News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
Oct. 12, 2006
Over 40 years ago, in his well-known book The Uses of the University, University of California President Clark Kerr remarked that “faculties ... have achieved authority over admissions, approval of courses, examinations, and granting of degrees.”
Authority over admissions? Really? I wonder — at least if recent debates over college admissions are any indication.
Take the response to Harvard University’s and Princeton University’s decisions a few weeks ago to eliminate their early admissions programs. So far, the debate has been carried out between presidents, provosts, and some admissions deans — with barely a peep from professors. Even in the letters-to-the-editor columns that followed the first news reports and op-ed pieces, few faculty voices joined the mix. And in the broader national debate over admissions policy, positions have been staked out from above the faculty by deans and presidents, and, from below, by advocates for secondary-school students (led by former high-school counselor Lloyd Thacker, founder of the Education Conservancy, an organization devoted to reconciling admissions practices with educational values), while the people who actually teach the admitted students are pretty much absent from the discussion.
What does this mean? Has faculty “authority over admissions” declined since Kerr wrote in the early 1960s, or is it faculty interest that has waned? I suspect it’s both — and the reasons are worth considering.
Some of the reasons are structural and systemic. The huge changes that have swept over academic life since Kerr’s day have mostly favored faculty disengagement from undergraduates. First, and perhaps foremost, there is the growing premium on research as opposed to teaching as a measure of institutional and personal prestige. There has been a shift away from local loyalties that once entailed collaboration with faculty colleagues on matters of curriculum and governance toward a diffused system of national and international organizations, conferences, symposia, etc. in which reputations are made and displayed. As Stanley Katz puts the matter in a recent article, “What has Happened to the Professoriate?” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Since we have so little loyalty to our particular universities, we are less likely to serve them well, either in the classroom or in the performance of other necessary functions.”
Virtually all incentives (salary improvements, leave enhancements, teaching reductions) push faculty members to seek recognition outside their home institution, partly, at least, in the hope that they will consequently be better treated at home. With the exception of a few modest teaching prizes and recognition ceremonies, nothing beyond a sense of duty encourages faculty, especially in research universities, to pay much attention to undergraduates before or after they are admitted. And when they do pay attention, they tend to grumble about too many athletes, or students who don’t write well, or who lack proficiency in science — and to blame the admissions office.
But what role do faculty play in developing the policies on which the admissions office acts? At most, a minor one — which is particularly disturbing when it comes to tenured faculty, whose job security should encourage frank participation in university governance without fear of demotion or reprisal. Yes, the scale of the admissions process has become daunting. In some cases, tens of thousands of applications must be evaluated, so it would be hardly more than symbolic for faculty to read — as we once did at Columbia — a few distinctive folders. And yes, some administrators regard faculty as potential meddlers and prefer using catch-words such as “diversity” and “excellence” to asking hard questions about what these terms actually mean.
But, if admissions policy has been reduced to slogans, blaming the administrators is finally an evasion of faculty responsibility. Most faculty are simply not interested and therefore uninformed. Any discussion of, say, the distinction between need-based aid and merit aid, or about principle versus practice in “need-blind” admissions, or the correlation between SAT scores and family income, or about the case for or against increasing the numbers of international students, is likely to elicit a perplexed stare even from those who hold confident opinions about many other matters outside their field of expertise. Faculty who normally regard all authorities with suspicion, and who are quick to proclaim the sanctity of such values as academic freedom, are strangely inert and indifferent with regard to how their own institutions decide whom to let in and whom to keep out.
Some of this detachment is understandable, since college admissions have become a large-scale business whose intricacies require specialized knowledge. But the cost of disengagement is high. Faculty testimonials of devotion to the values of equity and democracy in America and the world can smell of hypocrisy when we ignore the attrition of these values on our own campuses. (Sometimes one hears muttering about too many “legacy” admits, but I haven’t heard much complaining about preferential treatment for faculty children.) Some of the very colleges where faculties tend to be most vehement on behalf of left-liberal causes are slipping out of reach for students from families with modest means.
