Ask yourself this: Does it matter whether Princeton was ranked the number one or number three university in the country this year? Do you really care if Stanford’s overall admit rate was 3.95% or 2.16%? What does it mean to you if the University of Pennsylvania denied 94.32% or 95.74% of all applicants? News flash: these institutions are uber selective. You could be the most qualified student in the country with perfect grades and test scores, an exceptionally written college essay, glowing recommendations, and impactful community involvement, and still be turned down by the most selective colleges.
The reality is, you are rolling the dice when applying to these schools. They could select a full class of new students, throw it out, take the runners up, and guess what…the overall profile of the accepted class would look nearly identical. In fact, schools with low single-digit admit rates could do this many times over. This you cannot control. What you can control is how YOU approach the college search and application experience, and the quality and usefulness of the data you seek.
Transparency and Perspective
In college admission, there are competing interests in what information gets shared, and with whom. In the most recent admission cycle, three Ivy League institutions (UPenn, Princeton, and Cornell) chose to join Stanford University in not releasing their current admit rate. Not surprisingly this drew criticism from a variety of sources, some saying this “hiding” of data doesn’t meet the stated goal of reducing student stress. Others questioned the ethics of withholding this information and the sincerity of the motives for doing so. My critical question is why are we obsessing about the overall admit rate and not demanding better, more granular information?
Rick Clark, the assistant vice president and executive director of undergraduate admission at Georgia Tech, suggests a different way of considering data. He argues that “perhaps the more helpful/student-minded approach would be to flip admit rates to deny rates and publish the middle 50% of students not offered admission.” He adds, “part of diminishing stress is providing perspective, options, and showing data from a variety of angles.”
Meanwhile, there is a national debate over the collection of student data. The Senate will be considering an amended bill that has passed in Congress called the College Transparency Act. If signed into law, it would compel the creation of a federal system to track information on student enrollment, performance, retention, completion, and more. This would be accompanied by the collection of post-degree completion data on employment and earnings. The proposal is being met with resistance from privacy groups that worry about the security and misuse of this data. Yes, we need to do this right and student privacy should be at the fore, but having worked with students and those who support them for over 20 years as a school counselor, I know they are hungry (as am I) for transparency and quality data to make informed decisions.
Information Overload
“Quality” is the keyword here. There is no shortage of information about college admission. To begin with, there is an inane amount of marketing material with which institutions flood mailboxes and inboxes. One student shared an analysis of the 3,069 emails from 127 different colleges that they reported receiving when applying to schools. Often this messaging is fueled by large enrollment management firms, is indistinguishable from one college to the next, and is sent to a wide audience–some of whom have little chance of being competitive applicants. Add to that online message boards such as College Confidential and Reddit (see our student analyst above), and social media like Instagram and TikTok. Then top it all off with advice—both solicited and unsolicited—from friends, family, neighbors, and that chatty guy who sat next to you on the airplane. The result is a whole lot of noise and often not a lot of quality.
Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) explains that “The internet can be very helpful, but it also gives voice to a lot of uninformed opinions about the college admission process” For example, he says, “websites like College Confidential and Reddit might be entertaining, but they don’t provide expert guidance.”
To address the fire hose of information (or misinformation) about admission, NACAC recently announced a partnership with the College Guidance Network (CGN) to provide a “consolidated resource of expertise” and “consistent, reliable knowledge.” The press release states, “With so much information across thousands of sites, it is difficult to discern between trustworthy and misguided advice. Working with national experts and college admission leaders—the individuals working as admissions deans and directors at colleges and universities—CGN produces a curated offering of live programming and on-demand video libraries and other resources full of expert advice on applying to college.”
Pérez says, “We need to do a better job of centralizing college admission advice in just a few places where students can turn to for quality, trusted, information. Students are currently overwhelmed with information overload. It’s too much.”
Garbage in Garbage Out
If we want to dial down student anxiety, there is one clear place to begin: commercial college rankings. Much has been written and debated about these flawed indices. Just in this past year, best-selling author and host of the Revisionist History podcast, Malcolm Gladwell and Columbia University math professor, Michael Thaddeus, both have challenged issues of equity, faulty data, and subjectivity in rankings. In a recent opinion piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education (“The Rankings Farce”), Reed College president, Colin Driver (author of the new book, Breaking Ranks: How the Rankings Industry Rules Higher Education and What to Do About It) writes about the “‘rankocracy’ — a group of self-appointed, mostly profit-seeking journalists who claim for themselves the role of arbiters of educational excellence in our society.” He explains that “The art of composing a college ranking is like preparing a stew. You select a group of ingredients, measure each one carefully, combine them in a strict sequence, stir, cook, and serve. If you do it just right, you might end up with a delicious, classic French dish. If you do it badly, you end up with gruel.” Driver adds, “The rankings of U.S. News and its followers typically produce gruel.”
