Last month a former admissions officer read to me an email sent by one of our primary competitors to a student enrolled here at Augustana College. The subject line was “Thinking about a change?” and the message from the dean of admissions included a gracious invitation to complete his institution’s easy-to-use transfer application. Horrified, my acquaintance, who has been out of the business for about 15 years, asked, “Is this the way it is now?”
I’d seen a number of these emails over the past few months, and simply replied, “Yup, the work has become even more interesting.”
How skeevy it all must seem to that former colleague, who served at a selective private university when the National Association for College Admission Counseling respected stricter boundaries on recruiting practices. In truth, when I saw the first one of these emails come across my desk in early October, just days after NACAC voted to suspend its Code of Ethics and Professional Practices, I also reacted with disgust and disdain. I didn’t want to believe that my colleagues would stoop to such tactics.
However, as much as I valued NACAC’s ethics rules, I myself had been comfortable pushing the limits. Twice I was forced to defend my college’s practices to the association regarding post-May 1 recruitment and the perception that we had established a deadline before October 1. I had also been a part of a minority who maintained that the ethics rules were designed more to protect colleges from their competitors than to protect students. Additionally, I was sympathetic to U.S. Department of Justice concerns that the rules restrained free trade. So this past fall I reluctantly submitted my proxy vote in favor of suspending the rules.
Since the dark moments of those first emails (one even promised a financial-aid increase of $2,000 if the student did not go on a previously scheduled visit to Augustana), I’ve become more philosophical about all of this. In fact, as I’ve reflected on this brave new world, I’ve come to realize that everything old is new again.
Post-ethics college admissions will be neither business as usual, as some have suggested, nor the apocalypse that others have feared. New practices will emerge and become commonplace. Everyone will calibrate accordingly. But let’s not pretend that the behavior we fear most as a result of the rules suspension is anything new.
Incentives have always been a part of the process, even if they rub many people the wrong way. High Point University, in North Carolina, got clobbered in the media when it pushed incentives to apply early decision this fall. While those incentives were related to housing and registration, I can’t think of a more powerful inducement for a student applying to a very selective college than the knowledge that the acceptance rate for early-decision applicants is considerably higher than for students who apply regular decision. That’s why giving preference to early-decision applications has been a common practice among the most elite institutions for years, despite valid concerns that the incentive advantages the privileged at the expense of those unfamiliar with the system.
Those who can poach always have. Fear that poaching can now happen after May 1, after students have committed to a college, is giving many of my counterparts serious heartburn. I’ve read plenty recently about the prospect of an “endless recruitment cycle.” I don’t know where these folks are working, but I’m not sure I remember a time when we weren’t in an endless recruitment cycle.
Moreover, some institutions have historically been immune to NACAC’s code of ethics, anyway. For example, two years ago, after working tirelessly to recruit a very good student-athlete, we were delighted when he paid his tuition deposit and posted his commitment to social media. We celebrated by issuing a press release, but our happiness was short-lived. A flagship public swept in after May 1 to offer the student a roster position. When I contacted NACAC to see if I had any recourse, I was reminded that Division I was exempt from the ethics guidelines. So much for all members subscribing to the same rules.
Is it really a new practice to recruit students enrolled elsewhere? Colleges have long advertised summer-school offerings to local students who might be returning home after the academic year. Billboard and online advertising have long been aimed at eyes that might be ripe for enrollment. Direct solicitation may feel different, but it’s not the end of the world. And if we’ve done our job, which is to recruit and enroll students who will thrive on our campuses and become graduates of our colleges, those lusty emails from others shouldn’t tempt them.
There are a number of ways we can seize this moment to improve what we do.
For example, the end of the ethics code led us to finally add a school-counselor advisory board to ensure we are in dialogue with high-school guidance counselors in our region. This gives us an invested audience on which to test out ideas before putting them in place. The group is providing valuable feedback — including warnings about tactics that might backfire.
We also took a hard look at how we could preserve some of the principles of the NACAC ethics code that genuinely focused on students. As part of that we developed an informational packet for students describing what they can expect from the admissions and financial-aid process at Augustana.
In anticipation of more price competition, we published guidelines for how students — particularly those whose financial needs are not fully met — can request a re-evaluation of aid and scholarship awards. The goal was to be transparent with all students about the process, rather than assuming that only some of them would need help understanding the system. The information will ideally help many first-generation-college students who might have immediately ruled out the institution after receiving their initial offer.
We’ve also sped up how we do things. We used to hold some financial-aid awards until later in the enrollment process, after students had completed certain requirements. Now in our packages we include financial aid that we anticipate students will be eligible for. This has allowed us to be more transparent about cost much earlier in the process.
Similarly, we’ve accelerated on-campus orientation and registration for first-year students. We will be holding orientation sessions in April this year, almost two months ahead of our normal timetable. We hope this type of early formal engagement will help inoculate us against some of the post-May 1 poaching we anticipate.
The real danger surrounding the suspension of the ethics code is the potential for a chaotic process and timetable for students. I hope NACAC and its members can agree on a couple of practices that will help bring order without restraining free trade.
It might be as simple as suggesting the following organizing principles: 1. No application deadline will be established before October 15, and 2. Admissions and financial-aid offers will be held open until May 1. That would help everyone, especially our students, navigate this new — but not frightening — reality.
