It
takes a lot to get me worked up. My wife
says she has seen me excited, truly excited, only three or four times—when my
children were born, when we stood in line for what we thought was the NBC
studio tour only to end up sitting in the second row of the Tonight Show
audience on a night when David Letterman was the guest host, and the night that
the Mets won Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
(The fact that all of those things took place more than 25 years ago is
not meaningful, I hope.)
It
takes a lot to get me worked up not only in my personal life, but also
professionally. There have been only
three times in my career when righteous indignation led me to protest a college
decision. For a while this spring,
however, I thought there might be a fourth.
What
triggered my consternation was learning that a university for which St.
Christopher’s has historically been a feeder school was planning to Wait List a
student with credentials that were not just good, but superb. Such a decision would have been unprecedented,
and when my colleague questioned the reasoning, he was told by an admissions
officer, “We don’t think we’ll get him.”
The institution made that assumption based on the other schools where
the student was applying, information they had because of an alumni interview.
That
explanation raised several questions. Is
it appropriate for an alumni interviewer to ask a student where else he or she
is applying? Is it appropriate for an
institution to use that information in making an admissions decision? Is likelihood-to-enroll a legitimate
consideration in making admissions decisions, and how do you calculate
likelihood-to enroll?
It
is the last of those questions that is most interesting and most relevant. I have seen a huge increase in colleges
utilizing demonstrated interest in the past few years (are demonstrated
interest and likelihood-to-enroll the same thing?), and this year in particular
it feels like a number of good private institutions are utilizing demonstrated
interest at a level beyond what has been standard in previous years. Am I alone in seeing that trend?
I
have no problem with colleges using demonstrated interest as one factor in
deciding whom to admit. If I were an
admissions dean I would want to enroll students who wanted to be at my
institution, although I don’t know that I would Wait List more qualified
students in order to achieve that.
My
concern is with how demonstrated interest is measured. Demonstrated interest has always been part of
the college admissions process, but until recently the way a student
demonstrated interest was by applying.
If colleges are going to be tracking and measuring demonstrated
interest, they should be transparent about what counts and what doesn’t. Students deserve to know the rules of the
game they are playing.
I
also wonder whether there are better and worse ways to measure demonstrated
interest. A student’s willingness to
visit campus or meet with an admissions representative during a high school
visit not only demonstrates interest, but also contributes to the student
making a more thoughtful college choice.
Recently I visited a university where demonstrated interest is clearly
more important than it was a couple of years ago. I was told that one way the institution
measures interest is whether a student logs on to the applicant portal. I responded that I wasn’t sure that my
students would log on even if interested, and learned that the institution was
about to conduct a focus group during its diversity recruitment weekend because
few of the top accepted diversity applicants had bothered to log on. Apparently you don’t need to demonstrate
interest if there’s enough interest in you.
In
my student’s case, there were two things that particularly bothered me. One is that he thought he had sufficiently
demonstrated interest. The institution
in question is clear that demonstrated interest is important, and I have known
it to wait list strong in-state applicants who don’t bother to visit campus or
have an alumni interview. My student
hadn’t done a campus visit, but had an interview because he knew it was
important. What he hadn’t done was apply for the institution’s merit
scholarship program. That program is
effective at attracting strong applicants who might not otherwise consider the
school, but I also wonder whether it is being used as a measure of demonstrated
interest, on the assumption that any strong candidate who doesn’t apply for the
scholarship must not be serious.
Ironically, my student hadn’t applied for the scholarship because he was
concerned that the institution might assume he wouldn’t enroll if he applied
for the scholarship and didn’t win it.
The
other thing that bothered me was the assumption that the school thought it had
no chance of enrolling the student given the other schools to which he had
applied. On one level, I understand
that, but at the same time it sends a message that the institution doesn’t
believe it can compete with the Ivies or meet the needs of students considering
that level of school. It sends a message
that “this student is too smart for us.”
I couldn’t assure them (and it is not my job to) that the student would
choose them over another option, only that his application was sincere and
serious.
The
other unstated issue is that the decision to Wait List may not be about
interest, but rather about yield.
Colleges use demonstrated interest and wait lists to manage enrollment
and reputation by keeping the acceptance rate low and the yield rate high. Maybe I’m dense, maybe I’ve worked too long
on the high school side, or maybe I haven’t been brainwashed by Bob Morse and
U.S. News and World Report, but I still don’t see how admission metrics=institutional
quality.
I
didn’t end up having to call or drive to meet with the Admissions Dean. My student was admitted, he was Wait Listed
or Denied at all the other schools they feared losing him to, and he is making
his final decision.
