James G. Nondorf is no politician, but he’s been leading a national campaign. He wants to redefine the experience of applying to college. “Except for going from paper to online,” he told The Chronicle this fall, “the admissions process hasn’t changed that much in 50 years.”
He pulled together a group of colleges to rethink how students apply.
Mr. Nondorf, dean of admissions and financial aid at the University of Chicago, recently helped assemble a consortium of 89 selective institutions. In September the group — the Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success — announced a plan to create a shared online application that would help high-school students prepare for college well before their senior year. It’s a plan some people like, some people hate, and everyone keeps talking about.
Two years ago, the whole thing was just an idea floating around a conference-room table. Admissions deans at several big-name colleges wanted an alternative to the Common Application, which had suffered a series of technical glitches. Eventually the conversation took an intriguing turn, Mr. Nondorf recalls: “The more we talked, the more it was, ‘If we’re going to do this, shouldn’t it stand for something?’ "
Helping disadvantaged students get to college became the coalition’s rallying cry. At first the only players were highly selective private institutions. Later the group expanded to include flagship public universities as well as private colleges with acceptance rates higher than those at prominent members like Harvard, Stanford, and Yale.
Mr. Nondorf, 48, became the coalition’s president. As he’s quick to note, many other admissions officials have helped shape the group. Some have played a more visible role, by appearing on panels at conferences or talking with reporters.
Yet behind the scenes, no one has done more than Mr. Nondorf to propel the venture, according to some of the coalition’s earliest participants, who describe him as intensely focused on the project. Over the past year, he says, “every spare moment that I didn’t know I had has been devoted to the coalition.”
This past summer, Mr. Nondorf hosted the group’s first major conference, inviting dozens of admissions officials to Chicago’s campus for a big brainstorming session. By then he had enlisted the help of others at the university (the papers for the coalition’s incorporation as a nonprofit group last April were filed by Chicago’s general counsel). For months the admissions dean helped oversee the bidding process that resulted in a contract with CollegeNET Inc., the technology company that is building the new application.
A key component of that platform: inviting students to create profiles as early as ninth grade. By engaging teenagers earlier, especially those who need the most help, participating colleges can guide them through the application process, Mr. Nondorf says. “It’s a way for them to understand the opportunities there for them, that college is affordable, and for us to explain how the system works.”
His interest in the experiment grew from the success of recent initiatives to enroll more first-generation students at Chicago, which has enhanced scholarships and support for low-income students while expanding its outreach — pre-college workshops, student-to-student mentoring — to surrounding neighborhoods. “I’ve seen how impactful these kinds of things can be,” he says. “It can’t just be, ‘We’ll fund them when they get here.’ "
The coalition seems likely to spark further controversy. Skeptical deans and college counselors have raised concerns about the new application — and whether it really will help disadvantaged students. Can another application platform reduce the many barriers to college access? At institutions that reject tens of thousands of students?
Still, there’s some irony in the criticisms of the coalition. The nation’s most-selective colleges are often maligned for supporting the status quo; now they’re taking heat for trying to change it up a little. By leading a push that turned a once-vague notion into a concrete collaboration, maybe Mr. Nondorf is doing just what some observers have long wished more admissions offices would do: Trying something new.
Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.