Over the last decade, for example, the percentage of students admitted early in the Ivy League has risen to roughly half the entering class — even in the face of studies suggesting that early applicants tend to be academically weaker and economically stronger than students who apply later in the year. Since most early applicants must promise to attend if admitted, they have to be willing to forgo the chance to compare financial aid offers from multiple colleges, and they come disproportionately from private or affluent suburban schools with savvy college counselors. Yet how many faculty have paid attention to what James Fallows, writing five years ago in The Atlantic, called “the early decision racket”?
It’s not that the issues are simple. Even the case of early admissions, on which Harvard has now reversed itself, is not entirely straightforward. Pros and cons vary from institution to institution. Although the negative effects of early admissions are increasingly clear, there are positive arguments, some better than others, in favor of such programs, on which some colleges have come to depend. Students accepted early tend to arrive on campus pleased to be attending their first (and only) choice. Early admissions programs allow admissions officers to lock in much of the class — notably the athletes needed to field competitive teams — before Christmas, and then to use the regular applicant pool and waiting lists to balance and refine the composition of the full class. And, lamentably enough, early admissions allow institutions to inflate their yield rate, which figures in the widely-read rankings published in U.S. News & World Report.
These issues should be debated with both idealism and realism not just by administrators in closed-door meetings but by informed faculty in open session. Yet in watching and commenting on all the maneuvering and grandstanding, students have been more alert to the nuances than faculty — as in a recent Harvard Crimson article pointing out that despite Harvard’s announcement, up to 100 athlete-applicants will still receive “likely admit” letters each year as early as October 1.
In short, admissions policies have consequences for students, for society, and for the functionality of the college or university that enacts them. They certainly have effects on faculty. Since most institutions depend heavily on tuition revenue, the “discount rate” — the amount of financial aid subsidy offered to students — affects the availability of funds for other purposes, including faculty salary increments and new or substitutional hiring lines. Abandoning early admissions would strain the operating budget on many campuses — though not at Harvard or Princeton, where yield rates will remain high and income from their huge endowments will meet the increased demand for financial aid that will likely follow their recent actions. At some institutions, a cut in the rate of “legacy” admits might even jeopardize the institution’s long-term financial viability.
These matters pose difficult questions. But such questions are supposed to be what education prepares us to think and care about. Among the most difficult are those where public interest and self-interest collide. Where, with respect to college admissions, is our teaching and learning impulse when we need it?
There are signs that faculties are beginning to re-awaken to their obligation to undergraduate students, and it is high time to reclaim our role in determining the policies and practices by which these students are admitted in the first place. Professors, after all, have never lost interest in the admission of graduate students, whom they see as their protégées and professional successors. As for undergraduates, their education begins before the first classes of freshman year and even before orientation week. It begins with the messages our colleges and universities send to prospective students about what they must do in order to get in. Surely these are matters with which faculty should be concerned.
We are not likely any time soon to return “authority over admissions” to the faculty, at least not as it existed in the days when professors worked with admissions officers on selection and recruitment. But perhaps it is not too much to hope that faculty will re-enter the discussion at the level of policy, and thereby take a role in determining how their home institutions choose the students who populate their classes. Such re-engagement could help restore public respect for the professoriate, which is one of our most precious and fragile assets.
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I think this is a very good idea. Unfortunately I seriously doubt it would be welcomed by many school administrations.
At DePaul the Faculty Council voted in favor of creating a permanent committee to serve in an advisory capacity on policy regarding admissions, financial aid and graduation requirements. The administration told us to forget it.
Faculty are interested in recruiting quality students. Those of us who have gone through the admissions process as parents are well aware of the disconnect between the myriad considerations of admissions offices in “shaping a freshmen class” and what shows up in our classes on the first day of school.
We all have our own prejudices. Some like athletes, some would push for foreign students, others will stress first generation or more women and minorities. But the reality of the classroom tells us that learning is greatly enhanced by having quality students. A classroom with a core of bright, hardworking students with a positive attitude towards their school work makes a huge difference in what we can accomplish and what the college experience is for all students.