The data used to compile college rankings is dubious at best and undoubtedly subjective. Brian Zucker is the president and founder of Human Capital Research Corporation (HCRC) a private education research firm in Evanston, Illinois that consults colleges and universities on “enrollment management, market development, curriculum innovation, pricing policy, sustainability planning, and long-term outcomes assessment.” He is at the core a “data guy'' and emphasizes that “in a word, the US News rankings are such garbage.” He says that there is an “It is not just that there is an absence of data integrity or statistical rigor or transparency, all of which is blatantly true and common knowledge among those of us in the profession, but the real tipper is that it no added insight beyond what you can readily and more clearly see, simply by looking cohort graduation rates, student socioeconomic status and institutional wealth.” Zucker adds, “Moreover, none of it speaks in any manner to the learner experience, pedagogy, scope of offerings, or any semblance of value-added or student fit. The irony is that while it masquerades as a resource to help students make more discerning college choice decisions, it has probably contributed more to the crisis of commoditization than any other factor, entity or enterprise.”
Engaging Data
Still not convinced? Read the “white paper” entitled, “A ‘Fit’ Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity” from Challenge Success, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Their mission is to “partner with schools, families, and communities to embrace a broad definition of success and to implement research-based strategies that promote student well-being and engagement with learning.” Their research finds that “colleges that provide ample opportunities for students to deeply engage in learning, and campus community, may offer the key to positive outcomes after college. For instance, students who participate in internships that allow them to apply what they learn in the classroom to real-life settings, students who have mentors in college who encourage them to pursue personal goals, and students who engage in multi-semester projects are more likely to thrive after college.” But how does the “consumer” know which colleges are doing this well?
Clark at Georgia Tech challenges college applicants to think and act more like college students. For example, pull in a variety of resources, test assumptions, and dig deeper. Janet Weller, director of college counseling at The Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, agrees. She advises students to rely on “primary source data,” adding, “students and their supporters should treat this in the same manner that they would treat academic research by using vetted, primary sources rather than hearsay and anecdote.” As they do this, she says, “I’d love to see more colleges make their National Survey of Student Engagement results public.” This annual survey is used by many colleges to assess the quality of the student experience. Access to this information is news we can use!
Richard Weissbourd is the faculty director of Making Caring Common, a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the lead author of the Turning the Tide report, a collaborative statement from college admission leaders that seeks to reduce achievement pressure, emphasize ethical engagement, and level the playing field in college admission. He argues that “the data on student satisfaction is uneven and does not allow students to compare across schools.” He adds, “we need better, more accessible information on academic engagement and community involvement,” and says that students should be asking, “Is this a place that builds ethical character, and is it a welcoming environment across different demographics?”
Jon Boeckenstedt is the vice provost of enrollment at Oregon State University. He also writes the Higher Ed Data Stories blog, a treasure trove of searchable tables and visualizations that highlight different issues in colleges and universities. He uses data from the Census Bureau, Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), research from the College Board, and individual college websites to provide context and nuance to college admission.
He says, “students and parents are disadvantaged by the current information system cycle,” explaining that the dissemination of information is a holdover from 50 years ago, “when it was hard to get data out of systems and manipulated to provide some insight.” He adds, “now there is no reason colleges couldn’t provide detailed, granular information to students and parents the day after they take their census, usually a couple of weeks into the term.” Boeckenstendt says that the Department of Education‘s College Navigator is a good resource for data, but points out that ”it’s all quantitative, and we know it’s important for students to get advice on the personality of colleges and match with their preferences. He adds, “quantifiable information can serve a purpose, but the information we might want in making a temperamental match is lacking,” He says, “colleges can and should be more transparent about this, like Penn’s recent announcement that a third of their incoming students had experience with research.”
Colleges and universities—the sellers—know more about applicants than many students and supporters are aware. The second installment of this three-part series will dig into just how deep the data allows them to see. It will also explore practical resources for the buyers as they attempt to make wise decisions about match and outcome. The final piece will examine the data that students should be demanding. In the meantime, consider this quote from Julie Glusker, the Director of School at the online school, US Performance Academy. She tells families, “If you are deciding whether or not to apply to a college based on the acceptance rate, then we are having the wrong conversation.” She advises them to consider the culture, community, and character of a college.” Dig deeper than just the acceptance rates and you will find how that school could be a good match for you–or not.
