Should we rethink the college admissions process?

Melanie: It is high time for us to think about the fundamental simplification of the admissions process. I really think that the conditions are right, right now, for this new fundamental change to happen.

Kevin: Applying for college is often a stressful and complicated endeavor. Students must manage various deadlines and portals, submit résumés and essays, coordinate test scores and letters of recommendation, and so much more.

A recent survey of 16 to 22-year-olds found that more than half of them said applying for college is their most stressful academic experience. Should we rethink the college admissions process? What could a new process look like? And could simplifying the process lead to more access to higher education? This is “What I Want to Know.” And today, I am joined by Melanie Heath to find out.

Melanie Heath is the Strategy Director for Participation at the Lumina Foundation, an independent private foundation committed to making learning opportunities beyond high school available to all. Melanie leads a portfolio of work designed to increase student enrollment and re-enrollment in bachelor’s degree programs around the country. She joins us today to discuss if we should rethink the college admission process.

Melanie, thank you for joining us. And it’s exciting to talk about what we need to do to make college accessibility more accessible. But before we do that, let’s talk a little bit about your background because you are in the education space. How did you get here?

Melanie: Oh, that is a great question. You know, I kind of fell head first into higher ed policy and just love it. I come from a writing background, a creative writing background. And then I happened to find a job at the Utah System of Higher Education, so kind of the central system office for higher ed in the state of Utah, and just completely fell head over heels in love with higher education. So I worked there about nine years, did a lot of work around post-secondary access, so ensuring that the systems and the colleges in the state of Utah are accessible to all types of students. And then about a year ago I joined the Lumina Foundation, and I feel incredibly lucky to work there.

Kevin: Now you’re originally from Texas though, right?

Melanie: I am, yes. Houston girl, born and raised.

Kevin: So I have to ask the question. How does someone from Texas end up in Utah?

Melanie: Well, let me tell you, we have been having the biggest snowpocalypse this week, and I am kind of regretting this decision to live in Salt Lake City. But, you know, it’s an incredibly beautiful place. The mountains are just right there. The city is big enough to have everything that you could need. There’s a big airport, which is helpful because with Lumina I travel quite a bit. But it’s also small enough that you kind of know everybody. And so it’s been a really good fit. But I do miss Houston, not so much the humidity and the weather there either.

Kevin: Well, I mean, you know, out of the frying pan into the cold, I guess, is when we look at it.

Melanie: Yes, quite literally.

Kevin: Houston does get hot. So let’s talk about the Lumina Foundation. I’m originally from Indianapolis. I know Lumina is based there. So talk generally about the mission of your organization and then talk more about what you’re doing while employed there.

Melanie: Yeah, absolutely. So the Lumina Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the country that is solely focused on higher education. We know that research tells us over and over again that education after high school is super critical and becoming more and more important. There’s study after study that shows that you really need some education after high school in order to be successful in your life economically, to be healthy, to improve the conditions of yourself, your family, and your community.

Higher education also does this other thing where it puts us in a space where we’re connecting with others kind of around a common goal, right, a common goal to graduate and improve the world. And I think that connection piece is so important nowadays, particularly in a society where we find ourselves incredibly disconnected. And so higher education does that, and it really does connect us towards this greater purpose for our communities and for ourselves and for our families.

The thing that we know, though, is that our higher education systems are not built for today’s students. Today’s students look very different than the students of, you know, a few generations ago, right? Typically students of today are older. Many of them have families of their own. They work full-time jobs. They might have responsibilities at home, like taking care of elders or others. And our systems haven’t quite pivoted fast enough, I would say, in order to accommodate and support the students of today.

And so a big goal of Lumina Foundation is to really support that pivot and to ensure that our higher education systems are systemically changing in order to better support the students of today. And when I say support them, I mean get them in the door, you know, and I’m really looking forward to talking more about kind of that getting them in the door process. I think that’s a lot of what we’ll discuss today. But also ensure when they’re there they are connecting. They’re connecting with each other. They’re connecting around shared knowledge. They feel that sense of belonging on campus so that they can graduate and contribute to their communities and to the broader country. And so that’s a little bit about what Lumina does and why.