To put it bluntly, it is hard to imagine the faculty at a top engineering school would reject a class of “nerdy” guys in favor of a well rounded class balanced by a large contingent of women, legacies, children of potential donors, athletes, musicians, actors, minorities and first generation college students. While most faculty support some attempts at balance, their priorities would probably result in a different mix and that is why I think most college administrations would not welcome such input.
Jonathan Cohen, Professor of Mathematics at DePaul University, at 6:55 am EDT on October 12, 2006
Learning is a personal choice. From this perspective, people should determine whether they will or will not be students. This decision is the ultimate responsibility of the individual — not the admissions office or the faculty. Limiting access to higher education has its own ethical implications — both positive and negative. I am concerned that too much emphasis on limiting the quality of the student might infringe upon the rights of citizens to an education.
Elizabeth, Faculty at Baker College, at 7:50 am EDT on October 12, 2006
The author writes “Yes, the scale of the admissions process has become daunting. In some cases, tens of thousands of applications must be evaluated.”
But that’s not true. Schools taking public monies should get rid of the entire admissions apparatus and simply use lotteries to award spots among applicants who meet the objective qualifying standards necessary to join the lottery pool.
JMG, at 8:50 am EDT on October 12, 2006
While Having professors involved in admissions is an appealing idea, I’m not sure you would want to have applicants lobbying professors to improve their chances of admission. “Gee professor, I’m so into Nepalese butterflies and I notice they are your specialty.” There are also a couple of factual problems with the article. First, USNWR no longer uses yield as a rankings criteria. Second, the assertion that the early decision admits are less qualified is not necessarily so. Harvard’s 2007 application, in justifying early admissions, informs applicants that the early admissions applicants are better qualified than the regular applicant pool. Harvard has yet to explain her apparent two-step reversal of that position.
Patrick Mattimore, Teacher, at 9:05 am EDT on October 12, 2006
The larger issue here is really one of cooperation and mutual respect. Certainly institutions can not be run by teaching faculty alone, nor by administrators alone.
A good admissions officer will recognize, cultivate, and utilize the partnership between faculty and administrators by providing faculty with information about admissions processes, seeking input in changes to requirements, engaging faculty in recruitment efforts, and providing rewards for such efforts.
Only when the lines of communication are open and faculty and administrators acknowledge respect for each participant’s specialized training and knowledge will we see things begin to change in higher education.
A rose-colored view? Perhaps. But I’ve seen it work in practice...now if only more academic communities would practice it.
CLS, former admission director, at 9:40 am EDT on October 12, 2006
Mr. Mattimore, I think the hazzards of lobbying professors for admission is minimal.
First of all, lobbying professors at the graduate level is common, and despite the fact that every day many professors face a barage of emails, the republic remains strong.
Secondly, students would quickly learn that they have little chance of being taken seriously by undergraduate professors. Heck, most professors don’t take undergrads seriously, anyway. There is no need to take high school students seriously, anyway.
Finally, socially-skilled and well-connected students have been “sucking up” to professors for many years, anyway. By the time I was 18, I was in regular communication with college professors anyway, and one of them even wrote a letter of recommendation for me! But, of course, I had superlatively sophisticated social skills.
I see a greater hazard in the common practice of lobbying an admissions staff. Quite frankly, most admissions officers are not in tune with too much on an intellectual level. They don’t publish. They don’t take part in scholarly debate. Instead, they spend their working day dealing with high school students and critiquing their lives. Essentially, they are glorified high school teachers, who have no idea how adults act, and who might later bring glory to the school.
Larry, at 9:40 am EDT on October 12, 2006
U.S. News has not used “yield” in the last four America’s Best Colleges rankings. The last time it was used was in the 2003 edition of America’s Best Colleges published in 2002. This debate should be about enrollment management, access and the students-not about rankings. Early admit policies have been put in place mainly for enrollment management reasons. They don’t impact the U.S. News rankings. In fact, the opposite is probably true to a mirco-degree, many have said dropping early admit plans will mean some schools will reject more students from a biggeer applicant pool.
