College Admissions Standards
The readings this week focused on admissions standards and their uses of affirmative action policies and standardized testing measures. There is argument that the use of affirmative action based on race in college admissions limits the socioeconomic diversity in the student body. In the Century Foundation (2014) article, The Future of Affirmative Action, there are recommendations for government to focus more on the increased poverty rates and provide more opportunities to students from lower class backgrounds. They also suggest that government provide incentives to institutions that promote opportunities to students of diverse income backgrounds and encourage putting pressure on institutions to uphold their institutional missions. There is also a belief that by focusing on socioeconomic diversity, racial and ethnic diversity in the student population will simultaneously increase.
Darity et al., (2014) and Logel (2012) focused on stereotyped groups and the impacts these conditions created for them in both applying to college and their success throughout. The authors focused on standardized testing and performance of students when they internalized negative stereotypes about their skills and abilities. These conditions and environments caused them to perform poorly on exams and coursework. For me, this connected with the institutions implementing test-optional admissions criteria. In their study, Hiss & Franks (2014) found that all students utilized the “test-optional” option when submitting applications including students who were first generation, Pell Grant recipients, minority students, athletes, and students with learning differences. They also found that there were higher graduation rates for non-submitters at public institutions than submitters with lower grades. This fact, to me, shows the importance of looking beyond the standardized test score and looking deeper into the students abilities based on grades, etc. However, Belasco, Rosinger and Hearn (2014) found that many of these other indicators, such as curriculum strength, GPA, extracurricular activities, used in test-optional admissions at selective institutions still managed to reduce educational opportunities to low-income students because of their school environments and lack of resources, which further stratifies students. They also found that the use of test-optional standards in admissions only increased the amount of applications institutions received and their student selections further increased their rankings. The authors strongly push for increased recruitment and sharing of knowledge to low-income students, especially the high-achievers. They mention “meeting students where they are as opposed to where they ‘should be.’”
After reading all the articles I further began to question the use of test-optional strategies in general. I think that testing should just be eliminated completely so there will not be any pressures on students at all. I think there also needs to be a reevaluation and redefining of terms used to evaluate students. For example, extracurricular and leadership activities not only being limited to sports and club involvement but also if students are taking care of responsibilities in the home or working and going to school, caring for a family member or parent, etc. I believe these simple adjustments will also increase the pool of students who are admitted. In terms of research, it seems as if there is always a focus on the high-achieving, low-income students. What about the students who are just average or below-average? Do they deserve the same opportunity to be educated at selective schools? Since college can be an exploratory time for students in the beginning, evaluating them based on grades seems to be very limiting to their potential in college.
