UCLA is not the only school to make changes in recent weeks to its admission process that are aimed at promoting more fairness in evaluating applicants.
While UCLA has altered the way it reads applications, other schools are attempting to increase diversity by other means.
Harvard University, Princeton University and the University of Virginia announced their decision to stop their early action and early decision programs in early September, saying their goal is to make the admission process more equitable for applicants of disadvantaged backgrounds.
Princeton and University of Virginia, as well as the University of Delaware – which decided to end its early admissions program in June – all had binding early decision programs, meaning applicants accepted early were required to attend. Students who are accepted early also do not have the opportunity to compare financial-aid packages from other schools. As a result, less wealthy students tend to be not as willing to apply early decision.
Subsequently, students who do apply early tend to be “advantaged” students with less financial-aid concerns, according to statements from these three institutions.
Often, students from low-income families are not as prepared to apply early than more advantaged students, said Cass Cliatt, a Princeton University spokeswoman.
“Students from more disadvantaged backgrounds often come from schools without the college-preparation resources to position them to apply early,” Cliatt said.
By abolishing these policies, these schools hope to send a message that lower-income applicants will receive fairer consideration and that the schools are committed to equality in the admission process, according to the press releases from the schools.
The University of California has never adopted any early admission policy because faculty felt that it could hurt disadvantaged students who would not be able to compare financial packages, said Ricardo Vazquez, a UC spokesman.
In an effort to increase the number of underrepresented minorities admitted, UCLA is changing its interpretation of the UC-wide policy of comprehensive review in order to give more weight to life experiences and hardships. While all UC campuses must comply with the policy, each school can implement it differently.
The change in UCLA’s admission policy comes after years of falling numbers of minority admits. UC Berkeley, which uses “holistic” review, has admitted a higher percentage of minorities in recent years.
According to Vazquez, holistic review brings the different aspects of an application together in one context, while, in UCLA’s previous admissions process, each section of an application was read separately.
Critics have said UCLA’s approach left application readers with an incomplete picture of the applicant, making it difficult for disadvantaged applicants to compete.
Still, the total number of schools that have made changes to their admission policies is small.
The University of Pennsylvania, for example, has no plans to alter its binding early decision policy.
“The early admissions process, which we have had for some 40 years, has been very successful for us and for our students,” UPenn Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson said in a statement.
Harvard, on the other hand, believes its early admission policy has not been beneficial to its applicants. Harvard is eliminating its non-binding early action program because the university believes advantaged students tend to benefit more from the policy, according to a press release from the school.
“Students from less advantaged backgrounds either fail to take advantage of early admission because they are less well-advised overall, or they consciously avoid our program on the mistaken assumption that they will be unable to compare financial-aid packages,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard College in a press release.
Amherst College in Massachusetts, which uses binding early decision, is planning to discuss making changes to the admission process to promote socioeconomic diversity, though it has no plans to change its admission policy in the near future, said Stacey Schmeidel, director of public affairs at Amherst College.
Amherst has put increasing socioeconomic diversity at the top of its admission agenda, she said.
Not every school agrees that early admission policies necessarily favor the advantaged; however, they do believe the policies can be modified to be more fair.
John Etchemendy, provost of Stanford University, said in an opinion article for the New York Times that early admission policies do not favor the well-off if the admission standards for the early pools are the same or higher than those of the later applicant pool.
Like Harvard, Stanford uses a single-choice early action, which does not force admitted students to attend.
If schools use the same standards in admitting students of both applicant pools, “the programs do not give any advantage to those who apply in the early round, and students who are uncertain about where they want to go shouldn’t feel that they must apply early,” Etchemendy said.
However, he noted that binding early decision does prevent students from comparing financial-aid packages and said, that rather than abolishing it altogether, schools should instead adopt a non-binding early action policy.