“It’s
like déjà vu all over again.” That is not only my favorite quote from the
renowned American philosopher Yogi Berra (followed closely by “You can observe
a lot just by watching” and “If you come to a fork in the road, take it”), but
also my reaction when I learned that a senior admissions officer at Flagler
College has stepped down after admitting to manipulating admissions data
between 2010 and 2013.
Yes,
once again we have a college or university admitting that its admissions
statistics are inflated. The list of
miscreants—Claremont McKenna, Emory, GW, Bucknell, Mary Hardin-Baylor—reads
like a list of battles from the Civil or Revolutionary Wars, and in fact it is
difficult to know whether they are isolated incidents (well, not that isolated)
or battles in a war for the soul of college admissions—business vs. profession,
education vs. marketing/branding, good vs. evil (that might be overly
dramatic).
I
have posted on this topic several times before, and worry even more than usual
that I will repeat myself, but the news connects to several issues I’ve been
thinking about lately.
First
of all, I’m sad to see another senior member of our profession forced to step
down in disgrace, even as I recognize that misconduct by any of us reflects badly
on all of us and damages the trust and credibility that is at the heart of our
ability to serve the public good effectively.
I don’t know Marc Williar, the Flagler VP who stepped down, but after
more than twenty years of service to Flagler and our profession, I hate to see
his service end suddenly and ignominiously.
It
makes me worry about the future of our profession. After my last post, remembering the late Fred
Hargadon, a regular correspondent wrote that admission deans like Fred Hargadon
and Charlie Deacon at Georgetown (mercifully still with us) are an endangered
species, that the generation of admissions officers to follow will not have the
admissions-as- counseling mindset or the institutional support to practice
student-centered college admissions that many of us entered the profession
believing in.
Several
years ago I was contacted by a search consultant looking to fill the Admissions
Dean position at a college I know well. I happened to recommend the person who
ultimately got the job, but in the course of the conversation the consultant
asked if I knew of younger admissions professionals ready to step up to being a
Dean or VP. I responded that I knew a
number of young professionals who were very good Assistant Deans, but I wasn’t
sure they would make great Deans. Among
my friends who are independent school counselors, I have often wondered if the
next generation will be as committed/neurotic about the job as our schools have
counted on us being.
Of
course, that may be a concern that every generation has about succeeding
generations (and therefore further confirmation that I have become old and
crotchety). I’m guessing that plenty of
folks had their doubts about me (and may still). And while I worry about the
ethical common ground within our profession suffering from erosion in future
generations, the reality is that those who have been guilty of falsifying data
have been experienced professionals who are my peers.
That
raises the question, How and why does this occur? The easy answer is to place blame on the
rogue admissions officer who manipulates data to make his institution and
himself look better, and Mark Williar at Flagler accepted full responsibility
in an interview with the St. Augustine
Record. I suspect the truth is more
nuanced.
In
the Flagler case, as in most of the other cases, the manipulation occurred in
response to a one-year drop in profile numbers, specifically SAT scores, in the
midst of long-term improvement. We know
there is intense pressure on admissions offices to increase applications, raise
SAT scores, increase diversity, and lower the discount rate, all at the same
time. Being successful just raises expectations. Is it any wonder that an individual would
buckle under the pressure and fudge the numbers in response? The most insidious part of the
“business-fication” college admissions is the assumption that if you’re not
improving, you’re falling behind. Does a ten-point decrease in average SAT
score really mean that an institution is markedly different? At what point is a
drop in numbers truly meaningful? Metrics
are supposed to help measure progress in achieving goals, not become the goals.
I
don’t know Flagler well (but am aware that the founder had connections to
Richmond), but for many years it has been one of a handful of colleges and
universities that claimed to have an acceptance rate much lower than I would
have expected. In 1992 Flagler reported
to U.S. News an acceptance rate of
31%, lower that year than MIT, Duke, and Penn, among others. What raised eyebrows
was that its average SAT scores were 300-400 points lower than other
institutions with similarly low acceptance rates. That didn’t add up. Either Flagler was an incredibly unique
institution or it was playing games to keep the acceptance rate low. I have had other counselors describe some of
those games, but I won’t comment given that I have no personal knowledge.
If
I, a casual reader of the U.S. News
rankings, noticed that disconnect, it makes me wonder why the folks at U.S. News didn’t pick up on it. That leads to my final point. The federal government is currently trying to
develop a rankings-like system to evaluate colleges and universities in areas
such as access, affordability, and outcomes.
I will devote a subsequent post to PIRS (Postsecondary Institution
Ratings System), but two weeks ago the U.S. Department of Education hosted a
technical symposium inviting experts to weigh in on what metrics the new
“rankings” should include. One of those
experts was Bob Morse of U.S. News,
described in a Washington Post
article as the “guru of college rankings.”
Morse urged the government to ensure that colleges do not misreport
data. Perhaps U.S. News will share its
verification system, given that it always responds to revelations of data
misrepresentation expressing confidence that the misrepresentation is isolated
and not common practice. That confidence
is at odds with a survey of admissions directors conducted by Inside Higher Ed. That survey indicated that 90% believe that
other institutions misrepresent data, and only 7% believe that those who rank
have reliable systems in place to prevent falsifying data.
On
this issue, I’ve had enough “déjà vu
all over again.”
