Admissions offices don’t operate in the clouds, above the muck of competing motivations, beyond the reach of powerful hands. Although the deans and directors who select applicants wield great influence, each has something pretty much everyone else has: a boss.
On colleges campuses, as anywhere else, bosses tend to get their way, as an independent report on admissions practices at the University of Texas at Austin released last week reminds us. William C. Powers Jr., the university’s president, intervened on behalf of well-connected applicants, sometimes overruling the admissions office to grant “must have” students a spot, the report found. Mr. Powers said in each instance he had acted in “the best interest of the university.” He described the process as similar to those “at virtually every selective university in America.”
Mr. Powers is right—and wrong. Yes, high-profile colleges admit some applicants each year for reasons that have nothing to do with their accomplishments—and everything to do with connections. (Anyone who’s shocked should find the nearest chapter of Pollyannas Anonymous.) But, typically, presidents themselves are not directly involved in such decisions, according to admissions officials at nearly a dozen selective public and private institutions. On that point, they say, Mr. Powers is off the mark.
Insulating the Admissions Office
The way colleges consider special-case applicants varies from campus to campus. Many have procedures designed to curb intervention by presidents, trustees, or administrators, thereby insulating the admissions office from direct orders like those apparently given at Texas. Although people who run campuses might have the authority to admit applicants by decree, some admissions leaders say it’s a bad idea to do so.
“The smart ones keep their hands off,” says the dean of admissions at one private college. “It’s better for them to take the high road, and figure out ways to deal with disappointment when it happens.”
The same dean says he meets a few times a year with the heads of the development and alumni-affairs offices to discuss handfuls of specific applicants. “There’s no reason to involve anyone else,” he says. During those meetings, his colleagues identify the students in whom “there’s the greatest institutional interest.”
Those meetings inform the dean’s decisions. Still, he says, it’s well understood that he has the final say over admissions. Some of the applicants discussed get offers, some don’t. “When the meeting is over,” he says, “nobody feels wonderful.”
The dean of admissions at a private college in the Northeast describes a similar process on his campus. Regular “information sharing” meetings with officials in the alumni and development offices, he says, allow for give-and-take when discussing specific applicants. Those who work with donors get to say who’s a top priority; the dean gets to say which applicants are “nonnegotiable” because their subpar academic credentials suggest they would struggle.
“It forces us to make sure that where there are negotiations, they are not one-sided,” the dean says. “We all want to do what’s best for the university, but we have to protect the individual students, and make sure we’re not setting them up for failure.”
The president does not participate in those meetings, which the dean thinks helps preserve the balance of power among participants. “No one stakeholder,” he says, “is going to run roughshod over the process.”
Pressure on Public Colleges
An applicant’s clout or family wealth may well carry more weight in admissions decisions made by private colleges (especially those that are highly dependent on tuition). Yet some admissions officials say the issue’s becoming more pressing at public institutions as they rely more and more on benefactors amid dwindling support from states. In 2009 a Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had admitted hundreds of applicants at the behest of trustees and state legislators despite objections from admissions officers.
Some universities have confronted the issue publicly. Nine years ago, for instance, the University of Washington’s Faculty Senate, which exercises control over admissions policies, passed a resolution stating that the integrity of the process “depends upon the unbiased determination of the appropriate merits of each applicant.” Attempts to influence admissions decisions “by use of a person’s university or community stature, promise of financial donation (or threat to discontinue financial donation), or any other means that do not directly address the merits of the applicant are inappropriate and an affront to the status of the university.”
Yet deans at other public institutions describe longstanding procedures for ensuring that at least some well-connected students get a second look. That could mean someone in the president’s office presents the admissions dean with a prioritized list of very-important applicants. Generally, there’s an understanding that the dean has discretion over the decisions, and only some of those applicants will get a spot.
“You’re bending more in some cases than in others,” says one admissions dean. “It’s easier to digest moving someone from the wait-list to an admit. Admitting someone who’s been denied, that would be harder to swallow.”
A key question is why a student’s name ends up on a list in the first place. Because her father helped fund the new science building? Because her mother is an influential state legislator? Like it or not, admitting such a student can benefit a college.
But what if the student’s just the daughter of the president’s favorite fraternity brother or golfing buddy? Confusing institutional interests with personal interests, experts say, is one danger of granting an administrator too much control over admissions decisions.
Complicating the Narrative
Once again, the discussion of who gets in and why is complicated by secrecy. Although Texas officials last week described their process nonchalantly, deploying an everybody-does-it defense, the university appears to have gone to great lengths to keep it hidden. When representatives of the president’s office and admissions met to discuss applicants, they ensured there would be no paper trail, the report states.
Maybe they figured that publicizing the process would flood the university with even more requests for favors. Or maybe an institution that’s received immense scrutiny of its admissions policies sought to avoid more publicity.
Other institutions aren’t exactly eager to discuss their own practices. Each of the admissions officials contacted by The Chronicle declined to speak publicly about how and why their institutions make room for some applicants who would not get in otherwise. There’s no way around it: Describing the role that clout plays inevitably complicates the glowing narrative about how college admissions is supposed to work.
“Students getting in for no good reason other than some kind of special influence, it stands in stark contrast to everything we’re saying in our public-information sessions,” says Louis L. Hirsh, former director of admissions at the University of Delaware. “It messes up your relationship with high-school counselors, their message to students that there’s a reward for working hard and getting good grades. It completely undermines everything we’re saying about the value of learning.”
The Texas report underscores that the admissions process isn’t fair, at least not for everyone. The supposed meritocracy of the system is riddled with compromises and exceptions. Some just seem to make us more uncomfortable than others.
Mr. Hirsh considers himself lucky. The presidents he worked for, he says, did not try to influence admissions decisions. “I have to wonder myself: Could I have withstood the pressure? What do you do when your boss tells you to do something?”
Even if one appreciates why colleges often weigh factors beyond an applicant’s academic record, such practices raise important questions, says David A. Hawkins. In an email, Mr. Hawkins, who is executive director of educational content and policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, suggests that those who stand atop any hierarchical system “feel that they are to be afforded certain privileges.” Like steering acceptances to favored applicants.
Perhaps that’s just human nature, the way the world turns. But there’s a cost. “We all idealize higher education as a means to a better life,” Mr. Hawkins writes, “and when we see that it is exposed to the same grubby influences as politics and industry, we lose some of our optimism.”
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.
