Save The University of Chicago (Cont.)
Since the quality of students admitted to the College will be important for the economic strength and intellectual environment of this University for years to come, I propose that we change rumors into results and vagaries into numbers. Many years ago, one Ivy League university faced a crisis in its admissions strategy,
"While [University of Pennsylvania President Sheldon] Hackney gave form and financial strength to the most successful ideas for educational reform that emerged from the conflagration of the late 1960s and 1970s, the University faced a new challenge in undergraduate admissions. The demographic explosion known as “The Baby Boom” finally had stopped filling the undergraduate applicant pool of the colleges and universities of the United States. Like the boom itself, the contraction of the college-age population had been observed, as from afar, by the colleges.
"The Provost’s Task Force on the Study of Admissions in 1978 saw demographic change as an opportunity. The declining birthrate in the Northeast and more steady birthrates elsewhere again would give the University opportunity to promote “geographic diversity” and make the University truly national by shifting recruitment time away from the Northeast. Indeed, the Task Force recommended that admissions resources be shifted from selection to recruitment as much as possible. Part of that shift could happen by reducing the labor needed for selection. The application could be simplified. More importantly, interviews seemed far more important to the applicants than they actually were and required too much effort to schedule. While the report recommended that more alumni and faculty read applications, acting as a counterweight to the temptation to make quantitative judgments, the Task Force was recommending that the University gain more applicants by not trying to learn as much about them. Moreover, the interview, which in 1972 seemed to give insight into the motivations of students, was not being used in the admissions process.
"Yet the University was facing an uphill battle if it wanted to compete with the other schools in the Ivy League for the United States’ best students. Demographics scholar Robert Zemsky had found in 1976 that the University’s image problem was not some sort of mass psychosis on campus, definitively determining that the University was the Ivy League “safety school” for the best applicants and the Ivy League “reach school” for the second tier of applicants. For instance, admitted students chose the University of Rochester and Pomona College over the University of Pennsylvania. For purposes of admissions, the University did not belong to the Ivy League" (Nicholas Heavens, "The Pursuit and Control of Quantity: Undergraduate Educational and Admissions Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, 1955-1985," [unpublished], 2002).
The third paragraph gives an overview of Robert Zemsky's study of the University of Pennsylvania's admissions pool. His analysis was able to show the kinds of schools to which University of Pennsylvania applicants applied, the schools to which they were accepted, and the schools which they chose. From that point of view, he could determine student bodies who chose and were chosen analogously to Penn. What we need at Chicago is a similar study that shows what schools admit similar classes to the classes we admit. We also need to study the intellectual environment that exists at those schools. If we start looking through the looking-glass to the analogues beyond and find that the added intensity which the faculty demands and the love of knowledge itself which is beloved by many of the alumni and much of the student body is at risk, then we need to tell Ted O'Neill, "Teddy, you've got some 'splaining to do."
P.S. There is hope in the Class of 2007, though and this blogger who compares chemical bonding to romantic relations is just one humorous example that the "uncommon" Chicago student is still alive and well in the admissions pool.
ESA(20031015.1)
Since the quality of students admitted to the College will be important for the economic strength and intellectual environment of this University for years to come, I propose that we change rumors into results and vagaries into numbers. Many years ago, one Ivy League university faced a crisis in its admissions strategy,
"While [University of Pennsylvania President Sheldon] Hackney gave form and financial strength to the most successful ideas for educational reform that emerged from the conflagration of the late 1960s and 1970s, the University faced a new challenge in undergraduate admissions. The demographic explosion known as “The Baby Boom” finally had stopped filling the undergraduate applicant pool of the colleges and universities of the United States. Like the boom itself, the contraction of the college-age population had been observed, as from afar, by the colleges.
"The Provost’s Task Force on the Study of Admissions in 1978 saw demographic change as an opportunity. The declining birthrate in the Northeast and more steady birthrates elsewhere again would give the University opportunity to promote “geographic diversity” and make the University truly national by shifting recruitment time away from the Northeast. Indeed, the Task Force recommended that admissions resources be shifted from selection to recruitment as much as possible. Part of that shift could happen by reducing the labor needed for selection. The application could be simplified. More importantly, interviews seemed far more important to the applicants than they actually were and required too much effort to schedule. While the report recommended that more alumni and faculty read applications, acting as a counterweight to the temptation to make quantitative judgments, the Task Force was recommending that the University gain more applicants by not trying to learn as much about them. Moreover, the interview, which in 1972 seemed to give insight into the motivations of students, was not being used in the admissions process.
"Yet the University was facing an uphill battle if it wanted to compete with the other schools in the Ivy League for the United States’ best students. Demographics scholar Robert Zemsky had found in 1976 that the University’s image problem was not some sort of mass psychosis on campus, definitively determining that the University was the Ivy League “safety school” for the best applicants and the Ivy League “reach school” for the second tier of applicants. For instance, admitted students chose the University of Rochester and Pomona College over the University of Pennsylvania. For purposes of admissions, the University did not belong to the Ivy League" (Nicholas Heavens, "The Pursuit and Control of Quantity: Undergraduate Educational and Admissions Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, 1955-1985," [unpublished], 2002).
The third paragraph gives an overview of Robert Zemsky's study of the University of Pennsylvania's admissions pool. His analysis was able to show the kinds of schools to which University of Pennsylvania applicants applied, the schools to which they were accepted, and the schools which they chose. From that point of view, he could determine student bodies who chose and were chosen analogously to Penn. What we need at Chicago is a similar study that shows what schools admit similar classes to the classes we admit. We also need to study the intellectual environment that exists at those schools. If we start looking through the looking-glass to the analogues beyond and find that the added intensity which the faculty demands and the love of knowledge itself which is beloved by many of the alumni and much of the student body is at risk, then we need to tell Ted O'Neill, "Teddy, you've got some 'splaining to do."
P.S. There is hope in the Class of 2007, though and this blogger who compares chemical bonding to romantic relations is just one humorous example that the "uncommon" Chicago student is still alive and well in the admissions pool.
ESA(20031015.1)
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