Casey Tanner & James DiBlasi
Color and Money
November, 2011
Paper Three:
The admissions process is complicated and extraneous to all students. The difficult decision of choosing where to spend the next four invaluable years of school is based solely on the way people can display themselves. Criterions such as grades, standardized test scores, community service, etc all have an impact on the decision process of applications. However, many colleges and universities place a heavy amount of the decision based on the conditions many cannot control. Factors like financial status, alumni connection and racial background play a vital role in who is accepted and who is denied. As we have seen in our own simulation in class, it is often those with advantages in these backgrounds that are accepted over the real qualified students.
Trinity College should revise its application process to enhance the consistency of applicants by evaluating students on their future potential rather than assessing them on their past. The qualifications of an applicant should be looked in terms of factors that can controlled by students opposed to those aspects that cannot. These sections should compare the success students had up until high school given both their educational and socioeconomic background. Privileged individuals do have an advantage in the admissions process. However, this system should be set in place to minimize the influence these privileges have in the final decision and evaluate them based on their success given certain advantages. Although it may seem impossible to make a perfect system to determine who is accepted and who isn’t, there should be revisions to the current process to provide more consistency.
Annotated Bibliography
1. Bryan G. Nance, “For a Fairer Admissions Process, Read Between the Lines,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 19, 2010, sec. Diversity in Academe, http://chronicle.com/article/For-a-Fairer-Admissions/124444/.
The author discusses the problems with the current way the admissions process is set up. He discusses the need for a more updated process that looks below the surface of standardized test scores, and instead looks for qualities that show future potential.
2. Richard Kahlenberg, “The Troubling Rise in Early Admissions,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Innovations, October 29, 2010, http://chronicle.com/blogs/innovations/the-troubling-rise-in-early-admissions/27737.
This article discusses the advantages of legacies and those that apply early in the admissions process. The privileges of coming from a higher economic background serve as another benefit in comparison to those who cannot apply either early decision because of the binding aspect with the college.
3. Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer, “Race Is a Factor in Admissions at a Third of Colleges, Survey Finds,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 10, 2003, Volume 50, Issue 7 edition, sec. Students.
This article talks about the recent Supreme Court ruling to allow colleges to be awareness of race. However, despite governmental changes, this ruling did not alter the admissions process in colleges showing that race had already contributed in the process.
4. Tom Bartlett and Karin Fischer, “Unknown Factor Hampers Minority Students’ Performance in College, Study Finds,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 6, 2003, Volume 49, Issue 39 edition, sec. Students.
Studies have found that minority students are less likely to succeed in college because of the structural and cultural make up of college universities. The configuration of college institutions is “geared primarily to white culture”; making the transition for first generation college students more difficult.
5. Anne West, Hazel Pennell, and Philip Noden, “School Admissions: Increasing Equity, Accountability and Transparency,” British Journal of Educational Studies 46, no. 2 (June 1, 1998): 188-200.
This paper goes into depth about the needed reforms to the college admissions process as well as its impact on in universities. In order to provide consistency and equality amongst all applicants, changes need to be made by looking at an ideal admissions process and making it applicable to today’s process.