ERIC ED562583: Best Practices in Admissions Decisions: A Report on the Third College Board Conference on Admission Models

33 Pages·2002·0.13 MB·English

by  ERIC

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993603
The College Board:
Expanding College Opportunity
The College Board is a national nonprofit membership association
dedicated to preparing, inspiring, and connecting students to college and
opportunity. Founded in 1900, the association is composed of more than 4,200
schools, colleges, universities, and other educational organizations. Each year, the
College Board serves over three million students and their parents, 22,000 high
schools, and 3,500 colleges through major programs and services in college
admission, guidance, assessment, financial aid, enrollment, and teaching and
learning. Among its best-known programs are the SAT®, the PSAT/NMSQT®,
and the Advanced Placement Program®(AP®). The College Board is committed
to the principles of equity and excellence, and that commitment is embodied in
all of its programs, services, activities, and concerns.
For further information, contact www.collegeboard.com.
Copyright © 2002 by College Entrance Examination Board. All rights reserved. College
Board, Advanced Placement Program, AP, SAT, and the acorn logo are registered trademarks
of the College Entrance Examination Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark jointly
owned by both the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship
Corporation. Other products and services mentioned herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners. Visit College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.com.
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Table of Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
v
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Common Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Components of a Best Practices
Admissions Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Outline of a Best Practices
Schematic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
What is Success in College? . . . . . . . . . . .11
The Structure of Admissions Power . .15
Defining the Decision-Making
Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
Reading Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Admissions Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
The Best Versus the Best Match . . . . .27
Evaluating Success and Refining
The Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Best Practices in the Decision-
Making Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
Endnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
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Foreword
This document summarizes the discussions that occurred during the
third conference on admissions models on August 23–24, 2001, in Vancouver,
Canada. Although the College Board convened the meeting and is publishing
these proceedings, the document that follows reflects the collective views of the
experienced admissions professionals and researchers who participated in the
meeting.
Special thanks go to Jerry Lucido, associate provost and director of
admissions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who ably served
as chair and who managed to let the discussion go where the participants
wanted while at the same time maintaining order and the general schedule.
Catherine Meredith, assistant director, SAT®Program, prepared the transcript
of the meeting on which this document was based. During the College Board’s
National Forum in Denver in October 2001, Jerry Lucido moderated and
participated in a standing-room only session about the conference. The other
participants in that panel were Greg Perfetto, assistant provost and director of
special projects, Vanderbilt University, Nancy Hargrave Meislahn, dean of
admissions and financial aid, Wesleyan University, and Sue Wilbur, director,
admissions and relations with schools, University of California, Irvine. Sections
of this document were based on the summaries they presented at that meeting.
Thus, this monograph has many authors, but all participants contributed in
significant ways.
Finally, I should note that this document does not represent a blue-
print about best practices in admissions decision making. Rather, it is intended
to present a framework for further discussions and elaborations. Educators and
others who would like to join in the discussion are invited to send in
comments. Individuals who would like to participate in future events on these
topics are also invited to let us know of their interests.
These are challenging times for everyone involved in the college
admissions process. We hope this monograph will help inform the discussions
that are taking place on campuses and elsewhere.
Gretchen W. Rigol
Vice President
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Introduction
This monograph builds on the work of the first two College Board conferences
on admissions models, which culminated in the 1999 publication of Toward a
Taxonomy of the Admissions Decision-Making Process1. The Taxonomyprovides a
framework for describing the core features of the admissions decision-making
process. It applies to virtually every type of institution that has to make deci-
sions about who will and who will not be offered a place in that college or uni-
versity. Even open-door institutions generally have minimum requirements
based on some general understanding of who is eligible for further education.
Thus, this work is not focused solely on what the general public often refers to
as “selective institutions” (the relatively small number of institutions that reject
large numbers of applicants), but rather all institutions that engage in any type
of decision making about who may enroll.
During those earlier conferences, four philosophical perspectives were
identified:
Eligibility Based Models
Entitlement
• Higher education is an inalienable right and should be made available
to everyone.
Open Access
• College is a natural progression after high school and should be made
available to everyone who is qualified.
Performance Based Models
Meritocracy
• Access to higher education is a reward for those who have been most
academically successful.
Character
• Access to higher education is a reward for personal virtue, dedication,
perseverance, community service, and hard work.
Student Capacity to Benefit Models
Enhancement
• The goal of higher education is to seek out and nurture talent.
Mobilization
• Higher education is the great equalizer and must promote social and
economic mobility.
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Student Capacity to Contribute Models
Investment
• Access to higher education should promote the greater good and further
the development of society.
Environmental/Institutional
• The admissions selection process is designed to meet the enrollment goals
and unique organizational needs of the admitting institution, while
promoting the overall quality of students’ educational experience.
Fiduciary
• Higher education is a business, and access must first preserve the
institution’s fiscal integrity.
The first group of models evaluates potential students against external criteria
rather than comparing and making judgments among applicants. The
entitlementversion essentially guarantees admission to everyone and is
exemplified by some programs in community colleges that are truly open door.
