I do think some of the problem lies in the fact that we don't have the vocational training that the EU countries have and instead pretend that everyone should go to college. It's raised the stakes for families trying to send their children to a place they don't belong at a cost most can't afford, but they have so few other options to actually learn a trade or craft in this country.
Because of this, everyone fixates on GPA or some other numerical determinative of college entrance rather than simply asking "is our children learning?" (sorry for the Bush reference, I couldn't help myself)
Yes, I agree.
I think that the focus on GPA and test scores (both in college admissions at the high end and NCLB and high-stakes testing at the low end) drives people to do unhealthy things (e.g. grade grubbing & inflation, the Atlanta testing scandal). IMHO, all this is perfectly predictable.
It's true that systems using a single set of exams to determine university admissions put a lot of pressure on teenagers. But I wonder if we may have more pressure here: in this country, there's a huge amount of pressure to be a perfect student with a long list of extracurriculars, high SAT scores, etc. And then there's the lopsided nature of admissions that confer advantages for all kinds of groups (legacies, etc.). And even so, the admissions process is still pretty opaque.
And from what I've seen of European exams, the questions they ask are much more substantial than 2-minute-max multiple choice SAT questions.
At least when everything is based on one exam, the system is transparent and it treats everyone the same way. So, that's one big source of stress that doesn't exist in places like Europe.