Kevin: And let me ask you this. Let’s talk about definitions because you mentioned that research shows that some education post-high school leads to good outcomes for young adults and adults. But what does higher education from a definitional point of view mean today? Is it skill development? Is it a bachelor’s degree? Is it certification? Is it community college?

In the past, when people talked about higher education, there seemed to be an assumption it was a four-year degree giving program at a college where you got a bachelor’s liberal arts, science, what have you. But, you know, as I said, there are so many things you can do to further your skill development, your education, you know, knowledge base. What does higher education mean today?

Melanie: That is such a great question. And I think we do ourselves a huge disservice when we narrowly define higher education as a bachelor’s degree, as it’s always been done. When I talk about higher education, I mean any credential after high school. So that could be a short-term or a one-year certificate, an associate degree, or a bachelor’s degree, or a master’s degree, or a PhD, right? But research shows that a high school diploma on its own is insufficient nowadays for both workforce needs, but also wages for the individual, right? And so I think it’s really important that we as a society really broaden the way that we think about higher education to include, you know, credentials, everything from that one-year credential up to a PhD.

Kevin: Yeah, I think that’s very important. Now, one of the things that Lumina says that as a mission and goal, and you alluded to it, is Lumina works to ensure that 60% of adults will have a college degree, certificate, industry certification, or some other credential by 2025. I mean, that is a really huge goal. It’s a great goal. So how do you go about achieving that goal?

Melanie: That is such a big goal and a big question. I think Lumina initially set that goal around 2008, and the country was at, I think, in the 40s of educational attainment, of some type of education after high school. We are in 2024. 2025 is next year. I don’t know that it’s a huge spoiler to say we won’t quite hit the goal, but we have made incredible progress and incredible strides.

We are actually going to be announcing in the next month kind of the most recent update to where we are. And it’s been really exciting to watch Lumina lead by kind of we call it the attainment agenda or the completion agenda, right, this ensuring that graduation outcomes are top of mind. And so when Lumina kind of was first to kind of say we need to really focus on attainment of a college credential, now we’re in a place where, because of Lumina’s leadership, nearly every state has a goal around increasing the education attainment of their own population.

In Utah, where I live, we had a goal for a long time of 66% by 2020, and that’s another one where we didn’t quite reach it. But I think this isn’t a goal that ever has a finish line. There’s no end. We are always going to be working towards increased educational attainment, specifically post-secondary educational attainment for everyone. And we at Lumina, the way that we do that is we support projects that really scale and systemically change the way that our systems look to ensure that more folks have that opportunity, and then once they get in the door are supported while they’re there.

Kevin: So a lot of what we’ve been talking about is sort of once they’re in, once, you know, young people, students getting into these programs, these credential programs, bachelor’s program and associate degree programs, you know, making sure they make it through so that you can meet that goal. But I really want to talk to you now about the process of getting in because, as I mentioned at the top of the show, 16 to 22-year-olds, 52% of them say that the most stressful part of their academic experience was the college application process. So that’s most of the kids, you know, in this country who are thinking about furthering their education, it is so stressful.

We know there’s a challenge with, you know, the guidance counselors. It could be funding. It could be experience. It could be the approach. It could be an old-school approach that doesn’t work in a new school world. So what should we be doing to make it an easier process for young people or young adults who maybe have graduated from high school and want to go back and get some certification or go back and get an associate’s degree? But everyone you talk to who engaged in this process feels it’s so cumbersome. And that’s the ones who’ve been through it. So many young people know it’s cumbersome, so they won’t even attempt. Talk to me about what we can do to make it better.

Melanie: Kevin, how long is this podcast? This is kind of my biggest axe to grind, I would say, about higher education. And it’s completely heartbreaking, right? I spoke a little bit before about the way that our systems have not really kept up with not only the changing needs of today’s students, but also just some fundamental, you know, process change in technology and things like that. An easy example is in the age of ChatGPT, why would we ever require an admissions essay? It makes no sense.

I think it’s kind of well known that particularly the admissions processes are antiquated. They are really cumbersome for students. They are too long. We supported a grant that wanted to help kind of streamline a process at a particular institution, the onboarding process. And they found that a student in order to actually enroll in classes had to create seven different profiles just to do that process.

