@PurpleTitan Lol, really?? If you don’t like MERIKA, go to Uzbegibegistan? That’s what it has come to now?
NICE
Why not? After all, she admires how they do things over there, right? Why not go somewhere that you admire?
Don’t faculty have more important things to do than read the thousands of applications a university reads each year? Instead, faculty can outline an ideal, or great, student that they would approve of attending the school and have admissions officers look for students like that (this is how admissions officers know who to admit btw)
This thread is starting to eerily mirror comments from old threads re: certain tippy tops. The old, “I know someone who complained.” That really isn’t enough.
The usual response is: the way top colleges do it now works for those top schools. They get their supply of hardworking, determined, creative students, engaged in more than sitting in class and doing their homework. They graduate a very high percentage. As institutions, they are highly productive.
For all the supposedly disgruntled faculty, they could volunteer to get involved, offer feedback, many do. But there isn’t enough evidence in anecdotes to throw the baby out. Maybe, rather than insist it’s flawed and how it can be fixed, more folks could try to learn how it really works.
Not all AAU members are that selective. Indeed, some of them are less selective enough that it is no surprise that there are many students who need remedial courses. Are the complaining faculty at the USNWR top 20 schools, or at other schools?
Yes, a harder entrance examination like that used in Russia, China, or India could help distinguish the academic credentials of the very top end of the range of applicants, but it would not change the admissions scene for the other 99% or so. As long as we subscribe to the idea that everyone should have a chance to prove themselves in college, there will be less selective colleges (including open admission community colleges) that admit students who are not almost guaranteed to graduate.
Some of my friends teach courses in the impacted majors at the AAU colleges. The colleges they teach at are extremely competitive for the impacted majors. Sometimes more selective than some of the top 20 Universities. Some teach at the USNWR top 20 schools
All relevant points, and some are even self evident. But that was not the point of this discussion. The original question, posed with the intention of starting a conversation was
Instead of relying on admissions counselors, generalists and committee votes from non academics, should undergraduate programs, particularly elite undergraduate programs rely on faculty to bring in students?
There are many stakeholders in the admission process. Your comment applies only to one stakeholder. The University administration. How about the students, their parents and peers, the professors, the high schools, the community, the employers etc etc.
Does the way in which top colleges do it now work for these other stakeholders? I’m not so sure. Again, there is no “Right” answer here, but no harm in examining the issue
Can you name the schools, majors, and the specific complaints from those at each school and major?
For example, the University of Arizona is an AAU school, but automatically admits Arizona residents with top 25% class rank, and admits more than that, so it is not surprising that some students need remedial course work. And it has impacted majors like chemical engineering which requires a 2.30 college GPA to change into, which is not that high a bar. Somehow, I do not see the University of Arizona (and Arizona’s two other public universities) choosing to admit only the top end applicants who are almost guaranteed to succeed, while leaving most of its capacity unused and wasted, and leaving most Arizona students who do have some chance of success in college unable to try to realize their potential.
You are assuming that elite schools admit a non-trivial number of students who are unlikely to succeed. Where is the evidence for this, given their extremely high graduation rates?
You are also assuming that faculty have no input in the admissions process. It is rather likely that, at most or all of these schools, faculty have substantial input in shaping the admissions process and criteria, even if they are not involved in the operation of the admissions process (reading the applications, etc.).
I think the point also is being missed that Admissions is generally under the Provost (it certainly is at my top-20). At my institution, the Provost has direct authority over admissions criteria. In addition, our Dean of Admissions actually has a faculty appointment and regularly teaches. I’ve never heard complaints about under-prepared students with the exception of the usual complaints about student athletes (generally from faculty who don’t actually teach them) and possibly a few students admitted through special programs (generally low SES kids from inner-city schools, who do receive extra support).
In some cases, I think our faculty would put additional emphasis on some of the holistic criteria that the OP thinks they would ignore. They certainly would not support reliance purely on stats (since they trust neither standardized tests or high school rigor).
