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Article IndexQ: What do you say to people who try to look at your research as a guide to understanding admission practices and decisions at highly selective institutions?
A: Our findings attempt to compile a composite picture drawn from the experiences of eight academically selective colleges and universities. They should not be interpreted as describing the situation at any particular institution in the data set.
The book that we've done does, of course, focus on the admission process, but it is not just a story about admission. It's also about what happens prior to being admitted. In other words, we have a chapter about preparing for college. But most of the book talks about various issues of campus life: What happens after the admission people do their work and students arrive on campus?
In the chapter on admission, we do a lot of statistical modeling of the admission process. We develop equations that link the probability of being admitted to such things as SAT scores, to whether you're a recruited athlete, to what social class background you're from, to what racial or ethnic group you belong to, to whether you're a U.S. citizen, what kind of high school you attended and so forth. And people have a tendency to look at these results and say, "Aha! That is how the admission process at these elite schools works!" It's not necessarily true.
What we have done through these statistical equations is to say it's AS IF this is how admission officers were deciding whom to admit. We don't have the experience of knowing precisely how these admission committees work, because I've never actually sat in on an admission committee. But I'm convinced they don't have an equation like this and say, "OK, if you are Hispanic, you get a certain number of points; if your SAT scores are in this category, you get a certain number of points," right down the list.
People may read this and want to say, "Oh, because I'm Asian American, my SAT scores have been downgraded." That is not really the way to interpret these data. Many times people will ask me, "Do your results prove that there is discrimination against Asian applicants?" And I say, "No, they don't." Even though in our data we have much information about the students and what they present in their application folders, most of what we have are quantifiable data. We don't have the "softer" variables — the personal statements that the students wrote, their teacher recommendations, a full list of extracurricular activities. Because we don't have access to all of the information that the admission office has access to, it is possible that the influence of one applicant characteristic or another might appear in a different light if we had the full range of materials.
Q: Do you see direct policy implications in your work?
A: There are two other challenges that we talk about — challenges that are mainly for admission deans and administrators at elite colleges and universities. One of them has to do directly with the admission process and with the role that elite higher education plays in either creating pathways to upward mobility for students or, on the other hand, reinforcing existing patterns of inequality in society. It's both understandable and regrettable, but if you look at the likelihood of being admitted in different social class categories, students who have the best chances of being admitted to elite schools already come from privileged backgrounds. Those students who come from a disadvantaged, lower-class background, if they even manage to get into the applicant pool in the first place, have a smaller likelihood of being admitted.
The way we put it in our concluding chapter is that we encourage admission deans to aspire to socioeconomic neutrality. What that would mean is that, regardless of a student's social class background, he or she would have the same chance of being admitted.
That's not to say that there aren't some students who benefit from these pathways to upward mobility. It's important to point out that elite higher education is already doing a number of things to help lower-income students.
Race-based affirmative action is one step in the direction of greater socioeconomic neutrality. And the increasing number of schools that have followed Princeton's lead in creating no-loan policies, this is an extra step that institutions are taking. But we hope, especially when the economy gets better, that schools will be able to do even more.
A second implication is also a challenge for leaders in higher education, not as much for admission deans, but much more for vice presidents of campus life and similar administrators. There is a tendency, once a diverse group of students is admitted to an institution, to self-congregate around common interests and common backgrounds. And so the promise of diversity isn't being fully realized.
What we have found is those students who mix and mingle the most with students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds come away from college feeling that they have learned the most from diversity.
I teach a freshman seminar on "Race, Class and the Selective College Experience," and I tell students that as a faculty member, I find it is much more interesting to teach a class where there are diverse backgrounds and diverse perspectives than if students are all alike. I say, I don't care — you can pick any student around the table, I don't care whom you pick — I wouldn't want a class of 15 students just like that one person.
Diversity work does not begin and end with the admission office. I believe it's incumbent upon campus leaders to be more proactive in finding additional ways for students from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to mix and mingle in order to realize the full promise of diversity.
SOURCE: PRINCETON
