August 31, 2023
While I readily admit that my reflections and opinions about admissions to highly selective colleges and universities will not result in any changes to the recent affirmative action decision, I nonetheless decided to share with you once again my reactions to a recent article authored by John Thelin and Richard Trollinger who in their opening statement wrote, “The June 29 Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action … provided a wake-up call to higher education leaders that they could not afford to rely primarily on the examples set by a small circle of academically prestigious colleges and universities. In other words, selective admissions was on trial.”
In writing this response to the work of Thelin and Trollinger, I’ve selected specific sentences they wrote and shared with you my reaction to their positions. I’ll add my own experience as a Dean of Admission at Princeton from 1978 to 1983 in response.
“It is important to reconstruct historically how Harvard’s approach to admissions has sent many colleges on a fool’s errand in trying to recruit and then enroll a diverse student constituency that achieves both excellence and equity.”
I readily admit that Harvard played a leadership role in encouraging “many colleges” (no numbers were provided) on a fool’s errand to recruit and enroll a diverse student constituency that “achieves both diversity and equity.” From my perspective, Harvard deserves credit for encouraging the colleges and universities that had the financial resources to change a homogeneous culture (i.e. one that was all white and/or possibly single gender) to one that was more diverse. This cultural shift was not embraced by all universities, nor was this shift instituted quickly. While I do not have any data to support my position, I’m comfortable assuming that these institutions of higher education were led by men and women who were bright and dedicated to providing their undergraduates with an interesting and enlightening educational experience. Thus, referring to this cultural change as a “fool’s errand” could be perceived as an insult to these educational leaders who had the courage and the resources to change the culture of their respective institutions.
Later in the Thelin and Trollinger article: “Wealth like age cannot make a university great. But it helps.”
Harvard’s endowment far exceeded and continues to exceed the endowment of other universities, but in an effort to provide financial support to students admitted to the elite institutions committed to this cultural change, the leaders launched capital campaigns to raise the necessary resources. These resources did not appear overnight, but the commitment to provide financial support to those who needed it deserves recognition. For example, Princeton University now has raised enough money to fully finance undergraduates whose parents do not have the resources to pay the ever-increasing costs of tuition, room, and board. Fortunately, other colleges and universities are raising money to enable their applicants, specifically the “first generation admits”, to enroll without having to complicate the financial demands of their parents or requiring student loans.
Next, I was taken aback by the assumption that the universities interested in changing their culture were only focused on the “brightest and the best.”
Perhaps some institutions of higher education used that expression as a recruiting tool, but during the ten years I worked at Princeton, I don’t remember this term being used by my alma mater or by other universities. My colleagues in the Admissions Office and I were committed to identifying talented applicants as well as those who have overcome adversity, but we did not describe them as being the “brightest and the best.”
The authors then wrote: “Economist Charles Clotfelter’s research showed that around 1985, about 35 prestigious private colleges and universities had acquired sufficient endowment wealth that they could afford to pursue a strategy of “buying the best,” whether it meant attracting outstanding researchers, students, scientists, and athletes or building state-of-the-art laboratories and stadiums.”
I never remember hearing or using the term “buying the best.” Going back to the five years I served as the Dean, I readily admit that the Admissions Committee valued candidates who had academic and non-academic strengths, but not everyone who was admitted received high ratings for either or both categories. Some legacies were admitted that were competitive but not outstanding. While the Princeton athletic coaches would lobby for athletes they recruited, it is fair to say that while these athletes were competitive in the Ivy League, they certainly were not “the best” when compared to the quality of the football recruits by the Big 5 Conferences.
I was surprised when I read: “Ironically, the popularity of college rankings coexists with some counter-trends. Enrollments are dropping. Degree completion takes longer. Student debt soars. For all the attention to selective admissions, very few institutions are choosey in picking their classes.”
That may be true when one looks at the number of four-year institutions in the United States. According to The National Center for Educational Statistics, there are 4,811 degree-granting institutions in the United States. However, if you focus on the Ivy League, the “little Ivies”, MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford University, Duke University, the University of Chicago, Rice University, Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins, New York University, and others of similar stature, these institutions are not confronted with a decline in enrollment (in fact, their challenge is to select a freshman class from an applicant pool that is three or four times larger than the one I had to evaluate in 1983). Furthermore, many institutions that have increased the size of their endowments no longer expect students to take out loans and become debt-burdened. Finally, all of the aforementioned institutions are “choosey” in picking their classes.
I want to thank John R. Thelin, University Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Kentucky, and Richard W. Trollinger, Vice President of College Relations emeritus at Centre College, for taking the time to do the research and writing about the complicated topic of admissions to institutions of higher education in this country. Without their work, I would not have been motivated to write a response that enables readers to understand just how complex the topic of college admissions is to high school students who are trying to decide what institution of higher education might be appropriate for them.
You may also be interested in reading more articles written by Jim Wickenden for Intrepid Ed News.
