John T. McLaughlin serves as Hamilton’s Dean of Admission. Photo courtesy of University of Pennsylvania.
Monica Inzer, Vice President for Enrollment Management, and John T. McLaughlin, Dean of Admission and Associate VP for Enrollment Management participated in an interview with
The Spectator
to answer questions about Hamilton’s admissions policies. As the first early decision deadline in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-conscious programs at colleges and universities approaches, Hamilton Admissions must approach their process a bit differently.
How did affirmative action play into admissions before the ruling in Students for Fair Admission?
Inzer: I just would start and say, at a higher level, our goal every year is to admit the most talented, diverse, strong, interesting, different-from-each-other students that we can find for the college, and the diversity that we value as a community — not just in the admission office — has many dimensions. From our applicant pool of nearly 10,000, we are landing on a class of 480 that we hope reflects the world that our students will go into. So our selection process first and foremost values students who are academically strong and can be successful and thrive in our classroom, but it also values students who will contribute to the community in meaningful ways. So there are many things we look at. So much of the coverage about this topic focuses on one thing, race and ethnicity in particular, or there have been follow up questions on other one things. And in fact, it is many things when you’re reviewing applications, diversity, socio-economically, geographically, ethnically, religion, political leaning and/or sexual orientation; all of that matters to us, and so it has been a factor of our selection process up until now and will be in permissible ways in the future as well.
McLaughlin: Prior to the most recent Supreme Court decision, a lot of this information was available on the application form itself, it was something that would come into our review process, regardless of whether or not the student decided to talk about aspects of their identity. It was something that was visible. What is changing now is that information as kind of a default checkbox is no longer being pulled into the review process. We’ll no longer have a view into that. But the Supreme Court, in their judgment, did create a little bit of space for students, if they share that information in a way that connects to their individual experience, then that is something that could be considered judiciously, alongside all the other factors that Monica was talking about.
When you heard the decision, was there an aspect of the ruling that most concerned you? Was there a component of admissions you thought would be particularly complicated or difficult to tackle?
McLaughlin: This subject has been discussed for 15 years at the Supreme Court. Ever since Bakke (the ruling that established affirmative action as legal). There was a piece of the Court that said the reason why it’s important to consider this information is because we believe that people from all sorts of different backgrounds have the opportunity to learn from one another, and the educational benefits for every single person in that community is enhanced by the opportunity to interact with different people. That was what was upheld again and again and again and again from Bakke to Grutter to Fisher I to Fisher II. This time, the Court decided to take a different stance. Given our belief that bringing people together, bringing different people together creates the opportunity for the best education, it was a little disappointing to see that shift. But the court did preserve some space around recruitment. So rather than thinking about what we can’t do, we’re trying to focus intently on the things we can do in order to bring in a diverse class.
Inzer: We were largely prepared for this decision. We were prepared for it to be even stricter. So, perhaps, in some ways, we were relieved that there were still some allowances and ways to consider peoples’ backgrounds and identities when they choose to share that, and that was better than we had anticipated. It was this moment in time that we have been anticipating and waiting for planning responsibly and thoughtfully. What will we do if…? How will we respond to…? We had the information then to be able to continue with our work and I think we’ve got a really great plan in place. Fortunately, Hamilton has put tremendous resources behind recruitment diversity, socioeconomic diversity, financial aid access and need blind admission. All those things position us better than many colleges to be able to still admit a diverse class measure in many ways. But of course, we are going to be lawful and comply with all of the new restrictions that we have, but we have found some ways to still hopefully include information that is appropriate to include and consider and admit inclusively.
Can you share some of the specifics of the plan to promote a diverse incoming class?
