The questions are whether the applicant has ever faced disciplinary action at school or been convicted of a crime. These are discriminatory, activists say, because minority students are more likely to be disciplined or arrested for the same behaviors as other students.
My first take is that colleges would be held negligent and open to lawsuits if they admitted a student with, say, a history of violent incidents and that student then assaulted a fellow college student.
NYU’s approach of deciding on applicants without that information first and checking before extending an offer seems like a fairly reasonable compromise, although it adds another step to a complex process.
I can imagine many parents who wouldn’t want their student’s freshman roommate to be a convicted felon with multiple suspension in high school. That sounds unlikely, but would certainly be possible if colleges stopped asking entirely.
The real solution would seem to be by enforcing discipline fairly at the high school level and ensuring the standards were similar for all students. Colleges don’t wan’t kids of any race who have anti-social tendencies.
It seems to me NYU’s approach is a good balance. I guess I would have approached it slightly differently, although the end result might be the same. Rather than going in “box blind” on the first pass, I would have combined any checked box with a look at their claim of ethnicity. If it was a person of color, given the national awareness of the unfair levels of punishment, I would then look at the specific report for that student and see what the offenses were.
I think college admissions people can be trained fairly easily to know which transgressions and punishments seem to not reflect a real concern regarding admission and which do. Creating sufficient awareness within these departments should suffice, because eliminating the information entirely makes no sense unless a differentiation between transgressions was instituted, similar to misdemeanors vs. felonies. In that case you could only have them check the box for “felony” level transgressions. But that seems harder to me. Easier, I think, is to make sure all admissions departments are aware of this disparity and act accordingly.
It’s easy to see the argument for this. However, “dropping the box” doesn’t address the root cause of the problem, which is that (according to some activists) minority students are disciplined/arrested at higher rates for the same offense.
Similarly, requiring standardized tests disadvantages minority applicants (test scores are closely correlated with income). We can drop standardized testing altogether, or we can ask ourselves why low-income students fare poorly on these tests, and look to reduce that disparity.
Treating the symptoms of a social ill can lessen its impact, but no doctor has ever cured a disease without addressing its cause.
this is a mistake. I agree with convictions only in a court…school discipline who cares. I do not want myself or child in the future rooming with a felon. ( a kid who took bubble gum from a store when they were 12 no big deal) assault, robbery,battery etc… sorry that is where the social engineering ends for me) maybe those students can live with the admissions counselors, administrative staff and their families…if they think it is a good idea.)
“My first take is that colleges would be held negligent and open to lawsuits if they admitted a student with, say, a history of violent incidents and that student then assaulted a fellow college student.”—when something happens and it will …they will be sued and should be sued.
and separate from monetary punishment a school would face…money does not fix the physical and mental harm done to the victim if something happens.
the question should be… have you ever been convicted of a felony. (we are not interested in misdemeanors or in school discipline)
I think that this policy needs to exist for the safety of the school - it’s pretty important to the environment schools try to create that people feel safe.
It’s true that minorities are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement, but frankly that’s an issue that should be handled altogether separately from college admissions.
People need to remember that admissions is a holistic review.
Just like a person isn’t automatically rejected from Harvard for having a 2100 SAT, nor would they automatically reject someone for checking off those boxes.
If a person was suspended for pulling a fire alarm or some annoying prank in 9th grade, okay - let’s see what he did since then.
Person has a felony record for armed assault and is a registered sex offender? Hmm, better have a lot of compensating factors and or explanations!
Affirmative Action has already created an environment that mitigates a lot of disadvantages for minorities. It’s no secret that the real determining factor is income, a component that holds much more weight in studies with testing, GPA, and crime.
I don’t see how the disparity in standardized reaching can be closed without limiting affluent families access to additional study resources. Furthermore, whether or not minorities are targeted more frequently on the basis of racial discrimination is irrelevant here. The fact is that there is without a doubt still a large portion of students who check these boxes because of serious conduct violations.
I agree with @NeoDymium , the issue should be resolved separately.
