Wake Forest University on Thursday announced a new nonbinding early-action option exclusively for first-generation students. Officials at the small private college, in Winston-Salem, N.C., describe the initiative as a way to attract applicants whose parents lack a four-year college degree while giving them flexibility to consider other admission and financial-aid offers.
The program, apparently the first of its kind among highly selective institutions, will have a November 15 deadline. Students will receive a decision by January 15 and have until May 1 to make a final choice.
Early-action programs differ from binding early-decision programs, in which students apply early to just one institution and commit to enrolling if accepted. Early-admission programs, especially early decision, tend to benefit white, affluent students who can more easily commit to a college without comparing financial-aid offers. At many highly selective colleges, early birds are accepted at much higher rates than regular-decision applicants. Lower-income students are less likely to apply early due to financial concerns and the complexity of early-admission policies.
Wake Forest has two rounds of early-decision deadlines (first-generation applicants are still welcome to apply through those programs). It did not previously offer early action.
The university defines first-generation students as those whose parents did not graduate from a four-year accredited college. The term can also apply to students whose parents earned a degree in another country and are underemployed in the United States. Last fall, first-generation students made up 11 percent of the incoming class first-year class at Wake Forest.
In a brief interview with The Chronicle on Thursday, Eric Maguire, vice president for enrollment, described the university’s expectations for the new initiative.
How did this idea come about? And why do you think it can help first-generation students?
I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues about the possibility of early action in one of our future enrollment cycles. And this colleague, who had been at the institution for some time, shared with me that Wake Forest had piloted an early-action program years ago that was specific to North Carolinians. This was surprising to me because I’ve worked here for four years and never heard about this.
I was intrigued by the notion that you could offer an early-action round to a subpopulation of the marketplace. While North Carolinians are certainly a justifiable cohort to potentially extend this opportunity to, I thought our first-gen students are the ones that don’t tend to take advantage of early decision nearly to the same extent as other students, given some of the commitments that they’re asked to make to the institution. And they’re underrepresented on our campus in general, despite the fact that we have some fantastic programs for those students once they’re here, including Magnolia Scholars, which provides scholarship and need-based-aid support, as well as several programmatic opportunities associated with it, and also a program called First in the Forest.
I thought those programs could really use a reinforced or better front door, and that this kind of targeted opportunity really could provide that.
To what extent did the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on race-conscious admissions influence your thinking about this initiative? Do you see this as a race-neutral way of enrolling more underrepresented students of all backgrounds?
This conversation started before the Supreme Court’s decision. It’s one we would have looked to advance regardless of that decision. The Supreme Court decision informed how we had to shape this. For example, we couldn’t offer this to underrepresented domestic students of color exclusively. But beyond that, this is independent from that decision.
We’re at a point right now where we’re having this national dialogue about the inequities in the college-admissions process. We recognize that some students are advantaged and some students are disadvantaged in that process. Students of means generally have some advantages over students from middle- or lower-income families. And students who are from college-educated families generally have some advantages relative to first-generation students. Recognizing that inequity, we’re looking to put some policies in place that provide some counterbalance to that.
How will you know that an applicant really is a first-generation student? And what if they’re not?
On the back end of this, students will share their family’s educational background in the application. If there’s an instance where we think that a student might have misinterpreted our definition, or there’s some disagreement there, we would probably say that we reserve the right to defer that student to the regular-decision process. To me, that’s not too penalizing in terms of consequences.
More than half of Wake Forest’s incoming first-year class last fall was admitted through early decision. How do you feel about that proportion?
We have made strides in recent years to have our early-decision profile reflect that of our regular-decision cohort. So, it may be a higher percentage, but we’re also changing the profile to be more reflective of our overall student population. To me, that feels like progress.
Nine percent of students at Wake Forest receive federal Pell Grants, according to federal data. As the guy in charge of enrollment, what do you think when you look at that number?
I think about it every day. I think about it in terms of a number of our access metrics. And, for me, it’s too low, and one that I want to continue to grow. I believe that this first-generation initiative, given some of the correlations with Pell eligibility, will be able to help that. But I also recognize the need to grow some resources on the back end in order to really fulfill its full purpose. Our Pell numbers were 8-9 percent a number of years ago. They’ve cracked double digits in recent years. I see them moving up into the mid-teens here in the foreseeable future.
I previously worked at institutions that have been 20-percent-plus Pell. I would love to see us aspire to something greater. But it’s a slow process and one that requires us to rally our resources.
Is there a concurrent plan to expand financial aid for first-generation students?
We hope to continue to build upon our aid resources, as we have for the last number of years. My hope and expectation is that the Wake alumni base will rally around this.
You were a first-generation college student. How does your own experience inform your work in admissions?
My parents tried their very best to help me navigate that college search and selection process. They had an expectation that I would attend a college or university, but beyond that, they really couldn’t speak to what that would look like or how I would navigate that process.
I think that an institution making a specific indication that we are looking to attract that type of student so they can bring their perspective to campus and have a support network once they’re here really sends a powerful message. I don’t recall that message being part of my search and selection process. My hope is that this proves itself to be a substantive idea in the higher-ed space that others might adopt as well.
I hope we send a strong message to first-generation students that they have a home here at Wake Forest, and that we’re interested in the insights that they bring to campus. We want to highlight that with the exclusivity of this program.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
