An interesting article in Wall Street Journal today:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-secrets-of-elite-college-admissions-11598626784?mod=hp_lead_pos13
Too bad its behind a paywall, but here is the gist of the article:
It should be no surprise to anyone that colleges âshapeâ their classes. There have been many accounts in the media about this over the years:
âThe Gatekeepers book by Jacques Steinberg (embedded himself at Wesleyan during an early 2000âs admission season) has an excellent account of the horsetrading that happens between AOs, as well as the need to fulfill sometimes competing criteria for certain goals. Donât know if the process is still the same at Wesleyan, but the process contained in the book is not uncommon, even today.
âA review of the process at Trinity College here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/education/edlife/what-college-admissions-wants.html and also discussed in Paul Toughâs book âThe Years that Matter Mostâ. The VP of admissions has been very open about the process and how full pay applicants get subbed in for non-full pay applicants at the end of the process, as they try to meet institutional net revenue (gross revenue less financial aid) goals.
It doesnât seem any of this is âunfairâ as Selingo says, most colleges have to pay attention to their net revenue numbers and canât admit an entire class that needs financial aid. No surprise either that colleges have to balance many other goals: diversity, majors, filling sports teams, orchestras, etc. No easy balancing task, especially when they donât know which applicants are going to accept their offer of admission (outside of ED rounds).
Remember, this âshaping of the classâ is more important at the âeliteâ colleges (whatâs that maybe 25-50 colleges out of 3,000?) and is one of the reasons they are âeliteâ and have the largest endowments, world-class programs, highly diversified campuses, generous financial aid, and top notch faculty and administrators, among other perks and benefits.
At the end of the day, these âeliteâ colleges are big business that have institutional needs and that is achieved through shaping a freshman class (this applies to graduate students as well). No surprise here at all.
College admissions to âeliteâ colleges is not a pure meritocracy (i.e. grades and test scores only) and is what separates U.S. colleges from other countries. I have no problem with shaping a class.
Lot of people are unaware that probably a third of the class at these elite colleges almost didnât make it.
I donât disagree, but that information is readily available from many sources for those who take the time to do research.
Where would I research how many/which students were borderline acceptances at MIT last year?
I agree with other comments above - this has been talked about by the âeliteâ colleges, and it likely only happens at a low double digit number of schools. Ohio State probably isnât horse trading over the last dozen of the 25k+ admits to find one more oboe player.
Put another way, in the US private college admissions are motivated in large part by money, because those colleges are a âbusinessâ. Itâs not done in other countries because universities in those countries donât consider themselves to be a business. Compared to other countries, many aspects of US life are much more affected by money considerations which allow the rich to buy themselves an advantage (healthcare is another obvious area).
Of course rich people have no problem with âshapingâ a class. While most poor people know that they do not have the same advantages as the wealthy, the game being played here (both by colleges and many in the elite classes) is to conceal from the middle classes just how much they are being disadvantaged in so many aspects of life. That includes pretending that undergraduate admissions are actually meritocratic, with use of the term âholisticâ being a classic method of obfuscation on this point.
What is interesting to me is that once money becomes less important to the equation (for example selecting among grad school applicants), most of this manipulation goes out of the window, and selection becomes much more of a pure meritocracy, where test scores, GPA etc are more rigorously scrutinized. Its almost like colleges know they should be a meritocracy, but have been corrupted by money (and perhaps also that the elite donât care so much about grad school once they have a Harvard degree on their resume).
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For grad school, there is generally no need based aid, the decisions are done in whole or part by the academic department, and there is no expectation that the student will contribute to the larger University. This is similar to many European schools. But grad schools will still look at gender and race if allowed to shape a class.
Itâs worth keeping in mind that most the elite LACs and private universities are much smaller than state flagships, which contributes to the need to shape a class. When the University of Arizona sends out its 33,000 acceptance letters, it will surely wind up with some oboe players and javelin throwers. A small school that admits only 1,000 kids is going to need to pay attention to whether theyâre admitting some oboe players and javelin throwers if they want to maintain a top-notch orchestra or successful track team.
