Hanson Finds Obstacles to CEEB Plans

The problem of defining a "beginning college course" may be the only drawback to the new national advanced placement program of the College Entrance Examination Board, Harlan P. Hanson, Director of Advanced Standing, said yesterday.

"Fixing requirements for mathematics and the sciences will be relatively simple," Hanson said, referring to the new CEEB plan passed Wednesday, "but the language and English requirements may give trouble."

Hanson praised the new national program since it would enable students from all schools to take the special tests. Under the old system of the School and College Study of Admission with Advance Standing, only students in the 18 member schools were eligible.

But he warned that the CEEB and its member colleges may disagree over the definition of an elementary course. This definition must be acceptable to the Harvard Faculty before the admissions office here can use the test's results in the fall of 1956, the year the plan goes into operation.

Right of Colleges

Hanson pointed out that the CEEB program contains the proviso that individual colleges have the right to accept or reject the results of the new tests.

The program was passed on the premise that "there is sufficient similarity in content and objectives of beginning college courses among the Board's member colleges to make a single advance placement testing program a feasible venture."

By broadening the eligibility for the advance tests in the hands of the CEEB, advance placement has changed from a faculty-to-faculty process to a student-to-college process. Hanson feels the new program will also let hundreds of self-taught students apply for advance placement.