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What if admissions could be done in a totally new way? Without tests? Without the many parts of the process think of legacy admissions that favor wealthier applicants?
The National Association for College Admission Counseling has just created a commission to rethink the entire admissions process through a racial equity lens.
NACAC has identified three priority areas for the commission: The college-entrance pipeline, from student recruitment and college advising through the application process and admission criteria. Postsecondary financial aid requirements. The role of racial equity in postsecondary enrollment.
The panel is aiming for three reports by this summer: a guide for colleges centered on racial/ethnic inclusion, a related guide for postsecondary institutional leaders and recommendations for federal and state policy makers for an equity-based college transition.
I’m Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at
The Chronicle covering innovation in and around academe. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week.
Four ideas for improving higher ed, and how they’ve evolved in the last year.
In March 2020,
The Chronicle held its sixth annual Shark Tank:Edu Edition a fun SXSW EDU tradition in which we invite entrepreneurs and others to pitch their ideas for improving higher ed to a panel of judges, with a live audience getting in on the grilling. Except last year, “South by” was canceled a few days before we were all set to leave for Austin, so we held the pitchfest ourselves, over Zoom. (Little did we know. … )
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May 1 has for years been the theoretical end of the admissions cycle for four-year colleges and universities. Students have been admitted or rejected and have had time to weigh their offers and the financial aid they have been awarded. Many students have squeezed in one more campus visit by that date. Meanwhile, other campus offices have the task of planning for students arrival in the fall. Orientation needs to be scheduled. Housing must be assigned, based on the exact number of students a college expects to enroll.
The reality, of course, has been different. Except for the colleges that are the most competitive in admissions, May 1 may have stayed in place as a goal, but one that was rarely met. Most colleges routinely recruited and accepted students far later in the summer. But they didn t generally advertise this fact.