Doesnât schoolsâ use of the word âholisticâ convey that admission is NOT a strict meritocracy â that schools are taking into account factors other than the numerical data (test scores, GPA) that one might expect to predominate in a strictly meritocratic admission system?
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No, to those not in the know, that phrase implies you will be judged on âmeritâ, not just your test scores but on other achievements too (were you team captain or class president for example).
What it obfuscates is that the judgement is also about money and connections, not about the studentâs achievements. The article in the WSJ cites specific examples of students who will pay more or whose parents work at the college being admitted instead of higher achieving candidates.
Holistic admissions can be used strictly to find and sort academic merit, however defined. For example, a college with elite admissions are super-rigorous academics may need to use holistic admissions in a quest to find the academically strongest applicants, knowing full well that the usual measures like HS GPA and SAT/ACT scores have a ceiling that is too low for their purposes.
However, US elite private colleges define âmeritâ to include things other than academic merit. For example, most of them consider family ties to alumni (legacy) to be âmeritâ.
The idea of holistic admissions is that theyâre not admitting students based solely on stats, so once students meet a certain bar for stats I think adcoms start to consider other things. If the legacy student and a student with higher stats both met the bar, then itâs the other things in the app that push them over the line.
Hereâs one interesting thing that Iâm learning from the current Brown Title IX case, which many of you probably already know. They have a net Academic Index score for their athletes, and they have different targets for different teams. So, for example, the football team was below the schoolâs target AI, but the swim team was above. I could imagine that there can be some balancing about what athletes to admit.
The problem is that many people want to attend a âprestigiousâ college in large part because of the very characteristics which cost a lot of money. Then there are all the people who want to attend these colleges because these colleges are attended by the kids of the rich and powerful.
Once you remove the huge income that these colleges get from donors and in tuition, you eliminate the small classrooms, the large numbers of highly paid prize-winning faculty, the fancy old buildings, the beautiful architecture becomes too expensive to maintain, the trips abroad disappear, etc.
Then there are the other reasons that parents want their kids to attend these prestigious colleges - making connections. Of course, this is also built on the fact that many of those kids with whom a student would want make future business connections are being accepted at a much higher rate, and not because of their academics.
Basically, the advantages that âprestigiousâ colleges offer to highly accomplished middle class students are there because these colleges have a large component of kids from wealthy and powerful families. For that component to be large, the kids of wealth and power need to be accepted at a much higher rate than middle class kids.
âBasically, the advantages that âprestigiousâ colleges offer to highly accomplished middle class students are there because these colleges have a large component of kids from wealthy and powerful families. For that component to be large, the kids of wealth and power need to be accepted at a much higher rate than middle class kids.â
If thereâs a link between intelligence and financial success, and a heritable genetic component to intelligence then that would happen naturally. I donât see a shortage of students from wealthy and powerful families at colleges that donât have legacy admissions like MIT, or at those that select purely on the basis of ability, like Oxbridge.
But whatâs the real difference between the corruption involved in Varsity Blues and the corruption inherent in the Z list?
I guess the âshaping of the classâ depends on how far the bar bends. Provided they all meet some agreed upon level of academic competency, no problem with shaping. Brilliance comes in many forms, not just purely academic.
âShapingâ is not about bringing out the hidden âbrillianceâ. Itâs about perpetuating an unjust system, preserving the privileges and influences of the rich and powerful. âShapingâ isnât the only alternative to reliance on test scores and grades alone, as some seem to believe.
I donât have a WSJ subscription. Is there any free way to read the article in full?
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So what is the alternative for which you wish? No test scores? Done. (See the recent case in California for example). Affirmative action? Got that. Random lottery once some numerical gpa or other threshold is achieved? But then any threshold is likely to disfavor URMs and you are back to perpetuating an unjust system
Maybe if you were admissions czar you could get to your goal of fairness based on your elusive and unarticulated criteria
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@Twoin18 I wouldnât hold them on such a high pedestal. 8 schools admit the same number of students as 3/4 of the school population (2,900 schools).
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/education-46470838
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