Robert Morse, Director of Data Research at U.S. News, at 9:55 am EDT on October 12, 2006
In response to Mr. Morse, I suggest that the USNews “selectivity” measure is still, largely, a reflection of the “yield rate", although the emphasis is now on the so-called “admit rate.” Why is this so? Because a school with a 40% yield must admit twice as many applicants as a school with an 80% yield.
Everybody knows that yield rate is the measure by which schools compare their selectivity, whether USNews wants to recognize this or not. I understand that USNews was under a great deal of pressure to ostensibly drop yield as a selectivity measure, since it was being pilloried for encouraging the spread of the much-maligned, yield-enhancing early decision programs. The charge was that schools were manipulating their USNews ranking by goosing their yield rates through the 100%-yield ED programs.
USNews threw out the baby with the bath water, in my opinion. Rather, it should have substituted the “regular” or “open market” yield rate as the true selectivity measure. The open market admit rate is subject to manipulation at certain addresses, of course, when applications are encouraged, by various means, from thousands of students with slim chances of admission. It is much harder to manipulate the “regular” or “open market” yield rate — unless the school wants to cut off its nose to spite its face, selectivity-wise, by avoiding “over-qualified” applicants who, it suspects, are ticketed for an institution higher up the academic food chain.
William D., at 11:35 am EDT on October 12, 2006
In response... More U.S. News Best College ranking facts.Student Selectivity in the USNEWS rankings is 15% of the overall score. The admit rate (acceptance rate) is 10% of the USNEWS student selectivity component, or a 1.5% weight in the overall rankings. The admit rate is not a key factor at all and plays a very small role in the rankings. However, admit deans and many others don’t think that is the case.
SAT/ACT score is a 50% weight of usnews student selectivity, or 7.5% in the overall rankings and High School Class Standing is 40% of selectivity, or 6% of overall rankings.
Robert Morse, Director Data Research at U.S. News, at 2:10 pm EDT on October 12, 2006
In my opinion, USNews is going in the wrong direction by downplaying selectivity as a factor in rating colleges, and *particularly* by ignoring open-market yield as the key measure of selectivity. Look, for example, at class rank — which in many cases is not reported for even *half* the applicants at some colleges. The same is true for SAT median scores, which fewer and fewer schools are reporting — or even requiring — with respect to all admits. No. The open market yield score is the criterion least open to manipulation — as long as schools honestly report their admission and matriculation numbers.
I remember once harranging you about this online when USNews was being pressured to drop yield as a selectivity measure, after which you were kind enough to call me to discuss the matter. As I recall, your fear was that it would be difficult to obtain the necessary data to calculate “open market yield.” Well perhaps the CDS form should be amended to require the submission of the necessary data!
William D., at 2:35 pm EDT on October 12, 2006
Just before reading Professor Delbanco’s essay, I was having lunch with the Reed English professor who chairs our faculty committee on admission and financial aid. We were talking about the agenda for the committee’s next meeting which will include an examination of Reed’s early decision program. At Reed, no major admission or financial aid policy decision gets made without the approval of the faculty admission committee. After all, Reed is a faculty-governed institution and the admission office functions as a proxy for faculty, attracting and admitting (with th help of faculty readers) the students who will bring intellectual passion to the classroom.
Paul Marthers, Dean of Admission at Reed College, at 4:35 pm EDT on October 12, 2006
At our institution and at least one other that I know of we have three categories for prospective students:
Automatic Admit (good SAT, grades etc) Automatic Deny (very low SAT, grades)Review (between admit and deny)
Review is done by faculty committees.