(It should be noted that many programs at community colleges have limited
capacity and apply some type of selection model in determining how seats are
allocated.) A slightly more restrictive version of the eligibility perspective is
called open access, which typically requires some minimum standard, such as
a minimum GPA or a certain score on an external examination or a combina-
tion of such factors. Many state colleges base their admissions on such a
perspective; students and counselors can tell from reading the requirements
whether or not the student will be admitted.
Eligibility-based models generally presume flexible capacity. Whenever
the number of students exceeds an institution’s ability to expand (or during
times of contraction), the minimum criteria must be adjusted or another
admissions model must be adopted. The history of higher education is full of
examples of open-door institutions that had to adopt higher and higher GPA,
coursework, and test score requirements as a way to manage enrollments. There
are also statewide systems and institutions that first filter students based on an
eligibility criteria and then apply a competitive selection process.
The performance-based models, although related to the basic concept
of eligibility, compare one student to another and are closest to what we
typically imagine when we talk about selective admissions—particularly the
meritocracyapproach, which views access to higher education as a reward for
successfully demonstrating prior success in academic pursuits. The character
approach goes a step further and looks beyond academics to personal character-
istics such as hard work and good citizenship. Part of the difficulty of explaining
how admissions decisions are made is that while these performance-based
models are the basis for most competitive selection models, they are not based
on external and fixed eligibility standards. The student with high grades, excel-
lent test results, and a rigorous college-prep curriculum who has demonstrated
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the highest levels of personal virtue is not guaranteed admission under this
model. An evaluation of one student’s merit and character is compared with
evaluations of other students, and the resulting decisions cannot be forecast in
isolation.
While most selective institutions incorporate a performance-based
component in their selection processes, many that take a comprehensive or
holistic approach to selection also use additional perspectives in their decision
making. A clear secondary focus for many institutions is a student’s ability to
benefit from higher education. The enhancementmodel attempts to identify
talent which can be nurtured and developed by the institution. The mobiliza-
tionapproach is intended to promote social and economic mobility. In both of
these approaches, previous accomplishments are viewed in the context of the
student’s previous opportunities, and the student’s unrealized potential is a pos-
itive attribute.
The final philosophical model relates to what the potential student
might contribute to the institution or society. A basic distinction was made
between approaches in which capacity to contribute was immediate and the
direct result of the student’s enrollment and those in which the benefits were
long term and extended beyond the institution. The investmentapproach
describes this longer-term benefit to the greater society. Institutions occasional-
ly make admissions decisions based partially on more narrowly focused imme-
diate institutional needs. These environmental/institutionalconsiderations
reflect academic needs, extracurricular needs, or meeting social goals—such as
enrolling a diverse student body. The fiduciaryapproach recognizes the reality
of economics and that admissions decisions that take into account a students’
ability to pay is simply a fact of life for many institutions.
Although these philosophical models can be neatly outlined and
described as independent approaches, they are not mutually exclusive. Few real-
world admissions operations would neatly fit in any one category. And, as discus-
sion focuses more on holistic decision making, it becomes clear that by its very
nature this comprehensive approach involves a complex integration of many
different and sometimes competing philosophical models for selecting students.
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Common Challenges
The College Board initiated the admissions models project in part to develop a
common language to describe how admissions is practiced by different institu-
tions, but also to explore ways that the admissions decision-making process can
be improved. As it has evolved, the project has become a forum for a dialogue
on the future of admissions and the changes that are needed to respond to and
reflect the current environment.
Virtually all levels and types of education in America are facing the
challenges of rapidly changing demographics, including increased immigration,
large populations whose first language is not English, and first-generation
college students. Another common pressure felt throughout the educational
system is the growth rate among traditional age students. And for the higher
education sector, this growth is compounded by increasing interest among
adults for further education.
Coupled with increased demand is the uneven quality of secondary
education. As institutions of higher education seek to serve increasing numbers
of students, they are faced with the reality that many of these students are
underprepared and that many of the underprepared students come from racial
or ethnic groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in higher
education. It is not surprising in such an environment that there is heightened
public interest in admissions, which increasingly takes form in legal and politi-
cal challenges. Never before in its history has admission to American colleges
and universities been subjected to such intense scrutiny.
Some of the most pressing challenges facing the admissions process are
primarily internal and need to be addressed within the context of the institu-
tion’s overall mission. For example:
• How can institutions identify a decision-making model that will support and
be fair to all students within a more diverse applicant pool?
• How can large institutions with limited resources implement a holistic
comprehensive review of all applicants?
• What can institutions do to support and retain a growing enrollment of first-
generation college students?
• How can the admissions office effectively involve faculty and the
administration in developing and implementing admissions processes that
reflect and support the institutional mission?
At the same time, there are major external challenges facing the admissions
profession:
• How can institutions communicate with their various publics (students,
parents, counselors, legislators, etc.) about how admissions works at selective
institutions?
• What can institutions do to differentiate their admissions policies as clearly as
they can describe their unique missions?
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• How can the concept of holistic or comprehensive admissions be explained in
the context of public accountability?
• What can be done to educate the public that quantifiable measures (such as
GPA and test results) are not all important and are not the only factors that
matter in admissions?
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