The Daily Northwestern reported this week that the president of Northwestern reviewed 550 (!) admission applications for students, many wealthy and well connected. Northwestern PR team says they have “strong protections” to keep Development Department information from influencing admissions decisions, but the President’s actions are a gapping loophole as he has FULL access to donor data. The president’s actions completely negate any “strong protections” between the Development and Admissions Departments.
What do you think parents…should university presidents with full access to development data be meddling in admissions?
Should they? In the interest of equity, probably not. But that would only work if every other university did the same. Otherwise, they will lose out on donations and the like, and that will likely do more harm than good in expanding access to underrepresented communities.
Also found this article that says the president is regularly part of the admissions process, especially for local applicants. It seems like he’s always been involved, even when he was at Williams.
I think the reality is that development admits are another hooked pool that definitely get preferential treatment. I’m sure that if Pat Ryan had a family member applying to NU, that application is not treated the same as John Doe, and rightfully so.
My read between the lines is these are people adcoms don’t want to admit but there is some angle too important for them to feel comfortable being the ones to say no/or decide if the $$/name/whatever is worth an admission anyway?
Just because he’s reviewed the applications doesn’t mean there is bias or preferable treatment. It would be fairly simple to compare acceptance rates for matched applications (i.e. compare candidates with similar achievements). NU has a robust data science department, would be an interesting project…
I would welcome data on the admit rates for the group of applicants reviewed by the President, complied and analyzed by a neutral third party of course. And I hear the private university argument, fair enough, they can do what they want. However, I firmly object to Northwestern lying about it. Northwestern’s PR team is sticking to the line “we have strong protections” against advancement influencing admissions when it is demonstrably not the case. I would prefer they honestly embrace the practice - which this thread nearly unanimously assumes is taking place - that you can buy a spot at Northwestern and other elite schools. This would allow society to view graduates from those schools through that lens: the Northwestern grad in front of you may be a talented scholar or they may just be an average student whose wealthy parents bought their admission. After all, are these school elite because of the academic merit or wealth of their students? One seems worthy of respect, the other, not so much…
Assume it is a STEM university where every major requires rigorous mathematics coursework. A markedly successful uncle wants to impress his relatives and “help” his nephew, so he contacts the university president. The applicant’s folder includes not only courses and grades, but also “recommendations” from math teachers at a very small private school where about 15 students are in each class. That is, the teacher really knows the student. The teacher writes about the applicants fine character, but notes he just does not “get” higher math. The instructor is well aware of the demands at the University and the demands of the program. Yes, the student just passes these math courses in a tutorial environment.
The folder is read by three or five different reviewers who write notes and their decisions on the cover. The applicant is rejected and in the minds of the review committee, to the student’s benefit. The applicant does not have a plausible “escape” major at this University.
The president asks the committee to reconsider. They do so and reach the same decision… it is not in the best interest of the student to take on a curriculum that is too challenging for the applicant while the space is now not available for another highly qualified applicant.
The president accepted the student on his own.
Was this decision in the best interest of either the accepted or the other rejected student?
Some rich kids need to be protected from aggressively ambitious parents! His secondary school teachers were actually trying to help him!
I think transparency and much more break down data about admissions in the common data set would be helpful. And I think the “private school - they can do whatever they want” argument is a straw man. If they don’t want to be accountable they can go the way of Hillsdale and not accept government money. I question why so many tax dollars support elite schools that are over representing the richest in society and allow for the escalating prices far out pacing inflation.
@retiredfarmer or what about the recruited athlete in the same situation, but this time it’s for the college’s revenue?
Or admitting a kid who, because of the poor educational opportunities available to them before college, doesn’t have anywhere near the knowledge base as the other college kids do?
Honestly, I feel sorry for kids that get sold on a name brand, when that sometimes means that they won’t be able to pursue their preferred majors and get shunted off to some miscellaneous easier major so they can graduate. On the other hand, if the kid doesn’t care so much about which major they will graduate with, particularly for the kid with previously poor educational opportunities, the college can open up doors that were previously unimaginable.
It’s just critical that if a college admit these kids who aren’t otherwise a good academic fit, that they track them, provide services to them, and don’t let them fall between the cracks.
I think schools generally want kids to succeed. Retention and graduation numbers are important to them.
I knew a couple of developmental admits when I was an undergrad. They were asked to come to campus and take courses in the summer to get themselves more up to speed. They hired tutors. The one switched majors when he realized he was in way over his head but managed to find his strengths and graduate.
Was the school the right fit and the in the best interests of these students? Most likely not. I think they struggled way more than necessary.
Was it in the best interest of the school to admit the student? I would argue yes if the family are generous enough donors. Huge donations benefit the entire school community.
Fake food for thought. I don’t know that much about Northwestern, but I am pretty certain no other elite university would admit that student. (Actually, there are only a handful of elite “STEM” universities, i.e., places where some sort of math disability would be absolutely disqualifying. Maybe the kid might get admitted someplace where that was not true.)
I know pretty reliably of several situations where an elite university reached out to an alumnus parent who was part of a family of important donors, to make certain that a child in 11th grade did not apply the following year, because the child would not be accepted. For people with a history of donations (and capacity for future donations) that would justify some reasonable consideration whether an applicant should be admitted for the good of the university, without regard to what the admissions office thought, the development office is proactive. Big-deal uncle would have to be a really, really big deal to get anything more than a polite brush-off from the president, and if he were that big a deal people would have been discussing the situation for at least a year in advance.
Take away or compromise any of those elements, and the chance of admission is virtually nil. For example, I know of a situation involving a childless aunt in her late 40s who had made over $1 million lifetime contributions to her alma mater, as well as being actively involved in alumni activities. She had one (and only one) nephew applying to that college, also technically a legacy but not much contribution from the parents. She contacted the development office a year ahead of time to make clear her interest in her nephew, emphasizing that this was the only legacy she would ever have. The nephew was clearly qualified - top-5 class rank in a large, strong public school (where both this college and another equally prestigious colleges also accepted a kid ranked lower in the class), 1580 SATs, 800s on all SATIIs, deep ECs. The outcome? Nothing. The aunt did not have the capacity to increase her giving substantially, and the college gambled that her ties to it were strong enough to survive her disappointment over her nephew. (By the way, $1+ million in contributions didn’t get her anywhere near the president’s office. It didn’t even get her to the head of the development office.)
Note that too much obvious inherited privilege may even be noticeable by prospective students. The following is a post from a student who was admitted to Harvard and a number of other schools (eventually choosing Stanford):
While he liked Harvard the school, he was not impressed with the other students he encountered at the post-admission visit. He “was appalled to find that [his] work ethic was not consistent in the potential peers [he] would have. Many of them seemed to have been gifted a place at Harvard by their parents or simply by the private school they went to. With their socioeconomic status, they believed that they were of another echelon and seemingly looked down on others.”
Obviously, Northwestern is not Harvard, and may not necessarily have this type of problem. But a school that leans too much on inherited privilege preferences (either directly through development and legacy preference, or indirectly in admission criteria that more strongly correlate to inherited privilege) may find that its marketability to true academic superstars who earned more of their own achievement to be compromised.
The numbers surprised me here. I knew about individual development reads and visits when I was a student staffer at Harvard 20 years ago. But these numbers are way higher than I would have guessed.