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As a former admissions officer and #HigherEd researcher, the work we have been doing on the environmental context dashboard (ECD) has been very important to me. Of course, selective college admissions is flawed (#AdmissionsGate anyone?). (a thread #emchat #admissions)
The current system uses many data points, most of which are biased in some way (SAT, GPA, rec letters, essays all have flaws). Admissions officers know this & try to adjust their assessment of apps, given inequalities of opportunity & biased metrics, but this is not easy.
Holistic review at its best tries to contextualize students' performance & account for systemic disadvantage in the K12 education system. But some offices do a better job of contextualizing apps than others.
I remember trying to search for high school/neighborhood info when reading apps to try to get a fuller picture of students. High-quality info was hard to come by - I may have had the HS profile (or not). I may have visited the HS (or not). Sometimes I had very little info at all.
In the absence of good HS/neighborhood data, decision-makers rely on heuristics, assumptions, biases, google, etc. Reading 50+ apps a day, I did my best to put students' scores in context. The ECD is an effort to give decision-makers better, more reliable contextual data.
Early results suggest the ECD helps admissions officers contextualize scores and leads to higher admit rates for low-SES students. And in the case of test-optional schools, it provides another data point to add to a fuller picture of the student and their circumstances.
Like @MichaelBastedo says, the ECD is not a panacea. SO MUCH about admissions needs to change (I'll save that for another day). Like many tools, the ECD may be used for good or for ill. The devil is in the details.
How will offices use this data? What kind of training will reviewers get? My hope is the ECD will improve access for disadvantaged students. My fear is the ECD will be misused or abused. I guess only time will tell. In the end, colleges must decide their own enrollment priorities
Seeing this research influence policy and practice is both exciting and terrifying. If you've read this far, thank you! And thank you to @MichaelBastedo, Nick Bowman, @KC_Deane, & Jandi Kelly for being great collaborators!