I recall a CC post by a mother about her DD who had been caught with ADHD meds (not hers) at school. I don’t remember the details. The mother was very (rightly) worried about the impact of this incident on her DD’s admission chances to top schools (the girl is an excellent student). The family is wealthy and had the resources to move the girl to a new schools away from bad influences (the poster did seem to be making excuses a bit).
From what I hear, the illegal possession of prescription drugs happens a lot on college and high school campuses. I think a case like the above is difficult to consider. I can understand why a college might be leery of a student with this offense on his record. As a parent, I’m not sure I’d want my son to room with this person. My younger DS has ADHD. What if he has a roommate who steals his medication? Does he become an accessory? How careful do students with ADHD meds have to be?
Should possession of a small amount of marijuana impact a student’s college career or should a single incident of aggressive behavior (maybe there were extenuating circumstances) ruin a kid’s future? What about stalking? That one would sure get my attention.
In my mostly white, wealthy and insular community, I think parents have more power to make problems like this go away than in a poor community.
I’m leaning toward students’ having to disclose disciplinary actions or crimes, but I sure hope the university admissions people look carefully at the seriousness of the incident. I would think there are certain issues that are huge red flags.
This is so often repeated that it is accepted as fact. But the real reason that test scores correlate with income is because intelligence correlates with income, and intelligence is significantly hereditary.
The standardized tests are not particularly hard, and about $60 of study books can give you all the guidance you need. Spending more on dedicated tutoring is a waste of money IMHO. My daughter scored a 35 on the ACT with just three study books. Her college fund is fully funded, so if we thought there was any benefit to private tutoring, we would have spent the money for it.
@txstella I think you’re required to report theft of stimulant medication to the authorities, assuming a noticeable amount is taken.
You bring up some interesting questions. I would say no for the first two examples you give, but if I were an admissions officer I can’t imagine admitting a stalker.
I studied the “ban the box” law for employment in Oregon. While disparate impact is a major concern, the bigger overarching issue here is that our penal system is supposedly premised on the notion that the judicial punishment, once served, repays society for the crime. To continue to punish felons after that point through social stigma and disadvantages- both blatant and covert- really means never forgiving or forgetting transgressions.
Further, as has been pointed out in a few preceding comments, the nature of the offense sometimes is unique or so particular to certain circumstances that it poses little risk of repeat. In Portland, an employer who learns after extending a conditional job offer that an applicant has a conviction must provide a written justification as to how the offense correlates and disqualifies the prospective employee. I think this is fair and should be required in the higher education context as well.
But higher education never provides written justification for why SAT scores, or GPA or essays or ECs or recommendations or…prevented them from being admitted to a college.
It is different from a job where you have a specific job requirements and you could argue that disparate impact between two people who have the essentially the same job experience. Colleges have so many other requirements that are not specific, and they get a pass for then saying for the interest of a creating a diverse class just because you may score really well on all the requirements, that is not necessarily enough.
I think the argument would be that a black kid who took bubble gum from a store when they were 12 is far more likely to have a misdemeanor conviction than a white kid.
For Massachusetts (the first state that came up in my google search) the difference between misdemeanor larceny and felony larceny is if the value of the stolen property is over $250. So are you saying you’re ok with the 12 year old who stole a pack of gum but not the 12 year old who stole 5 Xbox games? What if they stole 4 xbox games thus making it a misdemeanor? My understanding from your post is that you have no problem with your child rooming with someone who stole 4 xbox games but if they stole 5 they are too dangerous? What about the kid who stole 5 xbox games but whose parents were able to talk the store out of pressing charges vs. the one whose family couldn’t?
Or did you really only mean violent felons? Which student are you more afraid of living with your child? The one from the wealthy family who was able to offer a settlement so the family of the kid he beat up in 9th grade wouldn’t press charges or the one who was actually not the instigator of the fight he was in but because a cop drove by and since this kid is black, the cop assumed he was the instigator? (I’m making my examples up, but here is a real story with a similar plot: http://gawker.com/security-guard-ignores-fight-instigator-maces-some-bla-1621658665)
I don’t agree with this. I know this might not be the popular opinion and I know I might get hated on for this, but I think that we need to stop making everything into a race issue
^ok, let’s just make it into a rich vs. poor person issue. Rich people can afford better legal defenses than poor people. Does that change anything for you?
