5 Questions to Consider in the Wake of the Admissions Scandal

Six months later, the admissions scandal keeps rolling. The faces of celebrities who participated in the bribery scheme keep appearing on the covers of national magazines. The parents who paid big bucks to get their kids into well-known colleges keep getting prison sentences. And a wide-eyed nation keeps getting glimpses of cheaters brought to justice. As narratives go, this one offers a satisfying degree of finality.

But for the men and women who work in the admissions field, there’s no clear-cut conclusion to the embarrassing saga. At the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual conference here this week, a few admissions officials repeated the worn-out line that it’s not fair to call the whole thing an admissions scandal because no admissions officers have been implicated.

Admission Through the ‘Side Door’

Dozens of people, including famous actors, college coaches, and a university administrator, have been charged by federal prosecutors for their alleged roles in an admissions-bribery scheme involving Yale, Stanford, and other elite institutions.

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Go on, try that one on skeptical parents fretting about their son or daughter getting a fair shake. “A significant portion of the general public believes that the process is unfair or even corrupt,” said Stefanie D. Niles, the association’s president. That’s something admissions officials must choose to ignore — or not.

But some members of the profession are owning the scandal, or at least trying to determine what lessons their colleges can take from the many questions that it raised about equity and fairness. During a lively panel discussion on Friday, several experts discussed many questions that colleges should be asking themselves. Here are five that stood out.

Can we be more transparent?

Several panelists suggested that the complexity of admissions work makes complete transparency impossible. But they agreed that colleges can and should do more to help the public understand how they select applicants, as well as the many competing institutional goals that the admissions process serves, plus the financial pressures many colleges face.

“Mystery creates mistrust, and in the absence of a narrative, the public creates their own,” said Angel B. Pérez, vice president for enrollment and student success at Trinity College, in Connecticut.

Yes, that might require many colleges to tone down their oh-so-rosy renderings of how their admissions officers strive for fairness. Oh, your college values legacies? Maybe it’s time to spell that out for a change.

“This is not a fair process,” Pérez said, “but we still sort of talk about it like it is.”

What does “holistic” really mean in practice?

Sure, your college requires essays, letters of recommendation, and all that. But how much do all those additional elements that compose a holistic review really matter in the end?

A couple of panelists said that the scandal — which involved cheating on the SAT, among other things — confirmed that test scores played too great a role in admissions outcomes.

“I’m up late at night writing a letter that may never be read by someone because my student’s SAT score wasn’t high enough,” said Sanjay Mitchell, director of college and alumni programs at the Thurgood Marshall Academy, in Washington, D.C. “Don’t say you’re holistic if you’re only holistic for students who meet a particular test score.”

Are we thinking creatively enough about requirements?

The aftermath of the scandal, several panelists said, offers colleges a chance to gauge the effects of their admissions requirements.

Jim Rawlins, assistant vice president for student services and enrollment management at the University of Oregon, described how one academic program saw an increase in diversity after the institution stopped requiring applicants to submit recommendations for admission.

“I would love to see us both add and subtract in admissions,” he said.

Suzi Nam, executive director of the Lenfest Scholars Foundation, in Pennsylvania, urged colleges to consider how ACT and SAT requirements can counter efforts to enroll more low-income and first-generation students.

OK, but what if your institutional data show that students with the highest test scores persist at the highest rate? “Wealthy students persist at your institutions?” Nam said of that no-duh metric. “That’s not really a fascinating data point for me.”

How can we be a better neighbor?

Did you hear the one about the big-name university that just kind of ignored the needs of the communities surrounding it? It’s long been a familiar story in many cities and towns across the country.

That’s got to change, said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, vice provost for enrollment management at the University of California at Los Angeles. She described how the university had developed a partnership with a nearby middle school that supports underserved students year-round, helping them prepare for college.

“A student is not going to overcome deficits by taking a couple of AP classes in high school,” Copeland-Morgan said. “If we really want our institutions to achieve inclusion and diversity, we have to be responsive to the communities in which we reside.”

Are we really serious about access?

No admissions office operates alone. Each one is tethered to the wants and wishes of various departments and divisions.

That’s why Copeland-Morgan urged her counterparts to explain the ins and outs of their work to colleagues outside the admissions office: “It’s important for us to help our faculty and administrative colleagues understand how it all works … so they understand how direct pressure or implied pressure to give someone a nod in the admissions process can prevent us from making good decisions around access.”

Oh, and no meaningful conversation about increasing access can happen unless everyone is willing to talk about money.

“Diversity and inclusion are expensive,” Copeland-Morgan said. “If we want to be inclusive and diverse, we have to tell our institution what that costs. And you have to be willing to put your money where your mouth is.”

Eric Hoover writes about the challenges of getting to, and through, college. Follow him on Twitter @erichoov, or email him, at eric.hoover@chronicle.com.