The administrations of American universities are almost certainly more attuned to the needs and desires of other uni stakeholders than the faculty are. Just think about incentives.
Well OP, my comments may be self-evident. But so is that apparently none of us agree with you. Whatcha make of that?
Have you heard of Alfred Wegener? How many agree with you has nothing to do with how right or wrong you are. Besides, one of the reasons I posed the question is to understand other people’s perspective and learn from that. Hubris about one’s opinion is not good for one’s soul.
One should probably be careful in making charges of, e.g., hubris that could easily be turned around and used against oneself without any modification. Double-bladed swords are a tool to be used with great care.
The fact one has the contrary view and sticks to it, gains zip from others’ perspectives, bestows no “right” on that view.
CC tends to freely admit they don’t now how it works, but still insist it works a certain way, fails because of that, and should be fixed as “they” say so.
The problem, imo, isn’t admissions ‘generalists,’ most of the people I know have a variety of relevant academic backgrounds/experiences, plus deep knowledge of the U and what it takes to succeed at that school. i know OP disagrees.
"I don’t think I can supply you with any proof that will make you change your mind but I do have quite a few friends who are professors and based on what they tell me and what their colleagues talk about with each other, they believe that undergraduate admissions lets too many students in that shouldn’t be there in their classes. They are often frustrated at the amount of remedial work required and the fact that they have to sometimes adjust the class pace to cater to some of these students. "
So what prevents your professor friends from going and offering their services pro-bono to help out the adcoms, or sit on a committee to help the adcoms pick the “right” students? Oh that’s right, too important and busy! Complain but do nothing about it!
@Pizzagirl Because the system isn’t set up to work that way. Faculty cannot insert themselves into the admission process, by calling it “pro bono” work. Just like I cannot show up at my local congressman’s office and offer to help because I think I can add value or I want to change things that I feel are not really working. Just like a community organizer cannot just show up at a police station and offer to be a Pro bono cop because she thinks the cops are doing things wrong.
But then I suspect you already know that.
But they can get involved. They aren’t people walking in off the street because they “think” they can add value. They are part of the community. We have FA people on our team, faculty who routinely meet with the top adcom level, faculty who review semi finalists, updates on new changes in lab, policy, or research facilities and directions, contact with activities folks (orchestra, different performance groups.)
Did you now that? You’re the one telling us what’s wrong (“my friend says”) though you admitted you don’t know what goes on. ? So I wonder why.
@lookingforward What’s your point? Pizzagirl was accusing my friends of being whiners because they were not getting involved in the decision process of admitting students. I was telling her that they don’t get to vote on who gets in. They can’t just show up and say, I now have a vote too. I want to read apps. I want my vote in committee to count etc, unless the University allows them. They need permission. There is a process. It is not as simple as you either do pro bono work or you have to shut up because you are a whiner.
Actually, we can, except that we wouldn’t call it “pro bono”, we’d call it “university service”.
@VeryLuckyParent wrote
College adcomms are not bounty-hunters like subprime mortgage brokers who profit by the head. While adcomms may not have to read the term papers of the students they admit, the adcomms certainly do have a vested interest in the quality of the students they admit, as colleges get tracked on their 4-yr or 6-yr graduation rate, along with other student body quality measures.
Unlike subprime lenders, colleges cannot profit from rebundling and selling their underperforming students to other schools. There’s only a down-side for colleges to admit incapable students: erosion of of revenue & erosion of reputation.
Also, your idea has a serious manpower flaw. College admissions work and bank lending ard FULL time jobs. Dunno how you think professors have time to read thousands of applications during the height of the school year.
And **what makes you think the Adcomns decide on what the institutional priorities of the school are? **That’s for the college’s President and Board of Directors to decide. The Admissions Office only executes the targets set by the leadership. Even if the chore got reassigned to faculty, the faculty would still be directed to achieve the same institutional goals.