Why does the University Board of Trustees end the best admission products? (Viewpoint)
Earlier this month, the university board announced its decision to kill the landscape, a non-neutral tool that allows admitted readers to better understand students’ opportunities. After the embarrassing launch as a “adversity score” in 2019, the landscape has gradually gained attention in many selective admissions offices. Among other projects, the dashboard provides information about applicants’ high school, including the economic composition of their high school classes, participation trends in advanced scheduling courses and the school’s percentile SAT scores, and information about local communities.
Landscape is one of the broader interventions studied in the university admissions community, reflecting how providing more information about applicants can increase the likelihood of being admitted to low-income students. The admissions staff lack high-quality, detailed information about the high school environment, and an estimated 25% of applicants are disproportionate to low-income students. Landscape helps fill this critical gap.
While not every admissions office uses it, the landscape is quite popular in the pockets of the admissions community as it provides an even more standardized, consistent way to understand the applicant’s environment. So, why did the university board decide on the axe? “Federal and state policies continue to develop around the ways institutions use demographic and geographic information in admissions,” the university committee noted in its decision statement. The statement appears to refer to the Trump administration’s unbinding guidance that institutions should not use geolocation as agents for admissions races.
If the university board is concerned that people are using tools as agents for competitions in some way (they are not), then this is not a good option. In the most comprehensive landscape study used locally, the researchers found that it did nothing to increase the racial/ethnic diversity of enrollment. In terms of economic diversity, the situation is different. Use landscape yes Related to the possibility of low-income students enrolling. Therefore, this is a useful tool given the ongoing inadequate agency for low-income students in selective institutions.
Nevertheless, no research has found any impact on racial/ethnic diversity to date. These findings are not surprising. After all, the landscape is meant to quote the university board of directors: “No need to use or consider the intent to develop data about race or race.” If you look at a laundry list of items included in the landscape, the absence is the racial/ethnic demographic of the high school, community, or community.
Although race and class are related, they are certainly not interchangeable. Admissions staff don’t use landscape as a race agent; they are using it to compare students’ SAT scores or AP course loads with those of high school classmates. Returning to the Ivy League institutions that require SAT/ACT scores highlights the importance of assessing test scores in a student’s high school setting. Eliminating the landscape will make this more difficult.
An important consideration: Even using landscapes yes Related to the increase in racial/ethnic diversity, its usage will not violate the law. The Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case alliance of TJ v. Fairfax County School Board. In refusing to hear the case, the court may have sent tacit blessings on the racially neutral approach to increase diversity in enrollment. The decision left a fourth Circuit opinion that affirmed Thomas Jefferson Science and Technology High School’s racial neutral admissions policy intact.
The court also recognized the racial neutral approach to pursue the effectiveness of diversity in the 1989 case, Ja Croson v. Richmond. In the Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard case, Brett Kavanaugh quoted Justice Antonin Scalia against Croson: “Of course, government and universities can still revoke the impact of many unauthorized ways of discrimination on past that do not involve the classification of race.” “””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
The decision of the university board to abandon the landscape conveys an incredible problem: the tool of pursuing diversity, even economic diversity, is not worthy of defense due to concerns about litigation. What message would it convey if giants like the University Board of Trustees would not stand in support of diversity under their full legal efforts? In any case, colleges and universities need to remember their commitment to racial and economic diversity. Yes, after sffa, racially conscious admissions were greatly restricted. Still, despite the Trump administration’s fanaticism, most tools used to extend access, are still legal.
The decision to kill the landscape pragmatically and symbolically is incredible. It is a loss of efforts to expand the economic diversity of elite institutions, another casualty of the Trump administration’s attack on diversity. Even if the university committee decides to abandon the landscape, institutions must forget their obligations to make higher education more accessible to low-income students of all races and races.