Undergraduate Faculty, at 7:05 pm EDT on October 12, 2006
As Director of US News Research, Mr. Morse’comments on the fine Delbanco article reflect an unfortunate fish in water syndrome. Delbanco is talking about another world, where love of learning is king and where evaluations are made by learning professionals, not marketing psuedo-professionals (look to the job ads on the right side of this web page for examples of what admissions has devolved into). It is with all due respect disingenuos for Morse to suggest that US News rankings are not an important culpit maintaining the irrational faculty-less admissions system that obtains almost uniquely in the U.S. The US News rankings are heavily weighted, both directly and indirectly, toward the admissions formulas that have enabled nonacademics to make admissions decisions in this country for the last several decades. Selectivity, reputation, are defined by US News as products of today’s admissions system farse. To test my hypothesis, consider this: what would be the US News ranking impact of a school deciding to abandon standardized tests and class rankings in favor of faculty-designed entrance exams and applicant meetings with faculty?
Brian Savin, parent of 2 college grads, at 4:30 am EDT on October 13, 2006
Along with Undergraduate Faculty...Many years ago when I was in law school we had a student/faculty admissions review committee that I participated in. We also had automatic admits and rejects based on the same criteria as UF cited. We reviewed the middle group and the people who we recommended to admit were almost always the ones closest to automatic admit criteria. Not sure this would work well at a larger school as our law school (which happened to be the largest school in the West) still had only 500 first-year students.
Patrick Mattimore, Teacher, at 4:30 am EDT on October 13, 2006
Larry says, “I see a greater hazard in the common practice of lobbying an admissions staff. Quite frankly, most admissions officers are not in tune with too much on an intellectual level. They don’t publish. They don’t take part in scholarly debate.”
I can tell you that our staff debates these issues all the time from many intellectual lenses and traditions. As a doctoral student myself, I find this response to be ignorant and dismissive. It’s the exact reason why faculty should have a limited role in the admissions world. They just don’t get it and don’t want to.
Kris
Kris Anderson, Executive Director of Enrollment at UW — Eau Claire, at 11:20 am EDT on October 13, 2006
Let me clarify my above statement...SOME faculty shouldn’t be involved in admissions because they don’t get it. Larry’s response so irked me that I reacted too quickly and painted everyone with the same brush. In fact, on our campus we have a very good relationship with faculty. They help us recruit, they engage in dialogue about potential policy changes, etc.
K
Kris Anderson, at 11:20 am EDT on October 13, 2006
At what institutions of higher learning in the States do admissions committees actually consider verifiable foreign (especially classical) language competencies in the selection process? Would language faculty scrutiny of admissions criteria bring some sense of urgency to the national problem of appallingly language-deficient American students?
Also, what arguments can possibly be made in favour of a connexion between college sports and the proper educative mission of intitutions of higher learning?
Just curious,
Dr JA
Jacques Albert, at 2:00 pm EDT on October 13, 2006
A responseU.S. News didn’t invent college consultants and doesn’t employ them. U.S. News didn’t create viewbooks that make everything seem perfect. U.S. News doesn’t produce or pay for one college marketing campaign geared to certain student types or zip codes. U.S. News doesn’t force any school to use our rankings as an external validation of their relative academic quality.
The idea that U.S. News is the key force behind today’s admission wars is letting the people responsible for admissions off the hook.
Robert Morse, Director Data Research, at 5:05 pm EDT on October 13, 2006
Did/Does Larry really understand what he wrote? I myself publish (medieval studies and biography) and engage in formal scholarly debate (academic conferences), and yet I am a member of a college admissions team (one that tries desperately to get faculty involved in the admission process). I am neither alone nor unusual in my “intellectual” activity, but I would never presume to have the skill and stamina necessary to teach high school — so Larry’s implied epithet “glorified high school teacher” is insulting to two professions. My decades-long public high school teaching father has drawers full of letters from former students telling him that they learned more in his class than in many of their college courses, and that they were able to handle and excel in those courses that were difficult and challenging because of his teaching. As for college faculty not taking undergraduates seriously, is Larry speaking for himself as a college professor? No profession is without legitimate criticism, but Larry’s comments are an object lesson in harmful generalizations. I suggest Larry try teaching high school and try being an admissions counselor. As for “how adults act,” well, Larry might also want to consider working on his “superlatively sophisticated social skills.” (see also: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2006/10/2006101601c/printable.html)
ed, at 1:35 pm EDT on October 16, 2006
Most of these comments on the Delbanco article have done him a grave and shameful disservice. Furthermore, critics of the deserved complaints posted here about current admissions practices have by and large gone ignored. If anyone has an intelligent, substantively relevant comment relevant to Delbanco’s call for faculty leadership in admissions, please post it. All others, please refrain from your senseless bombast. If there are some involved here who can’t tell the difference, please post your comment and I will be happy to assist you by responding.
