In selective college admissions, “background” has quickly become a dirty word.
The government’s proposed “compact” for higher education would mandate the use of standardized tests for admission; the document further states that “admissions decisions shall be based on and assessed against objective criteria published on university websites and made available to all potential applicants and the public.”
In fact, the College Board’s announcement last month that it was discontinuing Landscape, a tool that provides admissions officers with data about students’ high schools and neighborhoods, including median family income, local college attendance, and school resources, is quite alarming because it signals a shift in selective college admissions away from knowing students’ background achievements toward judging each individual by standardized metrics like GPA and test scores.
Through this approach, standardized measures are considered neutral and free from the messy entanglements of social inequality. By contrast, contextual information—such as whether a student has access to advanced courses, stable housing, or enrichment programs—is increasingly viewed as subjective, political, and even discriminatory.
But the opposite is true.
Reducing the consideration of background in overall admissions does not make the entire process fairer—it simply blinds the admissions process to the reality of inequality. It allows wealth to masquerade as merit, exacerbating systemic inequality by rewarding those who already have the greatest opportunities.
As higher education scholars and practitioners, we see firsthand how contextual data impacts the admissions process more Achieve equity by revealing what grades and test scores alone cannot do: who students are, what they have overcome, and how much they can achieve. Embracing rather than reducing background data is the answer to ensuring access to higher education, a proven path to upward mobility.
Changing College Admissions Patterns
The end of the spectacle coincides with unprecedented changes in selective college admissions, including the Supreme Court’s ban on considering race in admissions, the rapid spread of test-optional policies, and increases in applications, among others. As a result of these shifts, admissions officers are increasingly making high-stakes decisions with less time, fewer data points, and greater scrutiny than ever before.
That’s why high-quality background data about applicants is so important. But the problem is that these data are often unavailable or of questionable quality.
Our research highlights persistent gaps in the background information available to admissions officers. For example, school profiles (documents that high school counselors submit to colleges that explain the school’s academic programs, grading system, and student body) are often incomplete, outdated, or completely missing. We found that many school profiles lacked even the most basic elements that admissions officers need to fairly explain an applicant’s academic performance.
Other qualitative elements in the application that could provide context also showed patterns of bias. Research has found that letters of recommendation often reflect deep income disparities: Students who attend higher-resource schools are more likely to receive longer, more personalized letters of recommendation, often written by individuals familiar with the college admissions process. At the same time, school counselors report limited training on how to write thoughtful letters of recommendation.
Why consider context?
One of the biggest risks in today’s selective college admissions debate is the weaponization and misuse of “background” by those with the most resources. Students from wealthy families enter the process with a variety of structural advantages—well-funded schools, extensive extracurricular activities, private tutors, test prep and often legacy or donor connections. Recognizing and respecting the backgrounds of applicants from low-income, rural, or working-class backgrounds is not meant to belittle the achievements of the wealthy; This is to ensure that success is measured by individual effort and achievement, not just by access to opportunities.
Admissions should be a process of determining who has the potential to succeed, so determining potential requires the admissions office to evaluate students based on local circumstances. Doing so respects students’ unique starting points and acknowledges that hard work looks different when resources are scarce. The achievements of a student who endures long commutes, multiple jobs, or limited exposure to technology are worth as much as a polished resume crafted in an environment of unlimited support.
Expecting admissions officers to evaluate students based on absolute standards, divorced from the resources and circumstances that shaped them, is like judging the height of a plant without considering the size of the pot in which it grows. Rather than harming those with resources, background checks take into account a diverse range of opportunities, making higher education a ladder to personal mobility rather than an amplifier of existing inequalities.
Admissions officers need access to high-quality background data about applicants because even the most well-traveled admissions teams can’t begin to scratch the surface of America’s nearly 30,000 high schools. As selective colleges hire seasonal application readers to help sort through the flood of applications, effectively communicating students’ academic background becomes more difficult. This goes beyond the characteristics of any particular student or school. Rather, it speaks to the essence of what students learn and how they learn it. Should students be penalized for not taking calculus when high school courses only go as far as Algebra II? Can we expect students to meaningfully participate in extracurricular activities when the average one-way commute is 90 minutes?
The goal is not just to provide background information on students’ high school and community environments. Rather, it is for synthesis This background allows admissions officers to obtain the same information about all applicants. The fate of a student’s college admissions decision should not depend on whether their particular evaluator is familiar with the student’s high school or hometown. Nor should we expect any particular evaluator to have the time to independently research the countryside or curriculum facing any particular applicant.
Landscape tools help reduce the chance that such insights are purely accidental. Research led by Michael Bastedo of the University of Michigan shows that background information about an applicant’s high school and hometown can help create more equitable admissions outcomes for lower socioeconomic students, laying the groundwork for the final landscape tool. While Landscape isn’t perfect, it makes it possible for even the most novice admissions professional to pick up an application and consider whether students took advantage of the opportunities available to them. Now that the landscape is gone, college admissions offices must find new and better ways to ensure students’ unique background experiences remain part of the overall review process.
suggestion
Higher education should not abandon the hard and necessary work of understanding students as more than just numbers. Here are some suggestions on how to move forward:
- Compile standardized, high-quality contextual data. Universities need accurate information about school resources, community demographics and economic conditions. While some background data admissions officers need to find fair, informed decisions in existing application elements such as school profiles and letters of recommendation, this information is not standardized and varies in quality. Admissions officers need access to standardized, high-quality background data. The elimination of landscape provides opportunities for other organizations, including universities themselves, to develop new tools to systematically collect or aggregate contextual data.
- Make expectations clear. Colleges and universities should communicate with school counselors and college advisors about the types of background information they will value during the review process and how that information will be provided. For example, clearly sharing expectations for high school introduction is an easy area to target. Encouraging high schools to include information about the school’s college culture in their profiles (e.g., counselors’ caseloads, dedicated time for college counseling) could improve the quality and usefulness of the profiles.
- Educate admissions officers. Officers should receive extensive situational awareness training and understand the vast differences in opportunities in schools and communities. They must have the time, expertise, and resources to apply this knowledge thoughtfully, ensuring that contextual information guides but does not dominate the assessment of each student.
- Seek creative solutions. In the absence of a common approach to managing contextual information, or as an ad hoc strategy, colleges and universities should include supplemental questions about context as part of their applications. Colleges may take inspiration from applications to competitive programs like QuestBridge, which capture and integrate contextual information through questions tailored to a student’s background and home and school experiences.
Admissions has long involved a combination of quantitative and qualitative judgments. But as the scope of metrics shrinks and systems become more stretched, there’s a real risk that processes will default to what’s easiest to measure, rather than what’s most meaningful. In doing so, it will leave behind those students who need it most and deserve a closer look.