Inzer: On the front end, we have always been committed to recruiting a diverse inquiry pool and applicant pool with where we travel, mailings, programming flyers and offerings, visits on and off campus. We are doubling down on all of that and with more intentionality. We are working with community based organizations in addition to high schools. We have a lot of information on our census data on where the most diverse populations live and the schools they attend, so we can still do all of those things. In fact, not only is it permissible, the Department of Education has encouraged us to do more of that so that when you get to the selection process you at least have done everything you can to ensure your pool is as diverse as possible. We’re partnering with some new organizations.
McLaughlin: Specifically on the recruitment side, we are really proud of this partnership with Project Greenlight, which is a Community-Based Organizations (CBO) network of thousands and thousands of counselors at CBOs across the country. We know that CBOs and those counselors really provide a lot of information and support to under-resourced and under-served students from all backgrounds, and we see that as a really powerful asset in our efforts to try and bring in a diverse prospect pool and create the most diverse applicant pool that we possibly can. On the selection side of things, we no longer have that checkbox…so that just simply won’t be available to us. We are continuing as we have done in the past to lean into aspects of other aspects of diversity as well. We’ve always been interested in socio-economic diversity, trying to increase access for students coming from lower income backgrounds, first generation college students, that is something that we are going to continue to do…On our application, we are inviting students to talk a little bit about this to share a little bit more about who they are their experience…how they feel their individual experience can continue to contribute to the broader experience of students in the Hamilton community, and how the Hamilton community is going to have an impact on who they are.
If we believe the benefit of diversity is the opportunity to learn from one another, we’re leaning into that and we want to understand how our applicants and how our future students are thinking about that as well.
The conversation about legacy admissions has gotten louder after this decision. What did legacy look like at Hamilton beforehand and is it changing at all?
Inzer: We thought you might ask because the media is talking about it. And I think the media and a lot of people misunderstand our process because they think people get in because of one reason. Nobody ever gets in because of their race or ethnicity or SAT score or not supplying a score or where they went to school or where they live or whether they play a sport or where their parents went to school or if they went to school or if they went to Hamilton. No one ever gets in because of one of those things. People get in because they’ve earned admission in the classroom, they have potential to thrive here and we feel like they are a strong candidate. From within the strong candidates, we’re looking at all of these things as we shape a slate of people to invite to join our community.
So I have to say all that as a warm-up for answering your question about legacies in that nobody ever gets in because their parents went here. We feel like we’ve had a very responsible process and we’ve appropriately considered this. We have asked people where their parents have gone to school. It’s optional on the Common Application to provide that now. If and when they do and if it’s Hamilton, we have noted it to ensure they’re getting every possible consideration, but in no way does that guarantee admission. In fact, sometimes we’re considering that information so that we can be more sensitive when we don’t admit people than when we can admit them. At any given point, in any class over the past five to six years, 3% to 4% of any class has been comprised of people whose parents attended Hamilton…it’s a very small percentage here. There are at least four times as many, as a percentage, that are first generation college students and five times as many who are Pell Grant recipients. So we feel like this has an appropriate space. Nonetheless, there’s a spotlight on it right now. And we’re of course looking at it and ensuring that our practice is something that we can feel okay about. We’re talking with the President and the Board about that as well.
Is there anything else you would like to share about this topic?
McLaughlin: Although the Supreme Court made a decision that perhaps we might not agree with, or doesn’t resonate with how we’ve approached the work, we move forward, and we’re going to do everything that we can do in order to continue to enroll the best and most diverse classes.
Inzer: Right now there’s a spotlight on the college admission process, but what I hope this does is put a spotlight on all the stuff that happens before the college admission process, the uneven preparation, the uneven access to resources. Maybe it’s even before kindergarten, it’s healthcare, it’s schooling, education, resources, funding. If more could go into the front end to level the playing field before people get to the college application process, we wouldn’t feel the need to consider as many of these aspects or be as disappointed about not being able to. But, at the moment, all of that context helps us make informed decisions. And thus, that’s the disappointment with the Supreme Court’s ruling at this point, but we’ll see where this goes. And we’re going to do the best we can with the information we have.