keep an eye on timing.

13.,  The final word -- Make the argument persuasive. Once in a while appreciate the school for all the good so far

Good luck.

Dvaishnav · Answer

Here is my attempt at the same AWA. I am about a week away from my GMAT. I will appreciate your feedback. Thanks in advance.

--------------------
The member of the city council claims in a speech that we do not need to make any substantial increase in the school’s funding. In order to support the claim, the speaker cites that percentages of the high school students attending the college has gone up even though the funding has remained about the same as it was twenty years ago. The data provided by the speaker is incomplete and superficial. Hence, the argument fails to serve its purpose.

First of all, the argument mentioned that the fraction of Einstein High School students attending a college has gone up from half to two third over the last 20 years. While this may be true, the speaker doesn’t provide any evidence to link this improvement with the quality of education at Einstein High School. The improvement may be attributed to several factors such as better affordability and accessibility of college education, greater number of colleges in the local area, changes in the local demographics, etc. Hence, it is premature to claim that the quality of the eduction is the only factor behind the cited statistics.

Second, the speaker does not comapre Einstein High School with the other high schools from the same area. It is possible that the other high schools from the local area for which budget was increased have seen a significant improvement in their education quality. Subsequently, 90% or even 100% of the students from those high schools may be attending a college or a university. In that case, Einstein High School needs to identify gaps and allocate extra funding to address them.

Last but not the least, the speaker claims that the overall budget remains the same. However, the speaker does not provide details of the budget per student. Has the number of students also remained the same as that of twenty years ago? In addition to the past data, the fund allocation should also consider future challanges. The school may have a greater number of at-rsik student compared to past. The school may also need extra funding to train the staff and teachers in new technology, provide free meals, conduct periodic maintenance activities, and support community outreach programs. The city conuncil should pay attention to all such factors to decide funds needed for the future years.

In a nutshell, the argument suffers from numerous loopholes as demonstrated above. The speaker fails to provide sufficient and necessary data to render the claim indisputable. I will suggest that the members of the city council study all the factors discussed above in detail. A cursory decision regarding the school budget may have a long lasting adverse effect on all aspects of the city.

Twenty years ago, only half of the students who graduated from Einstei

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards