The results from Kaplan Test Prep’s 2012 survey of college admission offices show a slightly increased use of Facebook and Google as a tool in application evaluations to about 26 percent and 27 percent respectively, compared to the previous year where Facebook was also used 26 percent of the time, but Google was only used 20 percent of the time.

While this statistical jump is relatively small in relation to the year prior, the number of applicants who had damaging material found on their social networking pages that negatively impacted their applications nearly tripled from 12 percent to 35 percent this year.

“The offenses we heard repeatedly [from admission officers] were underage drinking, vulgarities, essay plagiarism, academic offenses and suspect material,” Colin Gruenwald, director of SAT and ACT programs for Kaplan Test Prep, said.

Students’ social networking profiles might paint a different picture of the college hopefuls than they would like.

“The traditional application—-, the essays, the letters of recommendation, represent the polished version of an applicant, while often what’s found online is a rawer version of that applicant,” Jeff Olson, vice president of data science, said in a Kaplan press release.

His advice to students is to “think first, tweet later.”

Of the schools polled, only 15 percent of admissions offices have rules in place to guide the use of social media in an application review process, according to the release. This leaves the majority of admissions offices with the ability to search for applicants with no restrictions, besides basic privacy settings.

But that does not mean that all schools are using the Internet as an evaluation tool.

“It is not part of our evaluation process and I cannot imagine it ever will be,” David Gildea, associate director of marketing and recruitment for Penn State admissions, said.

With social media and the Internet, there is a lot of information that may be or may not be factual, Gildea said.

“It’s almost like using Wikipedia as an information tool. You cannot test its veracity,” Gildea said. “It’s a fun, anecdotal tool.”

Gildea also said that with Penn State U. application numbers, it would be nearly impossible to search every student on the Internet.

Penn State is not alone in its non-use of social media in the application process.

The survey shows that about 25 percent of admissions officers are using social networking and 75 percent reported that they are not, Gruenwald said.

“Although more than a quarter of admissions officers have said they go to Facebook or Google, its still not something they do on a regular basis. We consider this a wild card factor,” Gruenwald said.

Kaplan advised students to carefully monitor their privacy settings and to check their digital trail, Gruenwald said.

Some students do take precautions when it comes to Facebook.

PSU freshman Maria Reviello said she monitors the material that is on her Facebook wall.

“I don’t upload pictures from parties and I do not use vulgarities,” Reviello said.

Before Reviello applied to colleges, she untagged pictures that could be considered unprofessional.

But even with these precautions, Kaplan advises to not post damaging material in the first place because the Internet has a long memory, Gruenwald said.

“The last thing any student wants is to spend years building their academic credentials, only to have their application impacted negatively by an off-the-cuff comment or negative posting they never should have posted,” Gruenwald said.

In turn, the Grutter v. Bollinger decision relies on an earlier case, the 1978 decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. In the case, Allan Bakke alleged that he had been discriminated against in U. California-Davis School of Medicine’s consideration of his application for admission. UC-Davis’ admissions process reserved 16 of the 100 admissions for minority students. The decision ruled that the use of a quota in the admissions process was unconstitutional because it removed minorities from competition with non-minority applicants and thereby discriminated against non-minorities. However, the decision did not bar the use of race as a factor for admission entirely, citing Harvard’s admissions program — which had filed an amicus curiae — as an example of a program that uses race only as a part of a “holistic review.” Thus, after Bakke, race could be considered, but defined quotas were barred.

The Grutter decision 25 years later upheld the key distinction laid out in Bakke. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who recently retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion and affirmed that universities have a compelling interest to obtain diversity. O’Connor used the term “critical mass” to describe the desirable number of minority students. O’Connor’s definition of desirable levels of diversity does not rely on the benefits to minority students of their admission but rather to the institution as a whole. This is the crux of the difference between a quota — as was barred in Bakke — and a critical mass. Importantly, O’Connor’s opinion admitted that in the future, admissions should strive to become race-blind at the time such that it was no longer necessary to achieve the benefit of diversity in the institution. Should the conditions for a post-racial society be met, it is conceivable that admission decisions could then truly be race-blind without impacting diversity. O’Connor postulated that this time may be some 25 years in the future. Since her opinion, nine years have passed. America has elected the first African-American president. These concepts are central to any decision that the court may find regarding Fisher.

Oral arguments last week centered around the questions laid out in O’Connor’s decision in Grutter. The university spent much of the oral argument defending the use of the “critical mass” concept. On one hand, it cannot be defined as a number or percentage — or risk drawing dangerously near being interpreted as a quota and unconstitutional under Bakke. On the other hand, to suggest that the university had met a critical mass condition would imply under O’Connor’s ruling that the time to transition to race-blind admission had come. The university sought to define critical mass in terms of the perceived isolation of minority students enrolled in the institution, as determined by social science research. Fisher’s lawyer argued that the university had failed to adequately explain the conditions for reaching critical mass — essentially inviting them to define it in a way that would render the practice unconstitutional — either because it was too similar to a quota or because they had achieved the critical mass.

Matter of standing aside, the justices must weigh the consequences of any decision they reach. Ideally, by 2012 the U.S. would have reached a post-racial society, and every measure should be taken to achieve this noble goal. But by numerous metrics, this simply hasn’t occurred. The achievement gap in education, the income gap, the unemployment gap and numerous other disparities between minority and non-minority populations indicate that the U.S. is still far from a post-racial society. Ending affirmative action too early could erase the gains that have been achieved thus far. In a final consideration, should colleges be barred from considering race prematurely, there are numerous ways around explicit consideration of race: geography, income and even the details in an application to infer minority status and attempt to maintain diversity — which there is little question on inherent value. However, these are imperfect and open the door for advantages given to non-minority students in predominately minority school districts. It is a matter of justice — reconciling disparate and apparently opposed rights.

Attorneys faced pointed questions from the justices, as the sharply divided court wrestles with how to address the claim brought forth by Abigail Fisher, a white Texan who was denied admission to the University of Texas, which uses race-based admissions practices.

During questioning, Justice Sonia Sotomayor laid out the central question facing the court as it decides whether race should be considered in university admissions.

“When do we stop deferring to the university’s judgment that race is still necessary?” Sotomayor said. “That’s the bottom line of this case.”

In 2003, the Supreme Court attempted to create a framework whereby higher education institutions could use affirmative action within certain bounds. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the justices determined that an automatic awarding of points or preferential admissions based solely on race was not legal. However, in the companion case Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in her majority opinion that race could be considered on a holistic basis with regard to how much an individual could bring to campus diversity.

Attorneys from U. Texas, which is defending its admissions practices faced pointed questions from Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts — the court’s conservative leaning members.

Bert Rein, Fisher’s attorney, said he didn’t want the court to overturn Grutter, but rather force the court to better define how universities could use race as a factor in admissions. He argued that Texas’s use of affirmative action didn’t meet Grutter’s requirements because its policy to grant automatic admission to the top 10 percent of students at every Texas high school provided enough diversity.

“You don’t want to overrule Grutter,” Sotomayor said. “You just want to gut it.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered to be the potential swing vote in the case, didn’t appear to tip his hand during the debate, questioning both sides.

Kennedy challenged one of U. Texas’ attorneys after he argued that the school wanted to consider race in admissions in order to attract students outside the top 10 percent of each high school’s graduating class.

“What you’re saying, is that race counts above all,” Kennedy said.

The case is widely expected to be a victory for Fisher in some form. However, the way in which she prevails will determine the case’s legacy in future considerations. Should the court rule that what U. Texas was doing with the combination of the ten percent plan and additional race exceeded its mandate under Grutter, but provides a better definition for how diversity goals should be achieved, affirmative action will largely stand.

Still, it’s also possible that the conservative justices who now dominate the court could overturn the precedent set by Grutter and eliminate the consideration of race altogether in college admissions.

Further changing the composition of the court was Justice Elena Kagan’s decision to recuse herself from the case. Though no official explanation was provided, it is likely because she worked on related issues during her time as United States Solicitor General. Justice Kagan usually votes with the liberal side of the court, which makes the University of Texas’ case more difficult to win.

Should the court split 4-4, the lower circuit court’s decision that the actions of the University of Texas are legal under Grutter would stand, but would not have any precedential value.

Theoretically, affirmative action is no longer necessary. Perhaps it was 30 or 40 years ago, but society has evolved beyond discrimination, and now affirmative action only serves to discriminate against applicants who have enough merit but not the right pigment — or so critics of affirmative action policies say.

Still, research shows that most minorities, primarily black and Hispanic students, lag behind their white peers in college enrollment, retention and graduation. Evidence also suggests that race-conscious admissions policies positively influence college graduation rates, enrollment in graduate and professional programs and job prospects.

The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, was filed in 2008 by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who wanted to go to U. Texas, Austin. After she was rejected, Fisher filed suit, saying that the university’s inclusion of race in its admissions process is unconstitutional.

Lower courts sided with U. Texas, citing the earlier decision of Grutter v. Bollinger. The court’s opinion in the Grutter case established that a “narrowly tailored use” of race as a factor in admissions supports a “compelling interest” in diversity.

Last week, the Obama administration filed an amicus brief in support of U. Texas, saying that the use of race in the admissions process furthers a “vital interest” of the government. The brief argues that having a “well-qualified and diverse pool of university and service-academy graduates of all backgrounds” is critical to the future labor force.

But Fisher’s lawsuit against U. Texas and debate in other states makes it clear that Grutter, and earlier cases like Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, did little to clear up confusion.

States have used ballot initiatives to remove race-based affirmative action in college admissions, such as California and Arizona.

Arizona’s Proposition 107, which passed in 2010, banned the consideration of race, ethnicity or gender by units of state government, including public universities.

Prior to Prop 107’s approval, Robert Shelton, U. Arizona’s president at the time, vowed to find new ways to recruit diverse students if the measure passed.

In response, the “Yes on 107” campaign issued a press release, challenging Shelton to “walk his own talk” and give his job to someone else. The campaign argued that, if Shelton was so interested in increasing diversity, he would seek it in all positions, unless he believed “discriminating quotas should only apply to other people, but not to him.”

But critics fail to realize two things. First, people who suspect they are victims of reverse discrimination probably outnumber people who are actually victims. Colleges, especially schools with higher standards, often reject applicants of all races for reasons that don’t have anything to do with race.

Second, affirmative action isn’t about reversing discrimination or its history. Minority students don’t get a free pass as reparations for discrimination leveled against their ancestors.

Rather, a university must reflect the multicultural society that it will send its students into. Affirmative action is about making sure that a diversity of voices — shaped by experience and identity — contributes to the learning environment.

There’s no denying that affirmative action can be risky, as demonstrated by Princeton University, which is under federal investigation for allegedly requiring Asian-Americans to have stronger test scores and grades than other applicants. It must be exercised with caution. But diversity remains a compelling interest, no matter what year it is.

The survey, conducted by the Council of Graduate Schools, collected data from more than 200 graduate institutions. Its survey showed a 9 percent increase in applications in 2012 from countries outside the United States.

The survey only measured the number of applications submitted to institutions and does not refer to how many students have been accepted, or how many intend to enroll. Countries such as Mexico and Brazil showed particularly high increases since last year, but China saw the largest spike, with an 18 percent increase in applications since 2011.

The trend has also reached graduate programs at UCLA. Craig Hubbell, associate director of masters admissions at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, said the program’s biggest increase in graduate applicants this year was from international students.

“Applications are up around 20 percent overall since last year, and the percentage is even greater among international applicants,” he said.

The UCLA School of Nursing has also seen a small boost in the number of international student applications, said Suzette Cardin, assistant dean of student affairs.

Janet Mentes, an associate professor at the School of Nursing, said she has noticed an increase in students from mainland China, as well as other Asian and Middle Eastern countries.

“People feel more comfortable venturing out and studying in other countries,” Mentes said.

The School of Nursing is in the process of creating a program to help international students with the transition to the U.S., Mentes said.

Yunfei Zou a biophysics graduate student in the department of Physics and Astronomy, came to UCLA after completing his undergraduate education in China. He said the sentiment among his peers in China was that if they wanted to pursue a graduate education, the United States was the place to be academically.

“The economic level in China is rising, and parents in China are finding themselves able to send their kids to the United States for school,” Zou said.

International applicants showed an interest in both public and private institutions across the United States, but the increase in international applicants was highest in western states, including California, according to the survey.

Tradition and the opportunity to make connections with professors and academic advisors factored into Zou’s decision to come to UCLA, he said.

Hubbell attributed the increase at Anderson this year partly to recruiting activities abroad. The management program recruits annually in more than 20 countries, including China, by making presentations and attending job fairs, he said.

International students make up roughly one-third of the Anderson population, Hubbell said.

Seunggon Jeong, an international graduate student from South Korea who is studying Korean linguistics in the department of Asian Languages and Cultures, said he has noticed about half the students in his department are international.

While he was the only person he knew coming to the United States in his major from his undergraduate university in Korea, he said he has met people from Korea, China, Japan and other Asian countries in particular since coming to UCLA.

Jeong said he thinks publishing his thesis paper in English will give him an edge in the job market.

“For Asian students, studying in the U.S. (for graduate school) is an investment to do better in the future and get a better job,” Jeong said.

The original suit was filed by 46 U. California minority applicants and an advocacy group against the UC Board of Regents and the state of California in January 2010. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments regarding the lawsuit in February, and released its official opinion Monday, siding with the lower court.

Proponents of affirmative action argued that the ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, causing African American, Latino and Native American students to be excluded from higher education.

The court, however, concluded that these arguments were similar to those made in a a previous court case in 1997, which also upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 209.

“The bottom line is that (the 1997 ruling) remains the law of the circuit, and the district court faithfully applied it,” according to the circuit court’s official opinion.

Affirmative action clearly moves our society in a direction where the hurdles and barriers that exist, especially socio-economic ones, due to race are consistently being diminished. Universities should be able to continue considering race in their admissions processes if they choose to — not as the sole factor, but as a prudent consideration that is good for the public it serves and makes for a better, more vibrant and diverse university.

As the racial achievement gap in Minnesota unarguably shows us, opportunities for citizens of different races are not equal. The extra hurdles those of lower socio-economic status — who are disproportionately minorities — have had to overcome ought to augment a less-than-perfect record on admissions tests and other quantifiers. Judged holistically, their unique perspectives and viewpoints are valuable to a university and can make up for the couple of points lower they may have scored on the ACT.

Diversity in our country is what makes it great, and homogeneity in the populations of our universities will only lead to a stagnant and acutely unequal society. We need to take the steps to pull the disadvantaged peoples in our community up in class and opportunity, and our universities need to have the power to lead that fight. The Supreme Court needs to see the value of affirmative action and grant our universities their own discretion in deciding whom they admit.

The biggest problem with affirmative action is simple. Using discrimination to combat discrimination encourages racial hatred in our society. By being discriminated against, whites and Asian-Americans may feel resentment toward those races that have been selected as the most elite of the disadvantaged. In turn, African-Americans and Hispanics could feel inferior because the government is essentially telling them that — for no reason other than the color of their skin — they need special assistance to put them on par with their peers.

Ideally, we would like to reach a state where society does not judge its members based on the color of their skin but rather on the content of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr. said. If he could only see how his speeches are being interpreted and where the direction of racial equality is going in our nation today, he would surely be rolling in his grave. Reversing the direction of inequality does not bring anyone closer to equality.

Perhaps what is most foolish about affirmative action is that it doesn’t even directly target the problem it is trying to solve. It makes the assumption that since blacks and Hispanics are typically more economically disadvantaged than whites and Asians, blacks and Hispanics should be given extra support. However, it would seem to make monumentally more sense to give the economically disadvantaged more support, regardless of race. For example, who needs a scholarship more: a black child from a family of doctors and lawyers or a white child living in a slum with a single parent working as a janitor? Financial data does a much better job of predicting financial need than does the color of one’s skin. If scholarships and admission procedures aim to help the disadvantaged, they should target the disadvantaged. It makes no sense to simply target a race and assume that race will be disadvantaged.

Supporters of affirmative action point to the racial gap in socioeconomic equality. While they point to valid statistics, they have somehow come to flawed conclusions in their goal to help level the playing field. It is true that blacks and Hispanics represent the impoverished at higher rates than the general population, but by taking a socioeconomic approach to the problem, the government does not have to use racist policies to fix it.

Good arguments can be made for factoring financial need into scholarships. And while more of a stretch, factoring socioeconomic position into college admission criteria could have positive benefits. However, race has no place in either criterion. Though this may seem to be a complicated issue, it all boils down to a single underlying question: Should it be legal to discriminate against people based on the color of their skin? Answer that, and you’ve answered whether we should continue affirmative action.

The UC system is admittedly under pressure from the state government of California, which requires them to collect information about students’ sexual orientation. And knowing such information about incoming students could help the universities provide resources, officials said. As paraphrased by ABC News, Chair of the UC Academic Senate Robert Anderson said “The question will not be asked on applications to the schools because students may feel uncomfortable filling out the forms in front of their parents.” Because everyone knows what you do not feel comfortable telling mom and dad you’ll tell a big brother.

It is unclear how exactly such information would be used; a question about sexual orientation could be prejudicial if applied incorrectly, and if unused seems unnecessary. The architects of the UC plan have therefore plotted their intentions without laying out the consequences.

One blueprint example, to which we draw their attention, is housing. As ABC News writes, “Anderson was not sure whether the information would factor into roommate assignment decisions for incoming freshmen.” We are sure, however, applying this information to the roommate ordeal would make things even messier. One possibility they should definitely avoid is segregating housing based on sexual orientation. For gay and straight students to be housed apart would be a textbook formulation of separate but equal. This does not mean rooms should not be disturbed, but it would be more hospitable for colleges to knock down the door of antiquated same-sex dorm rooms.

Unlike Elmhurst College in Illinois, which last year was the first college to include the orientation question on its application, the UC system has not yet broken the seal on its forms. Elmhust College raises another question: whether classifying sexual orientation should be a part of the admissions process. But colleges should not ask such a question without spelling out the fine print and consequences. Once posed, questions about sexual orientation cannot be avoided, as skipping says something and even “Questioning” is an answer.

There should undoubtedly be a welcoming atmosphere for LGBTQ students at universities, but the decision of how they come out should be made at their discretion. Regardless of sexual orientation, students should be accepted everywhere, but only admitted to the universities they are qualified for academically. Until then, incoming students of whatever orientation should follow the gay Oscar Wilde who knew, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.”

Since the popularization of affirmative action policies in the 1960s, the Supreme Court has set a number of precedents in similar cases. In the late 1970s, the court ruled in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that while race may be considered in admissions, the use of a strict racial quota system violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. In the 2003 case Grutter v. Bollinger, the Supreme Court upheld the use of race as one of the factors that universities may consider when making admissions decisions.

Fisher supporters contest the ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger and argue that affirmative action policies lead to “reverse discrimination” in which white applicants are rejected in favor of minority students with lower grades or test scores.

This position fails to account for the widespread structural disadvantages faced by many minority students. From inadequate schools to discrimination and financial barriers, many minority students face a range of obstacles that are often overlooked simply because they are so strongly embedded in the social structure. Recent research has identified a number of problems with relying on entrance exam scores to determine an applicant’s suitability. For example, the correlation between entrance exam scores and college performance is shaky at best, suggesting that students who take advantage of the opportunities afforded by universities can outperform those with high academic achievement in high school.

Advocates of “financial affirmative action” push for color-blind consideration of economic disadvantages in university admissions. Promising students from struggling families would be awarded admission and financial aid regardless of their race. This position seems like a reasonable way to help disadvantaged students while transcending racial categorization. However, as much as we would like to believe that race is no longer a determining factor in American society, the financial disparities between races prove that it is.

Economic disadvantage and race are not independent variables and shouldn’t be considered as such. For now, we must continue considering race in college admissions in order to narrow those economic gaps. If it achieves its goals, this kind of affirmative action will not be necessary forever.

The on-campus diversity fostered by affirmative action also encourages students of different races to get to know each other and develop a broader world view. Universities understand the importance of racial and cultural diversity to enhancing their students’ learning experience, and affirmative action policies allow admissions officers to ensure that each incoming class has a fair representation of racial groups.

Diversity is also an attractive quality to prospective students, and university reviews often include an assessment of racial and cultural variety. College Prowler, a student-based directory of colleges and universities throughout the country, gives UT an A for diversity in contrast to Texas Tech’s B- and Texas A&M’s C+. Such rankings reflect favorably upon the University’s efforts to create an inclusive on-campus atmosphere.

Affirmative action policies such as the one in place at UT benefit society by extending opportunities for higher education and slowly bridging the socioeconomic gaps between races. In deciding Fisher v. The University of Texas at Austin, the Supreme Court should take into account the far-reaching implications that race still carries in America as well as the long-term benefits that affirmative action policies confer upon society and the way in which it is structured.

In those two cases, the court held in a 5-4 decision that affirmative action was constitutional, as long as the admission process did not quantify the advantage given to particular minorities. The first case was brought against Bollinger when he was president of U. Michigan’s law school, and the second when he was president of U. Michigan.

Both schools practiced race-based affirmative action under Bollinger.

Abigail Fisher, a white college student who was denied admissions to U. Texas, has brought the new case, Fisher v. Texas, before the court. Fischer claims that she was unfairly rejected from the university due to her race, challenging its practice of using race as an unquantifiable—but significant—factor in the admissions process. The court will hear the case in October.

Bollinger believes that if the 2003 decision is overturned and race is eliminated as a factor in the admissions process, it will significantly change the face of higher education. He told Spectator that the effects would be “devastating,” adding that any decision would apply not only to public institutions, but to all institutions that receive public funding, including Columbia.

“It would be a national tragedy … it would mean that you could no longer consider race or ethnicity, and that would mean a significant decline in the racial and ethnic diversity,” he said.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld U. Texas’ admissions practices, and Bollinger believes that the Supreme Court could be reviewing the lower court’s decision for one of two reasons. Either the court wishes to address the constitutionality of the specific admissions policy of U. Texas—which admits the top 10 percent of all public high school students in the state—or the justices could be interested in reviewing the use of affirmative action as a whole, he said.

“In general, courts respect precedent under the principle of stare decisis,” Bollinger told Spectator. “But there are several instances of this particular majority overturning previous decisions.”

Experts believe the Supreme Court might be more hostile to affirmative action now than it was in 2003.

In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed Justice Samuel Alito, who is seen as one of the court’s most conservative justices, to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor wrote the majority decision in the Grutter case, arguing that affirmative action is necessary to promote diversity among students in higher education.

Law School professor Theodore Shaw, former president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as lead counsel in the coalition that defended affirmative action in the 2003 cases.

“This is a case that I think I would prefer not to see before the court,” Shaw said. “I am concerned because this is a different Supreme Court­—it is an even a more conservative court, and the Grutter court was a conservative court.”

Bollinger said that while it’s too early to speculate on what the court will decide, he is worried about what will happen if the justice ban affirmative action.

“It would be a tragedy for all of higher education … and I think for society generally,” he said.

In August 2011, an individual filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education alleging rejection based on the student’s Asian American ethnicity. OCR began the investigation in January and closed it on Wednesday.

“We are pleased that the complaint against Harvard has been withdrawn and that OCR has closed the case. Harvard College welcomes talented students from all backgrounds, including Asian Americans,” wrote Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson Jeff Neal in an email.

The same individual accused Princeton U.’s admissions office of similar discriminatory practices, and that complaint has also been withdrawn.

But OCR’s investigation of Princeton is ongoing. Initially, the recently withdrawn complaint had been folded into a larger investigation prompted by an earlier allegation. Jian Li filed a complaint with the Department of Education in 2006 after being rejected from Princeton, according to a 2008 story in USA Today.

Harvard’s admissions office has long touted its “holistic” approach to reviewing applications. While the University takes ethnicity into consideration, the admissions officers consider it one factor among many.

“Our review of every applicant’s file is highly individualized and holistic, as we give serious consideration to all of the information we receive and all of the ways in which the candidate might contribute to our vibrant educational environment and community,” wrote Neal.

The study, released Oct. 24, surveyed undergraduate, business school and law school admissions officers from 359 different schools by phone during the summer.

Twenty percent of undergraduate admissions officers and 27 percent of business school admissions officers who responded said they have previously utilized social networking sites, such as Facebook, to learn more about an applicant.

The number was much higher — 37 percent — for law school officers.

“The data makes sense when you think about what law admissions officers do,” said Jeff Thomas, director of Pre-Law Programs for Kaplan. “And that is to determine who would be best fit to eventually become attorneys.”

One possible explanation for why law school officers are more likely to look at an applicant’s social media page is because of the nature of the profession, Thomas said.

People studying to become attorneys must pass tests to measure their character and compatibility with the field prior to becoming certified as a lawyer. Even after certification, attorneys practice law under the threat of disbarment due to unethical behavior.

Thomas said strict codes of conduct for lawyers may be why law schools are inclined to carefully determine which applicants would be able to conform to such expectations.

“The legal profession is self-regulating and holds attorneys to higher ethical standards than most other professions,” Thomas said. “Students can’t earn admission to the bar by simply going to law school.”

Of the law admissions officers who said they have used Facebook or other social websites to screen applicants, 32 percent said they have found something online that harmed an applicant’s chances of admission. Only 12 percent of undergraduate admissions officers and 14 percent of business school officers responded the same way.

In a separate poll released earlier this month, Kaplan reported 77 percent of students who took the October LSAT said they objected to admissions officers using their virtual life as part of the admissions process.

Martin Asmuss, a third-year law student at UCLA, said he is not worried about admissions officers finding anything negative on his Facebook page, and would do the same if he were in their position.

The poll also reported 15 percent of students who took the October LSAT said there was something online that could hurt their chances of being admitted into law school.

Robert Schwartz, dean of admissions at the UCLA School of Law, said that checking applicants’ social networking pages is not part of their standard admissions process. Due to the large number of students applying, the task would be impractical, Thomas said.

He said he is surprised by the differences in data between law schools and other schools.

“One’s character is extremely important in the legal profession, (but) it does surprise me that the numbers for law schools are higher,” Schwartz said. “I would think business schools would be just as concerned with ethical standards.”

He said the best way for students to protect themselves to make sure anything they post online doesn’t harm them professionally or academically is to use good judgment.

“(The results are) sort of surprising, but not terribly surprising,” said Dominic Rossetti, a UCLA third-year law student. “A lot of potential employers look at Facebook.”

Elmhurst College, a private four-year institution in Illinois, made national headlines after including that question on its application this fall.

Amidst speculation by schools that more colleges may join Elmhurst in asking about LGBT status, George Washington U’s top admissions administrator said last week that the University is hesitant to ask about the sexual orientation of its prospective students.

“Right now, I would be cautious about adding that question,” Associate Vice President and Dean for Undergraduate Admissions Kathy Napper said, noting that the sexual orientation of a student is not a consideration in admissions decisions, and asking for an applicant to reveal that orientation could increase the stress associated with college applications.

“To add this question could, for some students, add additional anxiety to the admissions process,” she said.

Napper distinguished between admissions criteria and recruitment techniques. While the University requires grades and SAT scores, it does not take transgender status or sexual orientation into account for admission. To be a diverse University, she said, GW hopes to attract members of a wide range of backgrounds, including the LGBT community, who will succeed at the University.

More than 90 percent of the University’s applicants use the Common Application, the leadership of which is mulling over the addition of an LGBT question.

Any participating institution may include an LGBT status question on its individual supplement to the standard application, Rob Killion, executive director of the Common Application Inc., said.

“Our Board considered adding a question to the Common Application proper, but for the time being has chosen to leave it to individual members to decide using their own supplements,” Killion said.

None of the more than 450 institutions using the application currently ask about sexual orientation on their supplements, although two include an option to disclose transgender status, he said.

Napper said applicants can demonstrate membership in the LGBT community through activities and essays without an explicit question.

Campus Pride, a national LGBT advocacy group, lobbies for an LGBT question to be added to the Common Application, according to a report this month by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Elmhurst College is not a member of the Common Application consortium.

Blake Bergen, president of the University’s chapter of Allied in Pride, supports adding a question about sexual orientation to the application. He said it would demonstrate that the University is supportive and would better estimate the needs and resources allotted to the campus LGBT population.

“Students who identify themselves as LGBTQ will feel accepted and welcomed during such a critical time,” Bergen said. “It could only have a positive impact on those that need it.”

“Queer and questioning” students should also be included in the application question, Bergen said.

Director of Admission Kirk Brennan attributed the increase in international students to more students’ applications and more students’ intent to come.

He said admissions received approximately 4,400 international applications this year, compared to 3,500 last year.

“There’s a trend nationally for international students to be coming to the U.S.,” Brennan said. “We offer a unique set of programs that attract international [students] and have been known to enroll international students at high levels for a long time.”

Additionally, he said generally around 30 percent of accepted international students come to USC, but around 45 percent said they would come in the fall.

“We have, for a couple of years, had some dedicated recruitment staff working on the ground in some of our more popular areas,” Brennan said. “We also have, for the first time, hosted some receptions for admitted students internationally like we do domestically. We had them in six cities in Asia.”

Brennan also said this is also the first year “in anyone’s memory” that will see less than half of its students coming from California.

“We see this as a major shift,” Brennan said. “Decades ago it was probably two-thirds Californian students, so it’s a big deal even to see a single percentage point shift.”

Last year’s freshman class had approximately 52 percent Californians, but Brennan said they anticipate 47 to 48 percent of the class to be California natives.

“It’s a surprise to a lot of people because there’s a long history of Californians coming to USC,” Brennan said. “Southern California’s a great place to live, and studies show people often live near where they went to college. We think people who come to study will come to stay, so it may not change our alumni base too much.”

Both the number of applications and places for the class entering this fall increased. The number of applications increased 4 percent, from 35,794 to 37,164 applications. Admissions expects approximately 2,650 students to enroll this year, compared to 2,600 last year.

The acceptance rate hit an all-time low this year, 22.7 percent, offering 8,450 students admission. Last year’s acceptance rate was 24.3 percent.

The anticipated incoming freshman class is about as ethnically diverse as last year’s class, with 21 percent coming from under-represented minority populations (black, Latino or Native American), compared to last year’s 22 percent.

Brennan also said that USC expects about 15 percent of its students be the first in their families to attend college.

“We’ve also seen a sharp rise in the percentage of first generation college students attending USC in the past couple of years,” Brennan said. “This isn’t something we always think about when we think about USC, but the classroom experience is filled with all different kinds of diversity.”

The same is true of students who are the first in their families to attend college: 13 percent of committed applicants this year and 12 percent of matriculating students last year.

In a press release, USC Dean of Admission Timothy Brunold said he was pleased with this year’s pool of applicants.

“Our incoming freshman class promises to be the highest-quality, most geographically and socio-economically diverse in USC’s 131-year history,” Brunold said.

The university attributed the overall increase in applications in part to the availability of financial aid, which increased this year, and need-blind admission, which admits students regardless of ability to pay. More than 60 percent of the student body currently receives some form of financial aid.

The university increased its undergraduate financial aid budget by 7 percent and plans to distribute more than $200 million.

“As our popularity has grown and reputation has continues to rise, we’ve become more attractive to students in other parts of world both nationally and internationally,” Brennan said.

During her four years at Harvard, Smalley, a government concentrator with a secondary in ethnic studies, was active in raising awareness of the Native American culture on campus.

She served as co-director of a project that built a wetu—a traditional Wampanoag home—in Harvard Yard. The wetu was constructed near the site of Harvard’s Indian College, which was founded in 1655 to fulfill a statement in Harvard’s Charter of 1650 that called for “the education of the English & Indian Youth of this Country in knowledge and godliness.” The Indian College offered the same classes as the College, but did not charge its students for tuition or housing.

The last Wampanoag Indian to graduate from Harvard was Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, who graduated from the Harvard Indian College in 1665.

Smalley, however, will not be the only Wampanoag Indian to receive a diploma at this year’s Commencement exercises.

Joel Iacoomes, a member of the Wampanoag tribe who died in a shipwreck just before his graduation from the Indian College in 1665, will be honored with a special posthumous degree.

“With the presentation of this degree, we also recognize some of the commitments that were fundamental to the founding of Harvard: a commitment to a diversity of students, a commitment to the communities in which the College was founded, and a commitment to the power of education to transform lives,” Harvard President Drew G. Faust said in an article in the Harvard Gazette.

The incoming freshman class at Harvard is reported to be 1.6 percent Native American.

“Social media helped attract me to NYU a little because talking to other people who were applying or people who were already at NYU made me more sure that it was where I wanted to go,” the incoming Steinhardt freshman said.

Though she said that she ultimately made her decision after visiting the campus, using social media was helpful for her.

Rudd is one of many students turning to universities’ social media sites to help make their college decisions, and it might not be a coincidence.

According to a recent Schools.com survey of admissions officers from several top universities, 70 percent of college admissions offices listed Facebook as a high or medium priority recruiting channel, followed closely by Twitter, which is a priority for 56 percent of schools.

NYU is among the schools going online to attract students.

“NYU’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions has, in fact, increased its use of social media, primarily using Facebook as a vehicle to communicate with both prospective and admitted students,” NYU Vice President of Admissions Shawn Abbott said. “Admitted students, for example, make heavy use of the Class of 2015 profile on Facebook, which serves as a forum for students to learn more about admitted student events, housing and life at NYU.”

Many students are also using sites like College Confidential to talk with other students applying to schools they are looking at.

“Facebook groups and sites such as Collegeconfidential.com help people get a sense of the community and people that go to NYU and ask specific questions that can be answered frankly, honestly and quickly,” Laura Butvinik, an incoming Tisch freshman, said.

Others, however, are trying to use social media to help their admissions chances. Kemet Dugue, one of this year’s successful applicants, sent college admissions officers links to his blog posts.

“Even though I can’t say it directly improved my chances of getting into NYU, I know it put myself in a different perspective as an applicant,” he said. “Used in the correct way, social media can help in the admissions process.”

But just as easily as a student can access immediate information about a university, an admissions officer can do the same. According to the same Kaplan survey, one in 10 admissions officers said they visited an applicant’s social networking site. Abbott said NYU will only do this if they are given reason to do so.

“Though we certainly have better uses of our time than trolling Facebook for evidence of deviant behavior, if we’re prompted to look at a website posting and what we find is in conflict with our standards for admission, of course we may be influenced by that information in making admission decisions or revoking decisions already made,” he said.

Abbott cited situations in which “evidence of illegal activity, academic integrity violations and racist commentary” would prompt a revoked admissions offer. According to the Kaplan survey, 38 percent of admissions officers surveyed said applicants’ social networking sites had a negative impact on their admissions evaluation.

But Sunny Lee, an incoming freshman from Seoul, Korea, who is preparing for her college experience in a new country, has found Facebook to be a helpful resource.

“I found it really helpful and effective how prospective students were communicating with each other and discussing college issues,” she said. “[It lets me] keep updated with everything and make new friends.”

House Bill 2732, which garnered House approval Monday, requires high school students to show proof of application to college, the U.S. armed forces or into an apprenticeship program in order to be eligible for a diploma.

Rep. Tobias Read (D-Beaverton), the bill’s author, said this piece of legislation could improve the employability of Oregonians by encouraging students to consider the career opportunities available to them at a critical transition point in their education.

“This bill does not intend to tell anyone what the right choice is for them. It merely seeks to prompt consideration of that question,” Read said on the House floor. “Think about the student who intends to work in the family business. Wouldn’t he likely benefit from some accounting or bookkeeping classes at the community college?”

Although the bill passed 33 to 26 with the support of one-third of Republicans and two-thirds of Democrats, many legislators raised concerns over the new requirements.

For Rep. Mike Schaufler (D-Happy Valley), the bill failed to adequately address the issue of Oregon’s unemployment. Schaufler said making an incentive for manual labor and higher education for Oregon’s high school students will instead take actual investment in state infrastructure — building bridges, roads and zoning land for industry.

“Let’s get down to business getting people to work by passing real legislation which puts people to work, which we’re not doing,” Schaufler said.

Additionally, the Schaufler argued against placing any barriers between high school students and the diplomas they should be receiving.

“Why should my daughter have to fill out some application to get a degree she already earned?” Schaufler asked. “This is one more hoop we’re making people jump through to get what they deserve.”

Rep. Julie Parrish (R-Tualatin/West Linn) agreed and added that placing any additional mandates on Oregon’s already cash-strapped high schools was unwise.

“I can’t support this bill,” Parrish said. “I think it provides an unnecessary hardship on a child potentially, as well as on school districts that can’t afford this from us right now.”

In support of the bill, Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland) pointed out that Oregon’s high schools weren’t doing enough to prepare its students for the current job market. He shared a story of his visit to a local high school several years ago, where he surveyed 28 advanced placement students regarding their intentions to enter college.

“25 out of 28 AP students weren’t applying for college … my heart broke at that point,” Buckley said. “This bill is a common sense bill … it will give (students) a push to fill out that application and say ‘What’s next for me?’”

The bill does not apply to modified diplomas, extended diplomas or GEDs. Students would also be allowed to attend an orientation session for a training or apprenticeship program instead of providing proof of application to a postsecondary institution.

Though the bill did not specify a mechanism to track students, individual school districts would be charged with its enforcement.

HB 2732 now moves to the Oregon Senate for consideration and vote.

From the first day of orientation until the last day of graduation, we are coddled with reassurances and showered with compliments from our friends, relatives and professors. Three years ago on the first day of orientation, Cornell’s Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences proudly boasted our school’s sinking acceptance rate, evidence that the Class of 2012 was the most gifted to enter these gates.

And our parents happily drank the Kool-Aid, believing that those plump acceptance packages were official affirmations of their exceptional parenting skills. “What great parents we are,” they must have thought, “Our child is in the Ivy League. The Ivy League!” 

During our time here, our self-delusion continued to be fueled. Our professors and advisors tell us that our courses are the most rigorous, the textbooks most comprehensive and our work ethics unmatched.

And these empty adulations have taken hold: We thoroughly believe that we are the crème de la crème of our generation.

We shamelessly self-promote our fabricated elitism. To the benefit of our school store, sweatshirts and t-shirts boldly printed with our school’s name have become staples of our wardrobe. And it is impossible to walk through a campus parking lot without seeing a Cornell decal. The most egregious example comes from the motto of our dining services: “Towering Above the Rest.”

Our school may promote a philosophy of accepting any student, but once given admittance, he is no longer just “any student.”

And finally at our graduation, we are again told that once we are unleashed from our campuses, we will be the leaders of tomorrow. Usually, graduation speakers share words of wisdom to the senior class, deriving insight from their personal hardships that will help us overcome our own troubles later in our lives.

But not in the Ivy League. Nancy Pelosi, Cornell’s 2010 graduation speaker, took the opportunity to reassure the senior class at the young and naïve age of 22 that they are well-equipped to handle the problems of the world and will eventually become tomorrow’s movers and shakers.

Rest easy, Cornellians, Pelosi told us: The hard part is over. Now that we have this degree, things will come easy and we will be the source of our country’s future prosperity.

Now, an inflated self-confidence isn’t a bad thing. For better or worse, it can produce some our most notable figures — Gates, Napoleon, Zuckerberg, Kim Jong-Il.

The problem comes when this sense of entitlement gives rise to a false belief of superiority. And make no mistake: Ivy Leaguers do believe that we are superior in every sense of the term, as evidenced by The Harvard Crimson’s editorial Monday. What has happened is that the Ivy League has become a brand rather than an education. Even worse, it has become a brand that partially defines our identities.

A recent trend in the past few years has been the prominence of Ivy League social networks. Just recently, invitations to join IvyDate.com flooded our inboxes. The website claims to connect “exceptional singles” who value “intellectual curiosity, love of learning, creativity, drive and determination,” as to imply that Ivy Leaguers and our peers can only mingle, date — and ultimately procreate — within our exclusive social circles. To the creators of IvyDate, everyone else is incapable of satiating our supposedly sophisticated intellectual palates.

But surely, we do not really believe that the 24,000 extremely lucky applications selected out of some 242,000 were the only ones worthy of admission, that the methods used by a hodgepodge team of admission officers were foolproof in deciding which high school senior is “better” than his peers? And we don’t really believe that the poor blokes who weren’t as lucky — and indubitably luck has come to play a larger role — are destined for lives of mediocrity?

Sure, we exhaust ourselves studying for exams and spend an inordinate number of hours in the library, but so does every student who possesses ambition and discipline, regardless of whether he attends Yale or State U.

Here’s a startling fact: According to a study by economists Stacey Dale and Alan Krueger ’83, those students who were rejected by elite schools — whatever that means — and went on to attend state schools earned just as much as their peers. According to the data, success is based on inherent character, not a four-year degree.

But do realize that by simply graduating from college, we join an elite group that comprises only 28 percent of the population in the U.S. and only 6.7 percent of the world’s population. Why Ivy Leaguers still feels a need to elevate ourselves further is a mystery.

With such invigorated recruitment, university officials are expecting a bump in enrollment thanks to a shift in UNL’s recruitment pool from the Big 12 Conference, especially Texas, to northern states like Minnesota and Illinois. That increase in the number of out-of-state students could potentially impact UNL’s tuition, financial aid and scholarship awards, according to Craig Munier, director of the Scholarships and Financial Aid office.

As Alan Cerveny, UNL’s dean of admissions, told the Lincoln Journal Star last month, out-of-state interest in UNL from has already spiked – the percentage of next year’s accepted class from outside Nebraska is the highest ever, and recruiters venturing into Big Ten territory are encountering unprecedented hospitality.

Munier said much of that impact is due to one word: money. UNL’s total cost of attendance, including tuition, fees, room and board and other payments is exceptionally low among Big Ten schools.

Only the University of Minnesota has a lower total cost for other states’ students. By itself, the University of Michigan’s out-of-state tuition, the most expensive of the conference, eclipses UNL’s total cost by almost $10,000.

“I do think we will be seen as a value,” Munier said. “And we are a value.”

Munier said the circumstances for Big Ten schools also could play into UNL’s favor. Big Ten schools can’t accommodate all of their potential students, Munier said, and thus have had to tighten admissions standards.

For example, the University of Illinois has more than 30,000 undergraduate students, or 50 percent more than UNL, yet serves a state with six times Nebraska’s entire population.

UNL, with its long tradition of accessibility, doesn’t have the same problem.

Pat McBride, an associate dean of admissions, said the Big Ten name and reputation lends still more strength to the excitement over Nebraska.

“(The Big Ten name) shows where the top research, land-grant, flagship universities are located,” McBride said, adding that people are taking notice. “They’re stopping to look a bit more.”

Munier agreed, taking the perspective of an investor in a UNL education as the university joins what he called “some of the very, very best public, four-year research universities.”

“I would argue that the University of Nebraska’s stock will go up based on (its company in the Big Ten),” he said.

Whatever their reasons, a larger student body will likely add to the burden of aid and, according to Munier, could potentially shift the playing field of financial aid and scholarships, though the university’s system of aid could mitigate those effects. He focused first on need-based grants.

“We have about $5.5 million of institutional gift aid … and it’s almost exclusively for residents,” Munier said. The small portion that is available to out-of-state students is part of UNL’s university tuition assistance grants program, or UTAG. Those students must meet several academic requirements to gain access to these funds.

Most of that aid money, along with funds from the state and Pell grants distributed by the federal government, would not be impacted by any surge in out-of-state enrollment, Munier said.

The same was true of most merit-based scholarships as well, since they are generally only available either within or without the state line. The one scholarship available to both in- and out-of-state students is the National Merit or Chancellor’s Scholarship, which pays tuition and an additional stipend.

However, some would say increased out-of-state attendance has a possible negative impact on tuition, Munier pointed out.

“I think that, given our comparative cost to the Big Ten … there will be some who will argue that, in making that comparison, the University of Nebraska may be overpriced,” Munier said.

The possible outcome of that argument is higher increases in tuition, which by itself isn’t necessarily unusual or problematic when it comes to need-based aid, according to Munier.

“We have an agreement that this (aid) will increase that same percent,” he said.

That arrangement does not take into account a simultaneous increase in tuition and enrollment, however, and UNL could experience both.

“Any substantial enrollment growth will have to come out of state,” Munier said, a scenario he thought likely. With Knoll Residential Center and other residence halls completed or in the works and downtown apartment construction, “lots of people are anticipating this being a bigger place.”

An increase in tuition and enrollment could counteract any matched raise in aid money and distribution, potentially leaving each individual student with less need-based aid.

And that’s not even the biggest concern when it comes to financial aid. With the economy still without its former strength and Republicans in Congress eying of federal aid for budget cuts, “students will be asked to bear a slightly heavier burden next year,” Munier said of a situation akin to the double blow of salary cuts and higher gasoline prices for some Americans.

He said additional students can mean more aid given out, but also more tuition taken into university, actually offsetting any aid strain. Any additional revenue should be arranged to help the university remain open to qualified students of any income bracket, but Munier said those plans hadn’t been made yet.

“That is a discussion that we need to have as an institution,” he said.

Once that discussion happens, increased enrollment could help the university avoid possible aid shortages and deal with a flat state budget for Nebraska’s universities. Munier was confident that, instead of out-of-state students increasing competition, the University of Nebraska would maintain its accessibility to Nebraska students.

“That’s part of our mission,” he said. “I think it is something that we all have to keep in mind.”

McBride agreed, saying he hadn’t heard any rumblings of increasing admission standards. To him, the Big Ten move would bring a somewhat larger flow of out-of-state students and would ultimately be to UNL students’ advantage.

“People are very positive that we’re joining the Big Ten,” he said. “This is just going to be another bonanza.”

During a summit in Washington, D.C., Vice President Joe Biden introduced a “College Completion Tool Kit,” a program that will offer governors ideas on how to enhance college graduation rates through strategies that are “low-cost” or “no-cost” to the state.

“Right now, we’ve got an education system that works like a funnel when we need it to work like a pipeline,” Biden said in a press release. “We have to make the same commitment to getting folks across the graduation stage that we did to getting them into the registrar’s office. The dreams and skills of our college graduates will pave the way to a bright economic future for our nation.”

The plan has seven key strategies including aligning high school standards with college entrance and placement standards, making it easier for students to transfer and targeting adults with some college completion but no degree.

In order for the U.S. to increase the number of college graduates by the goal of 50 percent, the Department of Education claims each state will need to have a 60 percent completion rate by 2020. Currently, about 42 percent of U.S. citizens ages 25-34 have college degrees, according to information at the summit. The state of Texas falls below this target percentage, with an approximately 45.8-percent completion rate.

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research also released a study which ranked UT’s 78 percent as the 11th-highest among U.S. state universities. Ranked first was the University of Virginia at 93 percent, and second was University of California, Los Angeles at
90 percent.

Thomas Palaima, a classics professor, said the problem with the country’s graduation rate is the structure of higher education itself, and that unless the core structure is fixed, the Obama and Biden remedies will not ultimately fix this problem.

“It’s a good goal to have the highest graduation rate in the world, but unless you address the underlying structural problems, this is not going to improve life very much for the people who are going to be literally tricked by this system,” Palaima said.

America once led the world in the number of college graduates it produces, but the country has fallen to ninth, said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who delivered opening remarks at the Summit on Monday evening.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Korea currently holds the No. 1 college graduation rate, with 58 percent of its population finishing college.

“While our educational advancement stalled, other countries have passed us by. We need to educate our way to a better economy, and governors must help lead the way,” Duncan said.

To meet the 2020 goal of regaining the No. 1 spot, the U.S. will have to turn out at least 8 million additional graduates by the end of the decade.

Larger private universities like Yale and Stanford have readjusted their financial algorithms to get wealthier families (incomes of $120,000 to 140,000) to pay a larger percentage of the tuition out of their own pockets. Some smaller liberal arts colleges are employing a need-blind policy during the first round of the admissions process. In subsequent rounds, they begin to consider financial need.

Even public universities, which have been losing government funding, are reaching out more to out-of-state students, who have to pay higher tuition than in-state students.

“Many colleges and universities have long had to consider tuition payment as one factor in admission decisions,” Steinhardt professor of sociology and education Richard Arum said. “It is not surprising that given current economic conditions, this practice is becoming even more prevalent.”

But Floyd Hammack, associate professor of educational sociology and higher education at Steinhardt, believes the issue is being sensationalized.

“The article makes it seem as though need-blind policies were the rule in a wide swath of American higher education,” he said. “In truth such policies have always been rare. Colleges have to have very large endowments to sustain themselves under the policy.”
NYU employs a need-blind application policy for its prospective students. It does not, however, offer need-blind financial aid to its international students.

Hammack argues that colleges are businesses requiring money to sustain themselves. Today, few colleges can exist without the help of substantial student contributions.

“For the few colleges and universities which have the resources to admit on a need-blind basis, my thinking is that it would be unethical for them not to apply that policy. Of course, they will have other objectives to achieve with their admissions in addition to an economically diverse student population — like tuba players for the band,” Hammack said.

Recently, Sewanee: The University of the South announced it would cut its annual tuition rate by 10 percent in order to meet the needs of struggling families.

“Higher education, as you know, is pricing itself beyond the reach of more and more families,” vice chancellor John McCardell said.

Hammack noted that even public institutions have to do what they must to survive.

“The continued growth of tuition, especially at public institutions, is one of the most vexing problems facing higher education today,” Hammack said. “Institutions, public or private, that are able to maintain a steady tuition rate, let alone a reduction, are going to be doing about as well as it is possible in the foreseeable future.”

The report was funded by the College Board, a nonprofit organization that creates standardized tests including the SAT and AP tests. Other significant factors contributing to student withdrawal found in the report include recruitment by another job or institution, an unexpected bad grade, roommate conflicts and a raise in tuition or living expenses.

“Identifying these specific events can help universities decide what type of services to provide,” said Jessica Keeney, a psychology doctoral student at Michigan State University and co-author of the report.

About 20 percent of entering UT freshmen in 2004 did not complete their degree within six years, compared with the national average of 43 percent, according to data from the UT Office of Information Management and Analysis and the National Center for Education Statistics, respectively.

By knowing what causes students to drop out, universities can improve their policies, said Tim Pleskac, an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University and lead researcher for the report. For example, to avoid a student being shocked by a bad course grade, making grades available online can help that student track their progress, he said.

“We have a better sense of what factors get people thinking about quitting,” Pleskac said.

The study, which was released last month, surveyed 1,200 enrolled students from 10 universities and was based on previous research on the influence of precipitating events or shocks that influence withdrawal, Pleskac said.
UT Student Financial Services director Tom Melecki said OSFS tries to reduce unexpected financial pressures on students.

“We try to make a commitment to a student for the full school year,” Melecki said.

Students may lose financial aid from one year to the next as a result of a poor GPA or failure to adhere to rules of the program. These students have the option of appealing if they experienced a hardship that affected their academic performance, Melecki said.

Jane Morgan Bost, associate director of the Counseling and Mental Health Center, said counselors help students decide the best plan for their situation and that may include dropping out when their academic work is negatively impacting their mental health.

“We [work] with the student collaboratively to come up with a plan of action,” Bost said.

It has nothing to do with an absence of academic discipline and much to do with funding at the federal and state level, which may terminate university education for too many prospective students.

“We have seen a decrease in money supplied from the state government for the past two decades,” said Larry Sparks, vice chancellor of administration and finance. “All 50 states now require some level of education funding from the federal government.”

Ole Miss has created alternatives to help students achieve and excel through education.

Larry Ridgeway, vice chancellor of student affairs, said the last freshman class increased by eight percent and is expecting to see another increase this fall.

“The University of Mississippi has seen a continual increase in enrollment,” Ridgeway said. “Last fall, the freshman class increased by eight percent and we expect another increase this fall.”

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, universities nationwide are seeing a drop in graduation rates.

However, the U.S. is now ninth in the world for citizens who actually hold a college degree, President Barack Obama said in the State of the Union address on Jan. 25.

The government has made budget cuts in order to reduce the national deficit and pull the states out of the recession.

In the process, Obama’s budget plan for 2011 causes education to suffer in order to fund entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security.

State governments have seen budget shortfalls and have responded with cuts in higher education. The University has a total revenue budget of $423.3 million for the 2010 fiscal year, according to its released statistics.

Only 18 percent of that requirement is covered by state tax dollars, according to those statistics.

Tuition and fees are expected to rise even as state funding decreases, Ridgeway said.

“State money now comes in the form of direct payments to students as financial aid,” he said. “The burden has been moved from the taxpayers to the users, from appropriations to tuition fees,”

Tuition payment is the largest source of funding for Ole Miss, making up 33 percent of the University’s revenue according to the information released by the University.

For its part, the federal government has stepped up in offering Pell Grants to students whose family income is less than $30,000 a year.

“Although Pell Grants do not cover all the tuition, they help lower the cost for families at the lower end of the economic spectrum who are still struggling,” Ridgeway said.

According to Sparks, as the national economy suffers and tuition costs increase, Ole Miss, like other universities across the country, is seeing an increase in students looking for financial aid while less assistance is being supplied from the government.

“A few years ago, Pell Grants were available to students who wanted to enroll in summer sessions, but not anymore,” Ridgeway said. “Now they are only available to students during the fall and spring terms.”

For some students unable to afford major universities, community colleges have become more appealing.

Northwest Community College in Southaven has partnered with Ole Miss and is involved in helping students finance their education at a lower cost.

“I chose to attend a community college because they offered less expensive courses and I could still technically graduate from Ole Miss,” Sarah Nahhas, a junior business major at Northwest Community College, said.

The University created a partnership and they share the campus, but funding is separate and unique, Sparks said.

Students can acquire an associate’s degree by taking courses below the 300 level at the community college for lower costs, then finish their education through Ole Miss at the Southhaven campus.

“Chancellor Sparks has created the Ole Miss Opportunity Program that is available this year for the first time,” Ridgeway said. “It bridges the gap for tuition and housing that is not already covered by the Pell Grant,”

In addition to the Pell Grant and other federal funding, Ole Miss has offered other forms of scholarships such as the Mississippi Tuition Grants Program and the Scholars Program since 1995.

“The economy is growing but progress is measured by the success of our own people by the jobs they can find and the quality of life they acquire,” Obama said in the 2011 State of the Union address.

This means that applicants will have the choice when submitting their high school transcripts to either report their ACT/SAT test scores, or instead, answer a number of open-ended essay questions. “The questions are aimed at eliciting evidence of students’ experience and other characteristics that have been shown to be better predictors of student success in college than standardized test scores,” said Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for Enrollment Policy & Planning at DePaul.

Some of us may have heard this same concept from our guidance counselors back in high school, claiming that overall, solid core grades and a sufficient GPA on transcripts will prove more beneficial when applying for college admission than the flat marks of an ACT or SAT assessment. This new policy reinforces that idea, lessening the nerve-racking burden of attaining a perfect score for high school seniors.

DePaul freshman Taylor Boyle, Psychology, believes that this is an excellent option for incoming students. “It’s a great idea, standardized testing doesn’t accurately gauge a student’s work. Maybe they get worried when they are taking these tests, maybe they are a more creative person and that part of their personality doesn’t show through the testing.”

In agreement, freshman Sayre Shannon, English, says, “I would have liked to have that option. It gives students a new way to express themselves and show their intelligence through the essays, instead of a basic ACT/SAT test.”

No DePaul faculty members were available to comment on the change in policy.

Research by experts at DePaul and at other institutions shows that the best predictor of a student’s success in college is his or her performance in a rigorous, college preparatory program in high school, and that standardized test scores add little if anything to that, said Boeckenstedt. In some cases, standardized test scores may even skew admission toward students who are good test-takers while eliminating those who are not, he said.

“Test scores don’t add much above and beyond high school GPAs, and researchers point out that test scores vary widely by income and ethnicity,” Boeckenstedt said. “This raises some concerns about putting certain students with strong high school performance at a disadvantage.”

This test-optional admission route will benefit the students who lack the resources to take the standardized tests multiple times or to take advantage of detailed preparation and coaching, both of which can end up being expensive. It also simplifies the process for students who have proven to be accomplished in their high school coursework, but not necessarily in a high-stakes testing environment, Boeckenstedt said.

“It’s almost noise in the equation,” Boeckenstedt said of requiring ACT/SAT scores. “Most of the variance in student success is explained by four-years of academic success in high school, and then performance on a four hour test on a Saturday doesn’t tell us much more.” He stressed that often, students won’t apply at DePaul, simply because their standardized testing scores don’t fall within or above the general score for admission. The average ACT of an admitted DePaul student is 24.9. “They were a great student [in high school], they got great grades, they’re clearly going to succeed here, and they don’t even put themselves in the running,” he said.

This new policy aims to accommodate those students who fall in that category, giving them a chance to showcase their abilities. Focusing more on their high school grades assures the admission department that these students will do the academic work and prove to be quality additions to DePaul, improving the overall student profile of the university.

Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, the president of DePaul, said that this new policy results from several years of tracking student success at DePaul. “We learned that the combination of their high school GPA and their extracurricular accomplishments are better predictors of college success than SAT or ACT scores,” Holtschneider said. “We also learned that this approach better helped us identify non-traditional students who would do very well here.”

The Diamond project allowed DePaul to measure qualities in students such as leadership, long-term goals, positive self-concept and a supportive family in the admission process. After three years of using this method, the university made the decision to move toward the test-optional admission route.

“Data shows that it’s the right thing to do. It’s better for the student and the university,” said David Kalsbeek, senior vice president for Enrollment Management and Marketing. “The things we measure with Diamond really do level the playing field.”

This admission policy pilot program is planned to run for the next four years-until 2016, after which its impact will be thoroughly evaluated to determine whether or not it will become a permanent procedure at the university.

Other institutions that have adopted test-optional programs include Bates College, Lawrence University, Providence College, College of the Holy Cross, Fairfield University and Wake Forest University.

“The D.R.E.A.M. Act would benefit our campus by allowing accessibility and affordability in the UC system and by allowing students to apply for the financial aid they’re already contributing to,” Sixth College Senator Kristian Castro said.

Castro is involved in the UCSA campaign through a resolution that would educate and garner support for the D.R.E.A.M. Act.

Authored by State Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), the D.R.E.A.M. Act would go into effect July 1 this year, if passed. The bill would allow undocumented students to apply for financial aid from a private pool of money while they apply for or attend college.

To be eligible, applicants must have entered the U.S. before age 16, must have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and must have a high school diploma. Applicants must also be between the ages of 12 and 35 when applying.

Administered by state colleges and universities, Return to Aid is a fund that provides institutional and university grants that undocumented students pay into through student fees, but from which they cannot receive aid. While these students are currently eligible for in-state tuition under AB540, they are not allowed access to institutional financial aid or state grants.

During the Jan. 18-20 UC Board of Regents meeting, UCSA President and UC Santa Cruz junior Claudia Magaña requested that the regents sign a letter to Brown in support of the D.R.E.A.M. Act. Nine of the 26 board members signed it at the meeting.

“We need the regents’ support today for the D.R.E.A.M. Act,” Magaña said in a press statement on Jan. 24. “While President [Mark G.] Yudof has supported the D.R.E.A.M. Act publicly, he is not the only member of the board. Students want to see more than sympathy from the regents; they want to see leadership.”

Magaña also expressed concern over the $500 million cut to the UC system under Brown’s proposed budget.

“Every campus leader, every department, every auxiliary and service must face the challenges that lie ahead while protecting affordability and the services that retain and support our students,” she said.

UCSA has called for all undergraduate campuses to participate in the campaign by collecting postcards addressed to Brown in support of the D.R.E.A.M. Act. The postcards collected from these UC campuses will be delivered to the governor’s office at the annual UCSA Lobby Day on Feb. 28.

A resolution in favor of the act was presented to and passed by A.S. Council on Feb. 8. The resolution, authored by Vice President of External Affairs Michael Lam, Campus Organizing Director Chevelle Newell and Castro, establishes the council’s full support of the California D.R.E.A.M. Act.

The resolution presented to council said that AB540 individuals at UCSD are part of the student community and emphasized UCSA’s belief in affordable and accessible education.

AB540 individuals are exempt from paying out-of-state tuition under Assembly Bill 540, legislation passed in 2001 that allows undocumented students to pay in-state fees at a California community college, state university or UC campus, provided they attend high school in California for three or more years and graduate or obtain equivalency.

The motion also encourages the six college councils to collect 200 signed postcards from their constituents by Feb. 24. The campus-wide goal of collecting 1,500 postcards will also be assisted by student volunteers.

“We wrote the resolution to let the student council know about the UCSA’s statewide campaign,” Castro said. “[Our campus] is a part of the UCSA, and the UCSA works as a coalition. The postcard campaign would allow students to recognize that there are students on campus who need the financial aid because [not everyone has] the privilege to apply for financial or institutional aid.”

Castro said that the resolution passed through council with no objections and many councilmembers plan to attend a Feb. 28 lobby conference in support of the act.

“The Office is assisting the UCSA because it is a UC-wide campaign,” Lam said. “Last week, we tabled on Library Walk and this week, we will be going in and out of classrooms to talk to students about what we’re doing. We e-mail the professors ahead of time, and we only go into classrooms [where] we feel like the professors understand what the issues are.”

AdmissionSplash is one branch of a network of applications and websites called CampusSplash, which currently includes a developing residence hall review website (DormSplash).

AdmissionSplash co-founder Allen Gannett said Facebook was the best way to reach out to students.

“There are over eight million high school students on Facebook, and we thought that it would be a more comfortable environment for students to have everything in one place, so that on the same site that you can play Farmville, you can also think about college admissions,” he said.

According to Gannett, the app predicts NYU student acceptance with around a 90 percent accuracy rate.

“In NYU’s case, we took the profiles of 75 admitted students and [used that data] to do the formula backwards,” Gannett explained.

The app asks for academic records such as grade point average and standardized test scores and for one’s anticipated major. Under the information tab, one can also enter ethnicity, religion and extracurricular activities in order to increase the accuracy of the results.

Some NYU professors said that the simplicity and objectivity may indeed help stressed-out seniors avoid “unnecessary angst,” as Steinhardt professor Ann Marcus refers to it, in the current competitive academic and financial climate.

Marcus said the fact that the app offers advice free of charge is invaluable to students.
“There is a huge industry around college counseling, and people spend very large sums to get advice,” Marcus said. “Unfortunately, many students apply to places where they don’t have much of a chance, or pay consultants a lot to help them figure it out.”

Floyd M. Hammack, professor of humanities and the social sciences, also commends the uses of the app for its quick response compared to other similar services.

“This kind of information has been available before, but having it in this form, with immediate feedback, will probably be more important to students than putting the data together for one’s self,” Hammack said.

NYU students, however, are slightly more skeptical as to the level of satisfaction the quick answer the app provides about their chances.

“I tried it, and the results aren’t very satisfying,” said CAS freshman Wendy Liu, whose senior scramble for college applications is still fresh in her mind.

“Why would the results be great or fair?” she asked. “Maybe if it included average statistics of [the specific] college, or personality traits of the student body.”

Hammack suggested there may be room to reach for an even younger demographic.

“It also strikes me that this may be a very useful tool for middle school students and/or beginning high school students — they will get an idea of what it actually takes to get into a truly selective college or university in time to affect their behavior,” he said.

Included in this budget are two provisions that are relevant to both undergraduate and graduate students at OU.

The first provision is one which eliminates summer school Pell grants — federal money provided to students of low-income backgrounds. The elimination of summer Pell grants is particularly problematic because poor students are more likely to work during semesters and therefore need summer credits to stay on schedule.

The inevitable rise in tuition or fees that will be coming to OU and other schools across the country will multiply the impact of these cuts. Raising costs and cutting aid is a sure way to increase the burden on the poorest students.

In addition to the Pell grant change, loans taken out by graduate students will begin gaining interest as soon as they are taken out. Graduate students will not have to pay off the interest until they are out of school, but upon graduation, with this subsidy removed, their debt burden will be considerably higher.

These two measures fly in the face of the rhetoric of educational investment. It is unclear how education is supposed to benefit from legislation that makes it less accessible to poorer students and increases the already record-high debt that students have when they leave college.

When you combine these provisions with other figures relevant to college graduates, the picture becomes even grim. The percent of recent college graduates who have managed to secure full-time jobs has dropped from 83 percent in 2007 to 74 percent in 2010, and those statistics say nothing about the kind of full-time jobs these graduates are moving into (no doubt many are under-employed).

So, to sum it up: the price of college is going up, the aid to pay for college is going down, debt for college students is at record levels (average debt is $24,000) and employment prospects for graduates are diminishing.

Those figures basically speak for themselves. The government, and society in general, is trying to pay for this recent financial crisis on the backs of students. Instead of increasing taxes on the rich, the class whose risky speculation caused the problem, it is the students who must shore up the budgets of the federal and state government.

This is nothing new, nor is it limited just to students. Consider attacks on Medicaid in Texas, a program which helps poor people get health care. Did poor children and public workers cause a bubble that wrecked the economy? No, but they sure will be called upon to pay for the aftermath of it.

Making sure everyone but the super-rich pay for economic pitfalls is so common a strategy that every time I hear people talk about “shared sacrifice,” I cannot help but laugh. Once again, students, workers, teachers and poor people will all be asked to tighten our belts and pay more.

I wish I could say I am confident that it is only these cuts that we will suffer, but I am sure slashing Pell grants and graduate student aid will be the tip of the iceberg.

Obama’s budget would scale back the program’s spending, which had grown rapidly over the past years to $35 billion as more people returned to college during the recession and aid levels were increased.

The Pell program targets low-income students, who can receive two grants per year worth up to $5,500 – one for the normal academic year and one for summer term. The proposed changes would eliminate the summer grant and also cut subsidies on loans for graduate students in an attempt to save $10 billion annually.

Nearly 7,500 students on the University’s Twin Cities campus  receive a total of about $28 million in aid from the Pell, , and Office of Student Finance director Kris Wright called it the “granddaddy of all the financial aid programs.”

It would eliminate any requirement for agencies to hire bilingual employees and make it illegal for most government business, including meetings and documents, to be conducted in any language other than English. It would also prevent anyone who needs an interpreter at a driver’s test from getting a license.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Bill Ingebrigsten, R-Alexandria, said mandating an official language would save money and prevent lawsuits against the state for inaccuracies that might occur during foreign language interpreting.

“Folks moving into our country should expect to learn English,” he said.

If the bill passed, Minnesota would join a list of more than 20 states with similar legislation.

Rodolfo Gutierrez, executive director of HACER, a nonprofit research organization focused on Hispanic advocacy, said the bill would negatively affect Minnesota immigrants who enter under refugee status.

“It could damage the support for them to be really integrated into society,” he said.

English proficiency is required for University of Minnesota admission, so students would not be directly affected by the legislation, Gutierrez said.

However, the bill would prevent immigrants from becoming involved in University research programs in areas like public health and education, Gutierrez said, and would hinder assimilation into the community.

Gov. Mark Dayton opposed the legislation during his campaign and would likely veto it.

The bill was assigned to the State Government Innovation and Veterans Committee, but Ingebrigsten does not know exactly when it will be heard. Committee member Sen. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Columbia Heights, said she will vote “no” on the bill, which she said promotes “a populous right-wing issue.”

Goodwin said Republicans’ claims that the bill will lead to efficiency and cost cuts are misleading since Minnesota is federally mandated to provide non-English translation in many areas like health care and judicial services.

“It’s flat-out discrimination,” Goodwin said.

Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, said he will also vote “no” on the bill.

“My overwhelming impression is that it’s designed to make certain people feel unwelcome in Minnesota,” Dibble said.

Dibble said he is concerned that non-English speakers will be deprived of services they pay for in taxes.

Ingebrigsten said Minnesota is merely following the example of other states that have passed language legislation to cut costs. He’s been signed on to the bill for four years. Now, with a Republican majority, he believes there’s a chance the bill will pass.

Louis Mendoza, associate vice provost of equity and diversity at the University, said a provision exempting foreign language teaching from the English-only bill is a contradiction.

Mendoza said the bill states the importance of multiple languages but disallows that knowledge to grow.

Still, the University will remain committed to teaching and learning outside the realm of English.

“The University itself will always respect, honor and teach multiple languages,” Mendoza said.

The plaintiffs in the case, Abigail Fisher, et al v. State of Texas, et al, filed a petition Tuesday for a re-hearing by the full Fifth Circuit Court’s panel of judges. That circuit — which covers Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas — consists of 15 active judges and one senior judge eligible to hear the case.

The University has until Feb. 22 to file a response to the petition, after the court granted a deadline extension to allow the University’s representation to meet, said a deputy clerk who asked not to be named. After the response is filed, the court will vote on whether to re-hear the case with the full panel of judges.

Two white students denied admission to UT in 2008 filed suit for discrimination based on the University’s consideration of race for students who are not automatically admitted under the top 10 percent rule. They argued UT’s admission policy violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin ruled in favor of the University in 2009. A panel of three Fifth Circuit judges upheld Sparks’ judgement last month.

The plaintiffs’ attorney Bert Rein said the petition focuses on the court’s application of a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case to the UT ruling. The case, Grutter v. Bollinger, found that a race based admission policy at the University of Michigan Law School did not violate the 14th amendment because the policy advanced the compelling government interest of encouraging educational diversity.

Rein said the three judge panel on the Fisher case read the Grutter case too narrowly, and the court thought it was bound by that case’s precedents to uphold any admission system that does not set a quota or assign a fixed number of points to minority students’ admission scores.

“That’s the way the panel read the case, and we have a difference of opinion on the way the court should scrutinize and review a race-based admissions system,” Rein said. “We think we have substantial grounds for a re-hearing.”

Patricia Ohlendorf, UT’s vice president for legal affairs, said the University has not yet laid out specific counter arguments for their response to the petition. She said the University still feels secure in its legal standing.

Ohlendorf said the state’s new solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell, the former solicitor general involved in the original appeal, the attorney general and the university’s counsel will meet to plan and produce the University’s petition response.

“It’s difficult to speculate, but we do think the court will find our position is very strong that there should not be a re-hearing,” Ohlendorf said.

Two white female students denied admission to UT in 2008 filed the case Abigale Fisher, et al. v. State of Texas, et al., but they lost the case in 2009 in a ruling by Austin District Judge Sam Sparks. A panel of three circuit court judges denied their appeal Tuesday. The plaintiffs could potentially appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but there is no guarantee the case will be heard.

In its decision, the court ruled UT adhered to legal standards set out in Grutter v. Bollinger, a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed the use of race as a factor for admission to the University of Michigan’s Law School. The ruling applies only to UT’s admission policies in 2008 when the plaintiffs sought admission.

According to the court’s ruling, the plaintiffs argued UT’s top-10 percent admission rule provided a race-neutral alternative to increase minority enrollment. The court held the top-10 percent rule does not effectively ensure diversity.

“While the law may have contributed to an increase in overall minority enrollment, those minority students remain clustered in certain programs, limiting the beneficial effects of educational diversity,” Circuit Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote in his ruling on the Fisher appeal.

The top-10 percent rule has since been limited to guarantee admission for only up to 75 percent of incoming freshmen.

“In an effort to ensure representation of minorities, the law school sought to enroll a ‘critical mass’ of minority students, which would result in increased minority engagement in the classroom and enhanced minority contributions to the character of the School,” Higginbotham wrote. “The Grutter Court endorsed this goal, holding that diversity, including seeking a critical mass of minority students, is ‘a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions.’”

The court found that UT began addressing race “as but one of many considerations” in its admission process in 2004. UT implemented this policy more than a year after the Grutter ruling, and after the Board of Regents commissioned two studies into whether the university system was enrolling enough minority students to ensure diversity. The studies resulted in the consideration of race to promote diversity in the undergraduate student body.

UT’s Vice President for Legal Affairs, Patricia Ohlendorf, declined to comment in detail because she had not yet fully reviewed the court’s opinions.

“I can tell you that the University is very pleased that the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Federal District Judge Sam Sparks’ 2009 grant of summary judgment for the University,” Ohlendorf said. “The University has maintained our admissions policy is constitutional and follows the guidance given by the U.S. Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger. The 5th Circuit agrees with this position.”

The study, which was conducted by Harvard Graduate School of Education doctoral candidate Michael D. Hurwitz, also found that chances of acceptance increase even more dramatically for students with a parent who attended the institution. These so-called primary legacies are seven times more likely than non-legacies to gain admission if all other factors are equal, the study found.

Hurwitz, who cannot disclose whether Harvard was one of the 30 schools that provided him with data, said that there were great variations between the numbers provided by each school.

Although his study finds an overall advantage for legacies, Hurwitz said he recognizes that the consideration of a student’s status as a legacy as part of a holistic approach to evaluating applications.

“[Because of] the quality of students applying to these colleges, it can be difficult to distinguish between students. It’s a small nudge that legacies are getting in most instances,” he said explaining how he believes legacy status is applied practically. “My findings don’t suggest at all that legacies are unqualified for admission.”

Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and editor of Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions, said he believes the study supports his belief that legacies receive an unfair advantage in the college admissions process.

“The study provides further evidence that legacy preferences are not merely a feather on a scale which is only employed only in tie-breaking circumstances,” Kahlenberg said. “It suggests that in fact a preference can be quite significant.”

Pointing to a 2003 piece in the Wall Street Journal, Kahlenberg said that Harvard considers legacy status. According to the article, at that time 40 percent of Harvard legacies were accepted compared to 11 percent of applicants overall.

“Harvard is really at the center of this,” he said.

Hurwitz said that while legacy preferences mean a great deal to legacies who are applying for admission, they make little difference in the broader pool of applications because so few applicants are legacies.

According to Hurwitz, response from the participating schools has been positive as the study allows them to observe trends that they would not be able to see by analyzing their data alone.

As for the future of the legacy factor, Hurwitz said he believes the issue is up in the air.

“Sample colleges may feel that such an admission advantage is too big, too small, or just right,” he said in reference to the results of his study. “They may use the findings to reshape their policies.”

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons declined to comment on the study, stating that he needed more time to review its findings.

Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions released a new survey of college admissions officials from 386 universities. Seventy-seven percent of those officials said they felt parents have become increasingly involved in their children’s application process.

Kristen Campbell, executive director of Kaplan’s college prep programs, said they have been asking admissions officials this question on and off for the past decade, and it is not new to have more parents involved in the process. But it did increased significantly this year.

Campbell said parent involvement has increased as the admission process has gotten more competitive at large public schools and top private schools.

Wren Singer, director of the Center for First-Year Experience at U. Wisconsin, said in an email to The Badger Herald she has seen a steady increase in the involvement of parents in the lives of their college-age students.

“Unlike previous generations, parents and students in this generation are friends. They talk daily, and students consider their parents their best source of advice,” Singer said.

Campbell said it is important for parents to let their children speak for themselves when they are filling out college applications and let them ask their own questions.

Parental over-involvement can also lead to negative consequences, including students not gaining the necessary independence to navigate life on their own, Singer said.

Singer added university faculty and staff need to devote more time and resources to answer parents’ concerns.

While parents should stay informed on their child’s progress, Campbell said, they should also let their child take the wheel.

“It’s important to note parents have an important role to play in the process,” Campbell said. “These results are a little startling, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing for parents to be involved.”

She added college applications are a stressful process for students, and parents need to be supportive.

Campbell said more students are second-generation applicants, meaning at least one of their parents or siblings have gone through some form of secondary school. These family members all have their own experiences and opinions and bring them to their children’s applications.

UW sophomore Danielle Emmer said she did most of her application by herself, but her older sister — who also attends UW — helped out.

She added neither of her parents attended college so they did not know a lot of the process, but they were supportive of her decisions.

“I was on the waiting list here, and I was going to go to [UW-Whitewater,] but when I got in they said ‘Just go with whatever you feel best,’” Emmer said. “There really wasn’t any pushing on their part.”

Campbell said if students feel their parents are getting too caught up in the process they should give them a friendly reminder.

“If your parents are getting a little over the top it’s a good time to say gently and firmly you need your independence in the process, but you do still want them involved,” Campbell said.

With the fall semester in full swing, UNL is bustling with students — 24,610 students to be exact.

Last week, the university announced its enrollment has reached a 15-year high. Enrollment numbers are estimated to be up this year by 2.1 percent, according to University Communications.

The number of first-time freshmen increased by 113 students compared to fall 2009. Enrollment numbers are up for graduate students and transfer students, as well. The increase in students has swelled individual colleges.

“The College of Natural Resources experienced an increase in enrollment of 7 percent and the College of Education and Human Resources is up by 8 percent,” said Kelly Bartling, manager of news for University Communications.

Bartling said the rise in the number of students may be attributed to the bad economy and students looking for valuable degrees.

“They are looking for a brighter future instead of just focusing on where they will have the ‘best time,’” she said. “Both parents and students want to make practical decisions about college because of the economy.”

The enrollment boost may also be because of the extra recruiting efforts of the Office of Admissions during the 2009-2010 academic school year.

The selective purchasing of names from both the ACT and SAT last year made recruiting more students easier, said Pat McBride, associate dean of admissions.

“We were selective in who we contacted when recruiting,” he said. “Our recruiters were taught how to manage time so they could maximize recruiting efforts with students.”

One advantage McBride mentioned was the participation of the entire university in recruiting efforts.

“The staff, ambassadors and student hosts are always willing to talk to potential students and help them with anything they need,” McBride said.

Layne Lirette, business junior and orientation leader from Bourg, said students interested in joining the team go through a process of filling out an application, interviewing as a group and then a second individual interview. Orientation team applicants must be full-time students with at least a 2.5 GPA.

Orientation team members help new and transfer students accomplish everything they need to do to get started at Nicholls, including completing their registration.

The personal benefits of working on the team include meeting many invaluable contacts with Nicholls administration, faculty and staff, according to the 2010-2011 orientation leader application.

“I think everybody should do it,” Lirette said. “It looks really good on a resume, and you get to meet a lot of new people.”

Lirette said the orientation team helps students at Nicholls with the process of integration into the University by giving them tours of campus.

Members of the orientation team also participate in the Southern Regional Orientation Workshop, or SROW, in March.

“It is a weekend of fun,” Lirette said.

David Deroche, general studies junior from Montegut, said working as an orientation leader is a great experience.

“You meet new people, and it’s an easy way to network,” Deroche said. “You’re able to help people who are in the same situation that you were once in.”

Deroche said he enjoys being a part of the team so much that he plans on applying again after his year commitment is over.

“It is an experience of a lifetime,” Deroche said. “You would never think a job could be so fun.”

The repercussions of the $15 million cut and continued decreases in state funding include a renewed determination by the administration to pursue tuition-setting authority. The university will also hire fewer faculty members and admit fewer students.

Floyd said the freshman classes have been exceptionally large over the past three years, but this year’s class will not hit the same mark.

Though the official enrollment figures are not yet available, Vice President of Enrollment Management John Fraire said the freshman class totals 3,320 students this year.

He said WSU has significantly increased its percentage of minority students, first-generation students and students from underserved areas of the country.

Though enrollment is down, WSU received more applications this year than in past years, and recruiting new students will continue to be a focus.

Floyd called the decrease in enrollment numbers a “financial necessity.” “We made a very conscious decision that we would not have as aggressive a class as last year,” he said.

He said the decision was made based on the uncertainty of receiving state funding.

“This is yet another manifestation of the hard times,” he said.

Also on the agenda to combat budget cuts is a continuation of the Voluntary Early Retirement Program (VERP), which gives WSU employees a payout for retiring early. Along with reinstating VERP, administrators continue to push for tuition-setting authority, which would allow the WSU Board of Regents to set tuition rates rather than state legislators.

The board asked for the authority to set tuition levels last year. Though the request was not granted, the bill did pass in the House, which is the furthest a tuition-setting bill has gone in years, Floyd said. Tuition-setting authority is steadily gaining popularity with public schools across the U.S. About half of the governing boards for public institutions now have some sort of tuition-setting power, he said.

Floyd said tuition alone cannot make up for WSU’s lack of funding. Floyd cited state funding levels, which he said have historically reached 75 percent of the school’s available budget and hovered between 40 and 50 percent in the last decade. That level has now dropped to 22 percent, he said.

According to Floyd, this year’s financial outlook is bleak.

“I wish I could tell you we are at the bottom,” he said.

However, the financial hardships are not yet over, and he said that frightens him. With a projected state deficit of $3 billion this year, WSU will likely face cuts in programs or faculty, though Floyd said he does not know where the cuts would come from.

“We are not operating as robustly as we were before,” he said. Faculty is doing more with fewer resources, and hiring has slowed to a trickle, he said.

Floyd said one of his goals this year is to preserve and protect as many jobs as he can.

In a phone interview Monday evening, ASWSU President Jake Bredstrand said ASWSU stands by its decision to support legislative control of tuition. He said elected officials have higher levels of accountability than those who sit on the Board of Regents.

He said while he knows the Board has good intentions and that administrators would do their best to keep tuition levels low if given the power, tuition continues to rise. Bredstrand said he looks forward to this year’s meetings with Cougar Coalition, a group comprised of WSU leaders from the main and branch campuses who lobby on the behalf of WSU students.

Despite his reluctance to support the Board of Regents gaining tuition-setting authority, Bredstrand said he plans to meet with President Floyd to exchange ideas on the topic.

“Overall, I don’t think anyone wants to raise tuition,” he said.

Students often do not get that second chance to prove their worth in the college admissions process. But in the past year, the University’s admissions office has been working to make the process more of a conversation then a jurisdiction.

This year was the first time the admissions appeals system was publicized on the University’s website. Although many students are learning about this process for the first time, University Spokeswoman Robin Kaler said that the program itself has been in place for a while.

“For students who have shared new and compelling information with admissions counselors, we have always told them about the process and encouraged them to use it,” Kaler said.

This past year, only 157 students applied for an appeal. Of those students only 18 had their decision overturned. Eighteen other students requested admission into a different college on campus, but only three of those were successful. Kaler said that most requests are denied because students don’t provide appeal-worthy facts.

“A successful appeal must contain new and compelling information, so students can’t simply restate information in their original application, nor can their reasoning be some variation of ‘I really, really want to go to Illinois,’” Kaler said.

When asked about this process, many students supported the idea of an appeals process. Jessica Kenneally, freshman in Business, said she thinks the timing of college applications can have an adverse effect on someone’s initial application.

“It was really stressful going through that last year,” Kenneally said. “You write so many essays and have so much going on. Maybe if that’s not your best work or they don’t get the right idea out of you, you should at least get the opportunity to appeal.”

Ian Hilgers, junior in Business, said he believes students have to earn their appeal.

“I believe they should have a chance but you can only go so far,” Hilgers said. “I think based on what has happened to them, they should get a chance to go through a new selection process. If they have qualifications, ACT scores, grades, extracurriculars that are better than people who got in, then they should be allowed in as well.”

According to the official appeals application form, all appeals must be submitted before May 1 of the student’s application year.

Students are seldom exposed to the complicated college admissions processes. Students receive numerous envelopes – some big, some small, and of course, that big black one from DePauw – and once deposits are sent in, the applications and admissions processes appears to be a black-and-white matter. At face value, students get in or they don’t. It seems simple.

But in the occasion that an admitted student fails to remain in good standing at his or her high school after expressing intent to enroll at a college, the lines between acceptance and rejection blur to gray.

Kitzinger, who intended to play basketball at DePauw, was expelled from Carmel High School along with three other young men. In February, news emerged that the four were facing hazing allegations following incidents which occurred among members of the high school’s basketball team. On May 17, the men turned themselves in to the Hamilton County Jail and were released on bail 12 hours later. Kitzinger pleaded not guilty to charges of misdemeanor counts of battery and criminal recklessness, and his criminal trial is scheduled for Sept. 17.

Until the case is resolved, regardless of the results it yields, DePauw’s decision-making process remains in limbo. As an outside party interested in the case, DePauw is not privy to the Carmel Police Department’s investigation and has little access to information about it.

“It’s been very, very hard for us,” said President Brian Casey. “We’re dealing with imperfect information. … We’re waiting for the totality of the situation to be settled.”

In the meantime, Casey said he now recognizes the need to clarify admissions processes, despite the rarity of a situation like Kitzinger’s.

Typically, when a student’s good standing falters – whether it be expulsion, suspension or poor academic performance – after being accepted to DePauw but prior to enrollment, the admission office receives a “change in status” report from a high school. Such a report is grounds for the university to re-evaulate a student’s admission, but there are no precedents at DePauw in institutional memory for the situation with which it is currently dealing.

“It had kind of rumbled up in the media,” Casey said. “We then knew we had to try to understand what was going on.”

Easier said than done. Kitzinger’s attorneys requested a gag order on the case, which restricts availability of public information, as well as a change of the trial’s venue out of concern that media coverage could hinder Kitzinger’s chances of receiving a fair trial, according to a July 27 article in the Indianapolis Star.

Dan Meyer, vice president of Admission and Financial Aid, said that, in his 30-plus years as an admissions administrator, he has never encountered a case like this.

“I can think of about three students, after the fact, after they’ve been admitted, maybe even after they’ve paid an acceptance deposit, have been suspended,” Meyer said. “Each one of those are handled kind of on an individual basis, depending on the circumstance.”

The circumstance is exactly what DePauw is waiting to be clarified. Casey said, since Kitzinger’s admission is a hot topic among his cabinet, it sparked a re-evaluation of DePauw’s policies.

“It’s not something that keeps me awake at night,” Meyer said. “But I do think it is something that at least merits some consideration internally as we move forward.”

With Kitzinger’s criminal trial approaching, a change of venue has not yet been granted, and there are reports that a plea bargain may be in the pipeline.

“What ought we do in these situations?” Casey said. “Should there be a framework that guides us? Having gone through it, the answer is clearly yes. Oh, yes.”

For a timeline of the university’s action in the Robert Kiztinger case, click here.

Drawing from a pool of over 12,500 students, this year’s freshman class was derived from the largest number of applicants in College history, and continues a five-year trend of increased applications.

“Excitement and reinvigoration always characterize the arrival of new cohorts of undergraduate, professional and graduate students,” College President Taylor Reveley said. “This is especially true when our new students are strikingly accomplished. Those arriving this August are just that — smart, committed and talented in countless respects. It will be great to have them with us.”

The admittance rate for this year’s class of 1,400 was 32 percent, down from 34 percent for the class of 2013. The class of 2014 also arrives with a middle 50th percentile of 1280-1430 on the math and critical reading sections of the SAT.

Seventy-nine percent of enrolling students whose high schools provided class ranks ranked in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes.

“The academic profile of this class is stellar,” Dean of Admissions Henry Broaddus said. “They arrive in Williamsburg with an impressive record of achievements both in and out of the classroom. Admitting this class from so large a pool with so many talented applicants presented us with an exciting and difficult challenge.”

Sixty-five percent of incoming students are from Virginia, and 26 percent of arriving freshmen are students of color. The class of 2014 includes 44 international students, while 140 are the first members of their families to attend college.

“They are an intelligent and engaged group that cares about the world around them, and we are confident they will make their mark at William & Mary,” Broaddus said in a press release.

This change, along with Georgetown’s decision to “strongly recommend” rather than require the submission of three Subject Test scores, marks the end of a three-Subject Test requirement at any university in the nation, according to a National Association for College Admission Counseling report.

Dean of Admission and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons said that the decision—which was made in March by a faculty committee and will affect students vying for spots in the Class of 2015—was arrived at based on a review of the validity of the writing portion of the standard SAT in predicting students’ grades at Harvard.

Fitzsimmons said that the writing test has proven to be “just as good a predictor” of students’ grades at Harvard as another SAT Subject Test.

Before the writing test was introduced in 2005, Harvard required a total of five scores on an 800-point scale from applicants—results from the math and critical reading sections of the SAT, along with three Subject Tests.  The advent of the SAT writing section temporarily increased that number to six before the latest change in Harvard’s policy.

Some Harvard hopefuls said they viewed the new policy as an indication that the Admissions Office will be giving less weight to standardized tests.

“I though maybe Harvard was taking the emphasis off of standardized testing,” said Akaash N. Gupta, a high school senior who plans to apply to Harvard this fall, of his initial reaction to the news that the College will now only require two Subject Test scores.

Katherine Y. Wang, Gupta’s classmate at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, agreed.

“I’m thinking they’re just not relying as much on standardized testing,” Wang said.

But Fitzsimmons said the change is not a reflection of a depreciation of standardized testing but the implementation of a new arrangement that resembles its pre-writing test policy.

In terms of the number of tests Harvard requires of its applicants, “we’re right back where we were before,” he said.

Despite the decrease in mandatory scores, Fitzsimmons said that he expects some students will submit more scores than are required.

Wang, for example, said she has already taken four of the tests—Math II, Chinese, Biology, and Chemistry.

“They just lined up with my classes,” she said. “I might just submit all four.  I’m pretty happy with them.”

Evan C. Ramsey, a senior at a public high school in California who has already taken three Subject Tests, applauded Harvard’s new policy and said that the change may affect his decision on which scores to submit.

“I’m very happy,” Ramsey said of the new policy. “It wouldn’t completely shatter my hopes if three were required, but it’s kind of nice not to have to worry about that third.”

Ramsey said that since he expected to be required to submit three scores, he started taking the tests during his sophomore year, when he says he was not well enough prepared to score highly on these tests.  He said that two tests is a more reasonable expectation for students.

“It’s good that they’re lowering the requirement,” he said, adding that AP tests and class grades already fulfill a similar evaluative function. “You can see the type of student a person is from two of them—or none at all.”

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that U. Iowa will have 400 more incoming freshmen than it can support this coming fall because of to miscalculation by its admissions staff.

Whoopsy daisy.

Colleges always extend offers of admission to more students than they expect will attend, then rely on complex algorithms to ensure that the number of students who ultimately accept is proportional to the available space on campus. But it seems that the numbers were off this fall for the Iowa admissions staff, and as a result its incoming freshman class is overcrowded by 10 percent.

While the error is a pleasant one for the school’s administration (more students equals mucho dinero), it’s not great news for students already attending the school who will have to deal with overcrowded classes throughout their college career.

The Times compares the situation to an airline overbooking a flight, so perhaps it would be advisable to deal with the problem in a similar manner. The university could e-mail all incoming freshmen offering a tuition stipend to the first 400 students who agree to sit out their first year of college and then begin their secondary education a year later presumably in an appropriately sized class.

But offering tuition stipends isn’t in the cards for U. Iowa, which, like U. Texas, is suffering from budget cuts. In fact, the overcrowding is largely a byproduct of its efforts to curb budget reductions. Admission officials recruited students in China, South Korea and India, and these international students not only bring diversity to the campus but also pay out-of-state tuition, which is $16,000 more expensive than in-state tuition in Iowa.

Their plan worked.

Of the roughly 2,200 international students who applied to the school, 430 accepted, an increase of 68 percent.

There are currently 4,360 international students at UT, and as non-Texas residents, international students pay $21,076 more per year than in-state students.

The result is that roughly 10 percent of the university’s incoming freshman class will be international, with students from China alone making up 8 percent of the class. Even more bizarre is that for the first time ever, less than half the class will be composed of students actually from the state of Iowa. In comparison, 69 percent of last year’s freshman class at Iowa State — the state’s other flagship university — was composed of in-state students.

As the Times article points out, when recruiting in unfamiliar places, traditional algorithms to determine admissions are of little use. This seems obvious, and the failure to recognize such isn’t a flattering reflection on Iowa’s statistics program.
While it had planned to gradually increase the size of its freshman class, its oversight leaves the University of Iowa without the infrastructure to support the incoming class. The university will provide the overflow of incoming freshmen with makeshift living spaces in common areas until other living arrangements are secured.

At the very least, the dynamic at the school should be fascinating. For every five incoming freshmen from the state of Iowa, there will be one incoming freshman from China.

Ultimately, the embarrassing episode at the Midwestern school should serve as a precaution to other schools that heavily recruit international students to secure more out-of-state tuition money. Beyond that, it should serve as a warning to Iowa high school students hoping to one day become Hawkeyes. The university’s priorities have been made clear, and serving native Iowans, whose taxes help fund the school, does not appear to be one of them.

NEW ORLEANS — U. Texas’ top 10 percent rule hasn’t increased racial diversity in classrooms, so judges must decide whether the rule is in the interest of the state of Texas, a plaintiff attorney said Tuesday.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the legal challenge and UT’s legal defense in Fisher v. Texas, a case in which two white applicants sued the University after being denied admission.

Plaintiffs Abigail Fisher and Rachel Michalewicz claim the University’s use of race as a component of the holistic admissions review violates their 14th Amendment rights — a claim rejected by an Austin district judge last year.

The appeals court is not expected to make a decision anytime soon, and it isn’t clear if the court will decide on the case in the next few months, said Patricia Ohlendorf, UT’s vice president for legal affairs.

The arguments, the questions and the rebuttals

Bert Rein, a defense attorney for Fisher and Michalewicz, was first to take the stand before the three-judge panel. He said the top 10 percent rule, as a race-neutral method of increasing racial diversity, has not “moved the needle” very far in UT classrooms after Hopwood v. Texas, a case in which the federal Fifth Circuit Court ruled that the UT School of Law could not use race as a direct criteria for admission.

“This case calls upon this court to apply the Supreme Court’s decision in Grutter [v. Bolinger, the 2003 Michigan law school case that overturned Hopwood,] in fundamentally different circumstances,” Rein said. “The parties don’t agree on much, but [we do] agree that for [race and ethnicity as admissions criteria] to continue, it must serve as a compelling state interest.”

Rein said the Grutter decision involved a law school rather than an entire university. Judge Patrick Higginbotham interrupted Rein and asked what flaw he sees in the admission process.

“[The top 10 percent rule] appears to use race contextually,” Higginbotham said. “They look at an individual [in a holistic way,] and that is perfectly usable under Grutter.”

Rein said a look at the University as a whole reveals that there is no campuswide problem of diversity, as 40 percent of the student body is composed of minority groups, and that there is no explicit number that achieves the racial diversity espoused in “critical mass” theory.

“The [critical mass] argument is that [minority students] want to look around a see a few other friendly faces, whom they can get together with and share this experience,” UT law professor Sanford Levinson said. “Where the fighting comes in is over how many students do you need … and no one has a cogent argument as to what the right number is.”

Judge Carolyn King said it is “perfectly legitimate” to judge critical mass by the number of minority students in a classroom.

Higginbotham said at a university the size of UT, it is mathematically impossible to have minority representation in every classroom.

When Texas Solicitor General James Ho took the stand, he said the flaw in Rein’s central argument is that he claims UT is composed of minority students by lumping African-American and Hispanic groups together.

“They only argue that UT does not need such policy,” Ho said. “I want to focus on [the fact that Rein] says UT would have achieved critical mass if only we had lumped [the Hispanic and African-American] minority groups into one. That’s precisely the kind of groupings that the Supreme Court has rejected. You’re not supposed to be a spokesman of your own race, let alone others. It’s wrong as a factual matter.”

Higginbotham nodded in agreement.

King asked what Ho’s response was to Rein’s assertion that UT hasn’t moved the needle in terms of racial diversity in the classroom.

“Their whole theory of why we don’t need this [policy] is that they lump these groups together and use their own measuring stick [to gauge the policy’s success],” Ho said. “That’s really their entire case. Critical mass is not a specific number; we use a concept to [measure the top 10 percent rule].”

He said Rein was mischaracterizing the policy to dramatize a problem that UT has acknowledged and is addressing.

“One of the things that bothers me about this is that it’s different from the Michigan law school [case],” Judge Emilio Garza said. Garza asked Ho how he could apply the Grutter decision to UT considering the differences between the cases.

Garza also said the top 10 percent rule is a good way to find students who have worked hard to be at the top of their own high schools, regardless of the quality of the school itself.

Josh Civin, an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People who represented the Black Student Association, spoke to the court for five minutes.

“Grutter was clear in that you don’t have to choose: You can be an elite university and also have diversity,” Civin said. “To come to the classroom study point, we sense that even a small increase in African-Americans in classrooms will help comfort incoming students.”

Garza said the African-American groups have different dynamics and may not be judged by the critical mass theory in the same way.

“That’s why they shouldn’t be lumped together,” Civin said.

Rein later said affirmative action lumps minority students together in its measurements and that the admission process is a zero-sum game.

“The more you invade those spaces with preferences, [the more applicants are] owed a compelling argument from the state,” Rein said.

After the oral arguments

Outside the courtroom, Ohlendorf said the judges asked good, insightful questions and were obviously taking the case seriously.

Rein said he was pleased the judges allowed him to speak and gave him a fair chance to answer their questions. Rein said the court seems to think the top 10 percent rule is a good way to find leaders and that the court will continue to take the case seriously because it’s the first time an appellate court has been able to write an opinion about the use of race in admissions policy.

Additional reporting by Nolan Hicks.

Any prospective undergraduate student who submits an application by Nov. 1 this year will not be required to submit an ACT or SAT score with their application, according to Greg Grauman, Director of the Office of Admissions.

However, these applicants will not hear back from AU about their admissions decision any earlier than students who submit their Early Decision applications by Nov. 15.

This test-optional pilot program is an expansion of a similar admissions program held last year, in which students who applied Early Decision to AU had the option to exclude their standardized test scores from their application.

If prospective students choose to withhold their standardized test scores, admission officers’ view of their applications will not be negatively influenced, Grauman said.

Grauman said the decision to expand the test-optional pilot program this year was due in large part to the successes of last year’s test-optional pilot program for Early Decision students.

The Office of Admissions saw a 48 percent increase in the number of Early Decision applications from multicultural students last year. Offers of admission to qualified multicultural students increased by 20 percent.

A number of other colleges and universities have adopted similar test-optional policies. More than 830 four-year colleges currently do not use the SAT or ACT to admit substantial numbers of bachelor’s degree applicants, according to Fairtest.org, the website for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. These include other D.C. area schools such as George Mason University, the University of the District of Columbia and Gallaudet University.

Grauman stressed that this new test score-optional deadline is still a pilot program and not yet an actual policy.

“A much broader, university-wide, discussion would occur before any policy decisions were made,” Grauman said.

The test-optional pilot program has the support of Provost Scott Bass. He said this program helps the university achieve its goal of increasing the number of underrepresented students seeking admission at AU.

“Eliminating the need to submit standardized test scores is likely to attract more ‘best fit’ students to American University,” Bass said in an e-mail.

Bass also pointed out that this new policy could give applicants the opportunity to submit a more well-rounded application to AU.

“Allowing applicants to choose whether or not to submit their [test scores] will provide them with a little more control over what aspects of their application they would like to emphasize and how they present themselves to the admissions committee,” he said.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments on Aug. 3 for Fisher v. Texas, a case that challenges the state’s top 10 percent rule.

Abigail Fisher and Rachel Michalewicz, two former applicants to U. Texas, filed suit in 2008 after they were denied admission because they were not in the top 10 percent of their high schools. The Texas law, passed in 1997, mandates that state universities automatically admit the top 10 percent of students in any Texas high school.

Patricia Ohlendorf, UT’s vice president of legal affairs, said Tuesday the plaintiffs realize that for the law to be changed, the case would need to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“[If the case goes before the Supreme Court], my speculation would be that [the court] would have a much more conservative view on [the use of race in admission policy] and restrict the use of it,” she said. “There could be some policy changes, but we’ll have to wait and see what they say if the case goes to the court.”

Edward Blum, founder of Project on Fair Representation, the organization that, according to The Texas Tribune, is paying the attorneys for Fisher and Michalewicz, said the top 10 percent rule re-introduces race considerations into admission policy after it was banned in the 1996 case Hopwood v. Texas.

In 1992, Cheryl Hopwood sued the University, claiming that the UT School of Law favored black and Mexican-American applicants over her. Four years later, Hopwood won on appeal after the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court ruled that race considerations in the admission process as unconstitutional, according to online documents in the Tarlton Law Library.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Hopwood decision in a 2003 case called Grutter v. Bollinger, in which the court backed the affirmative action admission policy of the University of Michigan Law School.

“As long as the top 10 percent rule is in place, the re-introduction of race-based affirmative action is unfair and unconstitutional,” Blum said. “Do we want the color of our skin or our ethnic heritage to be used to favor or disfavor us in the admissions process? Or should we be judged individually? I believe your individual accomplishments, merits and ambition should be the defining essence of whether you’re admitted to a university or college.”

In a 2009 piece written for the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Blum said Fisher v. Texas may “finally compel universities to actually implement a variety of race-neutral admission alternatives just as the court specified,” and that the top 10 percent law was implemented to curb the sudden decrease in minority enrollment at UT and Texas A&M.

During the years after the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bakke v. Regents of the University of California to allow race to be a consideration in college admission policy, the UT School of Law’s admission rates for blacks hovered between 3.2 and 9.3 percent and the rate for Mexican-Americans hovered between 9.7 percent and 14.3 percent. The year after the Hopwood decision, the rates dropped to 0.9 percent for blacks and 5.6 percent for Mexican-Americans. With the top 10 percent rule in place, those rates rose steadily to 4 and 8 percent, respectively, in 2004.

Lino Graglia, a UT law professor, said the plaintiffs’ claim that the top 10 percent rule discriminates in favor of other races over them is untenable.
“The whole point of the top 10 percent rule is to avoid explicit race discrimination. Race is never mentioned [in the state law],” Graglia said. “The only reason they switched to the 10 percent rule is to get more blacks and Mexican-Americans. Because there are some schools [in Texas] that are racially separate, if we have a top 10 percent rule, you’ll wind up getting [more minority students.]”

This week’s Spend A Summer Day marks the start of the new social media push by Penn State’s Admissions Office.

Over the course of the two-week event, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions will post on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, recording the event and communicating with guests and those involved, Undergraduate Admissions Officer Alison Herget said.

One thing admissions is introducing to the Spend A Summer Day festivities is the live Twitter feed screen, Undergraduate Admissions Officer Jenna Spinelle said. Anyone who includes the hashtag #SASD10 in their tweets will show up on the screen.

This Spend A Summer Day is like a “test” for admissions, she said — if the push is a success, admissions might use sites like Twitter for more events.

“We’re looking to engage more with prospective students and their families,” Spinelle said. “We’re really not sure how it’s going to go.”

Spinelle said social networking sites could be good for connecting with students and their families, as well as with other Penn State groups and departments.

Admissions has been utilizing Facebook for about a year but has only recently started using Twitter on its own, Herget said.

“What we’re trying to do is give our visitors a new and exciting way to interact with us,” she said.

A screen displaying the Twitter feed is located in the HUB-Robeson Center, Herget said. The HUB also houses admissions’ “social media hub” where employees can upload content on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr, Herget said. She said she also hopes people will use their phones throughout Spend A Summer Day and share content.

Student volunteers with Flip Video camcorders will be recording video during the event, she added.

Herget said admissions is hesitant to announce any future social networking plans because the office first wants to try it out to “see what the response is.”

Rishi Agrawal said he wouldn’t be adverse to an expansion in admissions’ presence online.

“I think those would be useful places to find answers,” Agrawl (freshman-biochemistry and molecular biology) said.

Agrawl does not follow Penn State Admissions online, but he does connect to other students on Penn State Facebook pages, like the group for Schreyer Honors College students, Class of 2014, he said.

But he said he thinks pages run by students would be something especially helpful for other students like him to find answers.

In a piece entitled “The Roots of White Anxiety” that ran Sunday, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat addressed several recent revelations about the widespread social effects that affirmative action policies have spawned over the years. The column draws heavily on a 2009 study by Princeton sociologists Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Radford that reviewed admissions practices at eight highly selective universities. They found that the process favored black and Hispanic applicants at the expense of whites and Asians.

But the study also uncovered startling facts about some less-acknowledged practices. In regard to socioeconomic status, Espenshade and Radford found that among white applicants, those from wealthy families were three times more likely to be admitted than those from lower-class families with similar qualifications.

Also troubling, the study found that students involved with organizations such as R.O.T.C., 4-H or Future Farmers of America were actually less likely to be offered admission. The most underrepresented groups at these schools tend to be poor, rural whites. Douthat writes, “Consciously or unconsciously, the gatekeepers of elite education seem to incline against candidates who seem too stereotypically rural, right-wing or like ‘Red America.’”

Douthat theorizes that these policies have helped fuel the polarization of the nation, where working-class whites are denied access to top universities and paranoid attitudes toward academia are developed.

Access to higher education is an issue of rights. The current recession and bleak job market have highlighted the importance of education and, particularly, a college diploma. By discriminating against certain demographics, the admissions departments at elite universities are purposefully repressing those people.
Luckily, here in Texas we don’t have to cope with the same fears of social engineering via college admissions.

In 1997 the State Legislature passed the oft-maligned top 10 percent law, which mandated that students who graduate ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school class must be offered admission to any state university. The law was recently amended to cap the number of students admitted under the law to 75 percent of the incoming freshman class; it is now estimated students would need to be ranked in the top 8 percent to be offered admission.

Critics of the law say it forces the University to turn away qualified students from academically strong high schools in favor of less-qualified students from weaker schools. The argument follows that a student in the 11th percentile at a strong school is smarter than a student in the ninth percentile at a weaker school, and thus more deserving of admission. Never mind that labels like “strong” and “weak” schools are often interchangeable with “rich” and “poor” school districts.

Opponents point to the difference in standardized test scores between the two groups: Non-top 10 percent admits averaged 110 points higher on the SAT than their top 10 counterparts. However, the SAT is far from a clear indicator of intelligence. It’s been proven there is a direct correlation between family income and SAT score; it’s amazing what an expensive prep course can do to one’s score. To some extent, it’s measuring your bank account, not intellect.

In reality, the perceived academic disparity is just that: perceived. During each of the past five years, top 10 percent admits have had higher average freshman year GPAs than non-top 10 students.

That’s not to say the status quo is ideal. The top 10, now 8, percent law is not a perfect system. For example, under the law, UT is the only university of its caliber to boast a single-criteria admissions system, meaning the only qualification for admission is a student’s high school GPA. This system dissuades students from partaking in extracurricular activities, enrolling in challenging classes that don’t offer pre-AP or AP boosts or any other action that jeopardizes their GPA.

However, the law has excelled in one particular area. While top universities across the country have shut their doors on certain groups, as proven by Espenshade and Radford’s study, the top 10 percent law has done just the opposite. In a study that analyzed the three years after the passage of the top 10 percent law, former Director of the Center for Mexican American Studes David Montejano found that UT saw the greatest increase in growth from three areas: inner-city minority high schools in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio, rural white high schools in East and Northeast Texas and “mixed” rural schools in West and South Texas.

So, while other top universities were enrolling more ethnic minorities at the perceived expense of working-class and rural whites, UT was increasing representation of both groups.

The saving grace of the top 10 percent law was that it’s helped the University maintain both diversity and accessibility. That buzzword, “diversity,” is about more than just the photo-op rainbow of students that private colleges put on their recruitment brochures. The top 10 percent law has helped to sculpt a flagship university as diverse as the state it serves.

As we make changes to the current law and remedy its deficiencies, it would be wise to recognize those areas where top 10 percent has excelled. By capping the number of students who are offered automatic admission, the University is free to evaluate the rest of its freshman class from a more holistic perspective — a much needed reform that will strengthen the student body. Though, the University should keep diversity in the appropriate context and recognize its multiple variables, including geography and socioeconomic status.

Ranking high school students’ academic success against that of their peers is a tradition.

Tradition or not, 40 percent of high schools across the nation have kicked class rank off transcripts or simply don’t provide it to colleges at all, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

So June 22, when Minnesota’s Mounds View Public Schools voted at a board meeting to pull class rank from its high school transcripts starting in 2011, parents and students alike paid attention.

“The concern or criticism that we heard from a couple of folks is that we need to have competition,” Jon Tynjala, chairman of the Mounds View School Board said of the issue originally raised by parent comments and state-wide trends away from ranking.

Tynjala added, “We need to have competition that is actually meaningful.”

The argument against class rank is that oftentimes in high-performing districts such as Mounds View, the difference between the first person in a class and the 50th is next to nothing — .3 points, for example, on a grade point average scale of four.

“Distinction without a difference” is the name of the problem, Tynjala said.

A large concentration of students bunched together at the top of a class vying for the number one spot can distort perceptions of a student’s success.

Both parents and colleges have the potential to overlook the tremendous accomplishment found in even having a GPA of 3.7, for example, to begin with.

Anya Cleaver, a student who graduated this spring from Irondale High School within the Mounds View School District, applied to U. Minnesota, was waitlisted, but was never accepted.

“If I hadn’t given my class rank I do think that I would have been accepted immediately,” Cleaver said.

Cleaver cited test results as a better show of the kind of work she can produce and noted that students who take easier classes often receive better grades and have a higher GPA.

But for all the criticisms that coincide with keeping class rank, going without it presents its own challenges.

“In most cases, we believe it’s beneficial to applicants if their high school provides us with a class rank,” Dr. Wayne Sigler, director of admissions at the University’s Twin Cities campus, said. “This is especially true if a student is on what we call the bubble with respect to being admitted.”

Because class rank is still one of the four primary factors the University considers when admitting freshmen, going without rank can leave the University with a less clear understanding of how students will measure up to their future classmates, Sigler said.

This year, the University received around 36,000 freshmen admission applications. That’s 36,000 applicants for a class targeted to be between 5,200 and 5,300 this fall.

Roughly 50 percent of freshmen admitted for fall 2010 graduated in the top 10 percent of their class.

“The more information we have about each applicant, the more able we are to make the most informed application decision possible,” Sigler said of prospective students.

However, Sigler stressed that the admissions department at the University respects the prerogative of high schools to nix class rank and assured that students will not be disadvantaged should their school opt to omit their standing.

Applications at the University are judged “holistically,” Sigler said, and the admissions overview website itself notes class rank, if available, as a contributing factor.

Omitting class rank does not necessarily mean students will receive admissions reply letters that begin with “we regret to inform you …” if they are altogether strong candidates for the University.

In fact, not having a class rank provided by a student’s high school makes more work for the University. The University “must approximate where an applicant ranks in comparison to his or her peers,” according to Sigler.

This comparison is carried out by determining whether a student is in the top, middle or lower division of his class according to the graduating class’ profile provided by an applicant’s high school. Comparisons such as this, Sigler noted, are not as precise as rankings provided by the high schools themselves.

Among debate over the advantages and disadvantages of class rank, Mounds View Public Schools, for one, has instituted a system that allows people on both sides of the table to choose whether rank will exist for their specific student.

Transcripts will omit class rank by default, but students and parents will have the option to request that rank be published on a transcript through the student’s high school counselor.

With 15,979 of those applicants being offered admission as of Jun. 1, the press release projected that 6,350 students will begin classes as freshmen in the fall, setting an all-time record for freshman class size at the University and topping last year’s enrollment numbers by some 300 students.

Erica Sanders, the director of recruitment and operations for the University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, weighed in on the implications of an unusually large incoming class for the University community.

Sanders said the record number of projected freshman for the 2010-2011 academic year is an anomaly at the school, and while it reveals an increasing level of prestige for the University, the increase in the size of the campus community was not the goal of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

“Admissions have been competitive to the University of Michigan for a number of years,” Sanders said. “We look for a vibrant class of students the University can learn from and teach to explore many different academic opportunities. But large volume isn’t really our goal.”

The University confirmed in the press release that 6,900 students out of those who have been accepted have paid their enrollment deposits thus far — a 43.2 percent yield rate of those accepted to the University.

With the possibility that some students who have already submitted enrollment deposits will eventually decide not to attend the University, the projected size reaches its current number of 6,350 students.

As a result of the increased size in the freshman class, Sanders noted that the University is in the process of making sure all students will be properly accommodated in the fall.

“The University has created a working group to make sure incoming students have a good year next year,” she said. “From making sure the dining halls will be able to serve everyone … to the availability of classes.”

Sanders said that the management of the admissions process “is more of an art than a science” in working to eliminate any possible problems in the application and enrollment process for prospective students and their families.

But Sanders said some factors, like the economy, are out of the hands of admissions officers. For that aspect, Sanders said the University works to ease the financial burden of paying for college.

“The University responded to concerns families had,” she said. “The Office of Financial Aid worked to provide individual assistance with planning to ease any financial concerns.”

In their meeting last month, the University’s Board of Regents voted to approve a 1.5-percent tuition increase for in-state students and a 3-percent tuition increase for out-of-state students.

The in-state tuition increase is the smallest approved by the Board of Regents in 26 years.

Sanders said she believes the University’s choice to present a more modest increase in tuition has helped to ease the concerns of those preparing to pay for new students’ educations.

The University is not the only school to have a growing applicant pool, according to Sanders, who said she believes students are beginning to apply to a greater number of colleges and that the overall college application volume is up.

The University also announced its official switch to the Common Application for students considering applying to the University in future years.

Sanders said while the ultimate decision to switch to the Common Application happened in the Office of Admissions, the decision was also supported by the University’s executives.

Ted Spencer, executive director of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and associate vice provost for the University, said the desire to improve the overall application process led the Office of Admissions to join the Common Application network.

“U-M decided to join the Common Application because we are always looking for ways to do better,” Spencer said in the press release. “Especially in these challenging economic times, we are looking for ways to do better with less. We believe the Common App will streamline the application process for students, teachers, and counselors.”

Sanders added that while the use of the Common Application could initially save the Office of Admissions money, it is too early to determine if the application network will ultimately be a source of financial savings.

“It’s too early to tell,” Sanders said. “Reports from peer schools indicate an increase in applications, and the savings in application vendor may mean additional money spent for processing.”

The University’s use of the Common Application network will begin Aug. 1, marking the first day applications for the 2011-2012 school year may be submitted, according to the press release.

Incoming U. Texas freshmen don’t share the college rejection stories of Abigail Fisher and Rachel Michalewicz. But if they have spoken to any sample of their peers, they are familiar with the storyline.

In the spring of 2008, Fisher and Michalewicz received rejection letters from UT. Neither student was in the top 10 percent of her graduating class, but each was close. In April 2008, during the same admission season they had been rejected, Fisher and Michalewicz filed a suit against the University, claiming that the undergraduate admissions policies violate the Equal Protection Clause and federal civil rights statutes. In August 2009, U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks rejected the girls’ claim, reaffirming the legality of the University’s admissions policies.

Fisher and Michaelwicz appealed, and the case is still pending at the fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Regardless of the outcome in the fifth Circuit (no hearing date has been scheduled), it will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court.

In March, the Obama administration issued an amicus brief in support of UT and its admission policies — policies that are not always spelled out, particularly to those whom they affect.

For Texas high school seniors not in the top 10 percent (or now, in the top 8 percent) of their graduating class, gaining admission to UT-Austin requires a little hocus-pocus. For instance, high school seniors have been known to submit their applications at a very specific time in the year, apply to a school they deem easier to gain admission to, disregard the instructions about application essays, change the margins of their resume to make it longer and try other ludicrous tactics that seem to be getting more extreme as applicant numbers and competition rise.

UT admissions officers are sent around the state to dispel rumors that such practices achieve any kind of success. “Yes, we read the essay, so don’t use emoticons,” I recall one officer said, speaking in my high school gymnasium on college fair night. Each year, a few high school students outside the top 10 percent are admitted, but most are not, and the next year, the whole circus begins afresh.

Fisher and Michalewicz are the first to challenge a university’s affirmative action policies nationally since the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, which was related to admissions at the University of Michigan Law School. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said: “The law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body is not prohibited.”

Fisher and Michalewicz are, in effect, challenging the Grutter decision and UT’s current admissions policy, which allows race to be considered as a factor.

The University lays out its sometimes elusive admissions policies quite clearly in its Fifth Circuit brief: “Based on these three factors — class rank, AI [academic index] and PAI [personal achievement index] — UT offers admission to applicants at the following four stages: (1) admission based on class rank or AI alone; (2) holistic admission under the AI/PAI process to the applicant’s preferred academic program; (3) holistic admission based on AI/PAI as an undeclared major in the College of Liberal Arts; or (4) admission through the summer enrollment program or the Coordinated Admissions Program.”

That race is included as factor in the personal achievement index is the basis of the objections lodged by Fisher and Michalewicz. But the consideration UT admissions officers afford race is slim: “UT considers race in its admissions process as a factor of a factor of a factor of a factor,” wrote Sparks, the district court judge, in his opinion rejecting the girls’ claims.

So UT is arguing that its minimal consideration of race is in accordance with the Grutter decision. Fisher and Michaelwicz are charging that any consideration of race, and specifically UT’s, is unconstitutional. Just like applicants outside the top 10 percent of their high school class trying to outsmart an admissions policy, the litigants on both sides of this case are trying to game the precedent of Grutter, and undoubtedly are not expecting to overturn it entirely. Arguments about the validity of affirmative action policies are probably a good idea in general, but, in this case, the two sides are dancing so closely around the edges of the Grutter decision that the real question of how to set priorities when choosing between diversity and guarantees of equal opportunity is getting side-stepped.

A result of advanced home schooling by her two parents, who are both retired engineers, her academic achievement has raised her parents’ confidence in her potential, but has  also created controversy over age requirements for college admission.

Lake-Sumter Community College (LSCC) in Leesburg was recently faced with the difficult task of having to reject Anastasia’s application.

Despite her parents’ wishful thinking and overzealous attempts to fast-forward their daughter’s life, a college campus is not an appropriate place for a child.

“Anyone basically can walk onto our campus,” LSCC President Charles Mojock said to the Orlando Sentinel. “So we’ve got a very different environment (than a high school) … And we have many adult students having adult conversations on adult topics, and that may or may not be suitable for some young students.”

Stated correctly by Mojock, a college campus is quite different from other places of learning like high school or one’s home, as in Anastasia’s case.

Not considering the college environment outside the classroom, which a younger student could possibly avoid, discussions that take place in a college classroom are often serious in nature, with graphic content and language in some instances.

A child could possibly be exposed to graphic adult content, but most problematic is that the other students in the class may not feel comfortable discussing certain topics and may censor themselves with a child in the room.

Anastasia’s parents filed an age-discrimination complaint against the school with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

“If she meets all the qualifications but for her age, then why not let her in?” Louise Racine, Anastasia’s mother, said to the Sentinel. “What’s the worst that can happen, honestly? If a child does pass these tests, don’t you think they should be allowed to continue their education to the next level and continue to let their minds grow?”

There is a reason why college application requirements are not based solely on memorization and the testing required to complete high school coursework, but on other important achievements as well.

The ability to interact socially with peers and authority figures, make friends, play sports, participate in clubs and other important accomplishments are developed while attending school in a traditional manner and should not be disregarded, but appreciated and required if a college is to be composed of well-rounded potential graduates.

While an exact age for one to enter college may be debatable, beginning early in adolescence is not appropriate.

Colleges shouldn’t be willing to compromise traditional students’ learning environments because some parents hold a distorted view of what constitutes an education.

The New York Times reported on the trend earlier this year, but it is always a good time to talk about making college campuses more welcoming to diverse students.

With every piece on the importance of equal rights for all college students, we, as a society, are closer to achieving that goal. Ideally, students should feel comfortable applying to every single college in the U.S. But because that is not yet the case, I thought I would highlight some of the benefits of these new college fairs.

A university sets the tone of its campus with its rules, policies and procedures. By openly recruiting gay students, these universities are telling the students — and the world — that they will not stand for the type of discrimination that is unfortunately still present throughout the U.S.

Hopefully, as each college moves toward ending useless prejudice against students, parts of the country will follow in its footsteps.

Finding a school that is welcoming of your sexual orientation can make the entire process of higher education easier. Recently, scholarships and additional financial aid have been created to help pay for some of the costs of colleges from groups such as the Point Foundation, the League Foundation at AT&T, and COLAGE — Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere.

A student who is uncomfortable talking about his or her sexual orientation because of fears of discrimination on campus could miss these great opportunities.

It is not fair that a deserving student might avoid specific scholarships because of outside opinions. Again, implementing events such as the college fairs help set the tone that students are welcome to attend these schools without fear of what others might think.

In addition to receiving helpful financial aid, students can feel more comfortable finding or receiving information on gay students and organizations on campus. The Times explained how the University of Pennsylvania received a lot of attention when the online publication

Inside Higher Ed wrote about the school’s new outreach policy.

The arrangement includes taking applicants whose college essay identifies them as gay and putting them in touch with students and organizations on campus.

The school did so in an attempt to make the transition to college easier. Colleges have been doing it for years — just not based on a student’s sexual orientation.

Still, the process could be a little surprising. Attending a school where gay and lesbian students are recruited could make a student feel more open and comfortable to receiving this information, which is the reason for having organizations on college campuses.

I can’t imagine not participating in the clubs that have helped me become a better student. It is only fair that all students feel equally comfortable joining clubs or organizations that help them become successful college graduates.