Brian Savin, at 9:05 pm EDT on October 16, 2006
1)Faculty involvement Faculty at smaller or teaching-intensive schools are, I think, more likely to be involved with Admissions decisions and practices. Like some other posters, we had a faculty committee that read borderline files, helped to draft admissions materials, and acted as go-between for faculty and the Admissions team. (We recently abolished it because committee workload was becoming untenable, however—but an ad hoc committee could still be called up, and many of us are quite friendly with folks in Admissions.) Further, most of us still open our classes to prospective students, meet with prospectives and even parents and guidance counselors at the request of Admissions. The reason that few letters-to-the-editor written by teaching faculty are published on this issue I would suggest is that we’re too busy teaching, preparing, meeting w/students, advising, and trying to get some research or writing done to bother writing in public venues where there is little chance that our letters will be published or read thoughtfully, and that will not count in any way towards our mission. Even worse, our opinions if we teach at public institutions can cause trouble with state legislators or administrators. By focusing on the Ivies or Research Universities, this article misses precisely those schools where faculty are more likely to be involved and where we really DO care about undergraduates.
2)Early AdmissionEarly admissions is an admissions management tool—now that applicants are applying to over 20 schools in some cases, it may be even more helpful for selective liberal arts colleges outside the northeast that regularly compete with schools such as Princeton and Penn for students.
I’m puzzled personally by the reaction to early admission myself, because I was a scholarship student who applied and attended Swarthmore College as an early admit. Despite poor college counseling at my public high school and documented financial need, early admission looked like a good option for me to let my top choice school know that I was committed to attending if they could come up with a viable financial aid package. The fact that Swarthmore used/uses needs-blind admissions was key.
The small liberal arts honors college where I now teach, New College of Florida, uses rolling admissions, which avoids the problem. It is fairly common among other smaller selective schools. Admissions was asked for a statement about this by our local paper—not the faculty.
3) other admissions debatesOther admissions debates that faculty I know are concerned about is the so-called “affirmative action for male students” issue. Liberal arts colleges are finding it difficult to maintain a good male/female ratio. (Males prefer larger universities with sports teams and engineering departments I hear.) Some of us are distressed that now that women are making it to and through college in higher numbers, there’s talk of lowering expectations for male applicants—particularly white, middle-class suburban males. Yet the problem is real and co-ed liberal arts colleges can suffer when the ratio becomes very skewed. Male students of color are even more seriously under-represented. This issue seems to be one that deserves more attention from both faculty and administrators. In what ways can faculty not only express concern, but be helpful in thinking about these issues?
Miriam Wallace, Associate Professor at New College of Florida, at 5:15 pm EDT on October 17, 2006
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Good article and good point.
Obviously faculty do not care to pretend to reach a bunch of self-serving, inflated statements of purpose from the university’s future drunkards and flakes. I mean, why would someone with real research want to read the bragging of someone who claims they helped unfortunate people, when everyone knows this was just orchestrated by their parents?
Maybe a solution might be to simply give each department a “deck” of people they could give a preference to. The department would have to agree that this person could conceivably contribute to the university, and rather than targeting their applications to people just out of college (as high school students do now) the applications would be targeted towards professors.
Larry, at 5:40 am EDT on October 12, 2006