<p>This important Inside Higher Ed article takes a close look at what admissions and financial aid officials, as well as guidance professionals from colleges and high schools nationwide had to say about "admission angst" as they gathered for the College Board’s annual meeting in San Diego this weekend:</p>
<p>
[quote]
A Watershed Moment?</p>
<p>One of the more emotional sessions of the meeting was on “College Admissions in the 21st Century.” Don Hossler, a long-time admissions official who is now a professor of education at Indiana University at Bloomington, opened by asking whether college admissions is “at a watershed,” and suggested that it may well be so. He noted the testing debate, the push against early decision programs, the critique of “enrollment management” strategies, and a growing sense among college presidents that the admissions process and the awarding of financial aid are “out of control.”</p>
<p>He said that there was “a convergence of issues” that opened the possibility for real change.</p>
<p>Robert S. Lay, dean for enrollment management at Boston College, said that he saw the trends today combining in ways such that educators have “lost control of the process.”</p>
<p>Lay and others cited the growth in “stealth applications” — applications from students who prior to applying never had any official contact with anyone at the college. Such students believe they can figure out all they need to know by browsing a college’s Web site (and all the unofficial information that is present online), and they don’t want to hear from admissions offices. “There is a lack of trust students have in us,” Lay said.</p>
<p>One of the hot trends in admissions these days is pledging to take a “holistic” approach — with less focus on any one statistic and more of an effort to get a sense of applicant and fit. Lay didn’t criticize the approach, but said he worried that this could add to the anxiety and skepticism many have about admissions already. “A lot of this sounds like things going on in a black box, very subjective,” he said.</p>
<p>Barbara A. Gill, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Maryland at College Park, said she also saw “a loss of public trust.” She noted that issues of access for low income students do not occupy many national leaders, and that Michigan just became the third state to vote down affirmative action — despite a wide consensus among admissions officials that affirmative action is necessary.</p>
<p>With all of this pressure and scrutiny, Gill also worried that admissions offices don’t have the depth they need. She noted that most applicants and parents don’t talk to admissions deans, but to rank and file admissions officers. Noting that many colleges have historically hired new graduates for those jobs, she said, “this just isn’t enough any more.”</p>
<p>Indeed, many at the meeting worried that their jobs have diverged from their values. John Barnhill, director of admissions and records at Florida State University, has been working in admissions for 30 years — and recalled his pride at his first title: “admissions counselor.” His job was counseling, not sales, he said, and success was “trying to find the best institution for the student,’ even if that meant lost applications or lost enrollment for your employer.</p>
<p>Now, he said, “students don’t want to be counseled,” at least not by anyone affiliated with a university admissions office.</p>
<p>Barnhill — to knowing nods in a standing-room-only audience — recalled fighting when his title was changed to “admissions officer.” And others joked about the title “enrollment management,” once viewed as the symbol of corporatization of college admissions, but now so common that many of the reformers in college admissions have “enrollment management” in their job titles, sometimes joking “I’m one of those evil enrollment management people.”</p>
<p>Even as Barnhill worried about lost values, he talked about the reality of functioning in admissions today. “I cower at my desk the day that U.S. News rankings come out,” he said. “If you are where your provost or president think you should be, you love the rankings,” he said, but most years at most institutions, you aren’t — and you spend a lot of time explaining why you aren’t, defending your practices, brainstorming about how to improve.</p>
<p>While blasting the rankings, Barnhill also said that “you have to admire their power,” in that they focus administrators’ attention on issues they might otherwise ignore. He said, for example, that because graduation rates are one focus of many rankings, college leaders pay more attention than they used to. “Our emphasis on retention has been propelled by rankings,” he said.</p>
<p>Others in the audience said that the crisis was made worse by the press, with reporters’ obsessions with elite universities, alleged “frenzies” that really apply only to the wealthiest families, presidents and provosts who are disconnected from the realities of admissions work, and a public that is in the dark about college generally and admissions.</p>
<p>James C. Blackburn, associate director of enrollment management services for the California State University System, said that no one is aware that “we don’t have a shortage of spaces,” just “a distribution issue” in which so many students are convinced that there are only a dozen or so institutions worth attending.</p>
<p>While most of those doing the talking at the session were from higher ed, many worried about trends in high schools. One private university official said that far too many of the innovative programs being touted at the College Board meeting “are reaching 50 students each,” while most public high schools in low income areas are ignored by higher education.</p>
<p>Mabel Freeman, assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at Ohio State University, said that the counseling role is being killed off well before students reach college. So many counseling positions are being eliminated in high schools, she said, that many high school counselors have no way to maintain the kind of contact needed to be effective. College leaders need to make this issue their own, she said, as they have historically benefited from the good work done by high school counselors.
[/quote]
</p>