Administrators at several branch campuses of American universities in Qatar acknowledge that they accept students with admissions standards that fall below those expected on their home campuses, but that the quality of their programs remains the same, according to an article on Thursday in The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper.
The newspaper talked to administrators at several American branch campuses in Education City after it received, anonymously, what were said to be the mean verbal and mathematics SAT scores from business and computer-science students admitted to the Qatar and Pittsburgh campuses of Carnegie Mellon University.
The numbers showed “significantly lower” scores for students on the Qatar campus.
A university spokeswoman could not “confirm the veracity” of the figures, the newspaper said. She told The National that the average SAT scores of students admitted to the Qatar campus were lower than those in Pittsburgh, but explained that test scores were only one part of the admissions equation, which also takes into account high-school activities, TOEFL scores, and “other competency tests.”
“In Qatar and in Pittsburgh, only those students judged to be fully capable of meeting the high standards of the university are offered admission,” the spokeswoman told the newspaper in a written statement.
Northwestern University, which has a branch campus in Education City, declined to provide comparisons. The dean of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar said SAT scores were lower there.
“Students in the U.S. have more experience of standardized tests so are expected to score more highly on them,” said James Reardon-Anderson, the Georgetown dean.
All university officials who spoke to The National said that their students were capable of handling a rigorous workload and that the program quality is the same as on their American campuses.
“The fact that some, and I want to stress some, students may travel slightly further to reach that during their four years seems to me a tribute to the hard work and dedication of these students and the supportive educational environment that our faculty and staff try to create here in Doha,” said John Margolis, dean and chief executive of Northwestern University in Qatar. —Andrew Mills