Admitting Students in Context: Field Experiments on Information Dashboards in College Admissions

Bastedo, Michael N.; Bell, D’Wayne; Howell, Jessica; Hsu, Julian; Hurwitz, Michael; Perfetto, Greg; Welch, Meredith

doi:10.1080/00221546.2021.1971488

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…A study of admissions essays submitted to selective universities in the UK found narrative and orthographic patterning based on the type of school attended by the applicants, such as students from elite backgrounds name-dropping their elite networks and connections [ 18 ]. Findings from a study of diversity statements submitted to the University of Michigan found that students from similar class backgrounds would write about similar topics, regardless of race [ 19 ], and the information dashboards used in holistic review were found to improve equity in admissions outcomes for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds [ 20 ]. These studies match the results of the computational analyses to a degree but not entirely due to the unique affordances of qualitatively oriented methods.…”

Section: Admissions Essays and Beyond: Computational Methods And Syst...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic, cultural, and narrative capital: computational and human readings of transfer admissions essays

Alvero

Pal²,

Moussavian³

2022

J Comput Soc Sc

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Variation in college application materials related to social stratification is a contentious topic in social science and national discourse in the United States. This line of research has also started to use computational methods to consider qualitative materials, such as personal statements and letters of recommendation. Despite the prominence of this topic, fewer studies have considered a fairly common academic pathway: transferring. Approximately 40% of all college students in the US transfer schools at least once. One quirk of the system is that students from community colleges are applying for the same spots for students already enrolled in four year schools and trying to transfer. How might different aspects the transfer application itself correlate with institutional stratification and make students more or less distinguishable? We use a dataset of 20,532 transfer admissions essays submitted to the University of California system to describe how transfer applicants vary linguistically, culturally, and narratively with respect to academic pathways and essay prompts. Using a variety of methods for computational text analysis and qualitative coding, we find that essays written by community college students tend to be distinct from those written by university students. However, the strength and character of these results changed with the writing prompt provided to applicants. These results show how some forms of stratification, such as the type of school students attend, inform educational processes intended to equalize opportunity and how combining computational and human reading might illuminate these patterns. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42001-022-00185-5.

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Section: Admissions Essays and Beyond: Computational Methods And Syst...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic, cultural, and narrative capital: computational and human readings of transfer admissions essays

Alvero

Pal²,

Moussavian³

2022

J Comput Soc Sc

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“…Despite the absence of research on the role of environmental context in actual high-stakes college admissions decision-making, there is a small body of experimental evidence on the topic from two simulation studies (Bastedo & Bowman, 2017; Bastedo et al, 2021). In both studies, admissions professionals were presented with simulated applications and asked to evaluate them as if they were operating in a high-stakes environment where their decisions had real consequences.…”

Section: Background On Holistic Review and The Landscape Toolmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Standardizing Applicant High School and Neighborhood Information Help to Diversify Selective Colleges?

Mabel

Hurwitz

Howell

et al. 2022

Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

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Many selective colleges consider the backgrounds of applicants to improve equity in admissions. However, this information is usually not available for all applicants. We examine whether the chances of admission and enrollment changed after 43 colleges gained access to a new tool that standardizes information on educational disadvantage for all applicants. Applicants from the most challenging school and neighborhood backgrounds experienced a 5-percentage point increase in the probability of admission in the year of adoption relative to similar applicants in the previous year. The tool did not alter the probability of enrollment as a function of applicant challenge level in the full sample, but positive changes are concentrated among applicants to institutions that used the tool to allocate financial aid.

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“…Findings from a study of diversity statements submitted to the University of Michigan found that students from similar class backgrounds would write about similar topics, regardless of race [19]. The admissions process itself has also been an object of study, including ethnographies of admissions offices [20] and the information dashboards used in holistic review [21]. These studies match the results of the computational analyses to a degree but not entirely due to the unique affordances of qualitatively oriented methods.…”

Section: Admissions Essays and Beyond: Computational Methods And Syst...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dictionary results were also reflective of similar SES and SAT patterns previously described in studies of first year essays. Of the 89 ("Dash" was omitted, dropping the feature count from 90 to 89) features generated by LIWC, 37 were strongly associated with lateral (16) or vertical (21) 5 Using topics and dictionary features to predict an applicant's academic pathway using IMV (left) and accuracy from undersampling (right).…”

Section: Study One: Variation In Essay Content and Stylementioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic, Cultural, and Narrative Capital: Computational and Human Readings of Transfer Admissions Essays

Alvero¹,

Pal²,

Moussavian³

2022

Preprint

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Stratification in college application materials is a contentious topic in social science and national discourse in the United States. This line of research has also started to use computational methods to consider qualitative materials, such as personal statements and letters of recommendation. Despite the prominence of this topic, fewer studies have considered a fairly common academic pathway: transferring. Approximately 40\% of all college students in the United States transfer schools at least once. One quirk of the system is that students from community colleges are applying for the same spots for students already enrolled in four year schools and trying to transfer. How might these different institutional experiences and the transfer application itself reflect social stratification? We leverage a dataset of 20,532 transfer admissions essays submitted to the University of California system to describe how transfer applicants are stratified linguistically, culturally, and narratively with respect to academic pathways and essay prompts. These results show different types of stratification that can emerge in educational processes intended to equalize opportunity and how combining computational and human reading might illuminate them.

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Admitting Students in Context: Field Experiments on Information Dashboards in College Admissions

Cited by 15 publications

References 47 publications

Linguistic, cultural, and narrative capital: computational and human readings of transfer admissions essays

Linguistic, cultural, and narrative capital: computational and human readings of transfer admissions essays

Can Standardizing Applicant High School and Neighborhood Information Help to Diversify Selective Colleges?

Linguistic, Cultural, and Narrative Capital: Computational and Human Readings of Transfer Admissions Essays

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