 |
| Doug Wion, guidance counselor at Chico High, is skeptical about proposed legislation that promises to change unfairness in the college admissions process. |
But in light of the recent college admissions scandal (which has led to the indictment of celebrity parents such as Lori Loughlin), some students worry about their chances of getting into their dream college when others have more money and family members in high places.
In a heavily populated state like California, competition with much wealthier students or with families who have alumni legacy connections is a common concern.
A new assembly bill in California proposes an adjustment to the possibility of such preferential treatment to help make the admissions process more fair.
The bill
In response to the admissions scandal, five assembly members in California recently proposed AB 697. The bill suggests new solutions to prevent admissions cheating at the state level.
Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento; Phil Ting, D-San Francisco; Evan Low, D-Silicon Valley; Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Orange County, and Tasha Boerner Horvath, D-Encinitas, unveiled the package after a hearing on higher education that focused on the national college admissions scandals.
AB 697 has been modified heavily to become a bill about consequences for preferential treatment in the college admissions process. It proposes that, starting in the 2019–20 academic year, each participating postsecondary educational institution that “provides any manner of preferential treatment in admission to applicants with a relationship to donors or alumni of the institution” would be required to provide admissions and enrollment information regarding such applicants for the previous academic year in order to be a qualifying institution in the Cal Grant program.
This is an important addition to the requirement because it threatens the loss of the university’s ability to offer the grant to students if the institution does not meet the new qualifications.
Proposed solution
According to the assembly members who proposed the bill, this legislative plan calls for a fair admissions process that should decrease the chances of any student having an advantage over another because of their economic status or family connections.
“This legislative package of college admissions reforms will ensure that there are adequate checks and balances to catch fraudsters, but more importantly to protect the sanctity of the admissions process,” McCarty said in a news release.
“This is about fairness and equity,” Ting explained in the same release. “We must close the side door that enables privileged families to get their children into elite colleges, taking the place of deserving students.”
Issues for success
The bill is a reaction to a long-known worry for college students and their families in a state whose universities’ admissions processes have grown exponentially more competitive.
Nicholas Feeley, an undergraduate senior who was recently accepted into the University of Virginia for law school, is well-acquainted with the rigorous nature of applying to elite schools in California. He mentioned how holistic Virginia’s admissions process is in comparison to California schools, because it takes into account all aspects of an applicant’s profile.
Feeley, who said that when applying for undergraduate admission to other universities, was waitlisted at UC-Santa Cruz and rejected by UC-Berkeley, like over 80% of all applicants.
He said that the market is much more competitive for California students who stay in-state and apply to elite schools rather than looking out of state.
“You’re just another generic California applicant,” he said.
AB 697's authors hope the bill will help dissuade universities from preferential treatment, using the Cal Grant program as a tool. But counselors who work on college applications with students say they aren’t sure it will do much to help the state’s competitive nature.
Longtime Chico High School guidance counselor Doug Wion said he believes the issue is far too complicated to be addressed by this bill. If only a fourth of the state’s top of the top-performing 4.05-4.10 students, for example, are accepted to schools such as UC-Berkeley, he said, there are many more things wrong with the rigors of California admissions.
He said AB 697 feels like “mostly political smoke and mirrors,” a chance for legislators to make political statements with little to back up the bill or make any real changes.
He also expressed concern about a bill that could deny other students financial aid as punishment for the university’s preferential treatment of legacy applicants.
At the end of the day, it’s mostly true that the American way of working hard is still what works best, he said. If money and family status or cheating is what gets a student into a top school, not hard work, that student is probably not going to last long in college, he said.
Rochelle Richman has not personally witnessed situations where students added their applications or referred to colleges where their family had a connection, but she said she has heard of them.
She often has difficulty explaining the benefits of local public options such as Butte College and Chico State to parents who are set on their students attending an elite school. And she emphasized the importance of students recognizing that they don’t have to get into an elite college to have an amazing experience.
Richman said she couldn’t think of a way to make the admissions process for very competitive schools such as UC-Berkeley to be more fair.
There will always be people with lots of money and people who can be bought, she said. Change starts at the high school level, Richman said, when educators can help to make sure that students understand the importance of earning their way into universities, while hoping that parents don’t pressure their children to apply only to elite schools or put money under the table.
But, she said, the system in California is still in place for that to continue to happen.
-- Natalie Hanson