It is high time for us to think about the fundamental simplification of the admissions process. And I really think that the conditions are right, right now, for this new fundamental change to happen. We’ve seen, particularly post-COVID, right, we’ve seen the field move towards test optional policies. So it used to be very rare that a higher education institution, even one with nearly 90% acceptance rate, require a standardized test. Now, post-COVID, we see that actually 80% of institutions are test optional, so they’re not always requiring them. So I see that as a fundamental simplification of the process.

We know that there are incredible barriers to the admissions application. I will say we also know that simplification of that is not the silver bullet to fixing college access and making sure that everyone can go. There are a myriad of issues with the college kind of going process, right, including affordability, including supports like you mentioned. In my state of Utah, our average school counselor ratio to student ratio is 1:400. And so you can imagine the type of individualized attention that a student, a high school student is able to get in that. It’s very easy to slip through the cracks.

But I will say the admissions process is one thing that is fully under the control of the institution. There’s a lot that we could do as colleges and universities and states and state systems in order to simplify that process. And so I think it’s kind of high time for that.

We’re seeing some innovations around the country, but I think right now, particularly with the recent Supreme Court decision last year that banned the practice of race conscious admissions, while that practice was really only being practiced at maybe the top 100 highly selective institutions, the trickle and ripple effects that we’re seeing across the field are substantial. And so I think the idea of reconsidering what admissions could look like, particularly in 2024 when we have more data, more technology, more systems at our fingertips than ever before, is really top of mind and it feels like an exciting time.

Kevin: So let me ask you this. I’m going to put myself in the role of a college president, a job I wouldn’t want, but I’m putting myself in that role. And, you know, I feel as a college president I want to make the right change. I want to simplify the process. I’ve got the Supreme Court ruling, but I also know that I’ve got maybe, you know, 700 applicants for each spot, let’s say. Maybe most schools have less, but some schools have more. And we’ve in the past relied on the SAT, you know, a standardized test, and we really have a cutoff. We say you’ve got to reach a certain score to even be considered. But then, because we know that, you know, some of those tests may be culturally biased or they may not be relevant to today’s work world, we do take, you know, letters, profile letters from students so they can distinguish themselves so we understand what type of character we’re getting. We look at references from teachers.

So tell me as a college president, knowing what we do and knowing we want to change, how should we change it to make sure that we’re getting a good cross section of students, we’re in compliance with the law, and we’re not just relying on test scores. What are some of the things that we could do differently?

Melanie: I am very curious about this college that you’re president of because I think there’s a huge focus in the media and in society around the most highly selective institutions — Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, all of those, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Melanie: The vast majority of institutions accept more than 60% of the students that apply, even flagship institutions in the state, right? And what they’re facing is a very different problem. So what they’re facing is, one, enrollment declines from the pandemic. We’re starting to see students . . .

Kevin: Yeah, good point.

Melanie: . . . come back, but not in the numbers that they should be coming back. And we are about to hit what we in higher ed call the enrollment cliff. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but it’s . . .

Kevin: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Melanie: Yeah. So the concept, right, is that birth rates are going down. So there will be just fewer 18 to 24-year-olds in the pipeline to go to college. So, right now, I think it’s kind of interesting because I think because of these enrollment declines, institutions are incentivized in a way that they haven’t been before to reconsider the processes in order to ensure that not only more students have opportunity, but that they have the students in the seats.

Kevin: Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. And to that point, which is an excellent point, Melanie, since most universities aren’t like 700:1 and all that kind of stuff in terms of applicants, and they do admit the vast majority, that begs the question even more, why not simplify it? You know you’re going to admit over half of the applicants anyway, so just simplify the process. And what I would also ask you, and this is what I really want to know, what steps should universities take to at least begin the process of change? Because I have seen in school bureaucracies, both higher ed and in K-12, the bureaucracies rule, and they are hard and they’re intractable. They’re hard to change. So what are the beginning steps to at least move toward a simplified process?

Melanie: I love that. And I think that’s such an important point. I just wanted to share a quick story. So early on in my career, I would support high school seniors as they filled out college applications. And I’ll always remember going to a local high school and sitting down with a student and he said, “I really want to apply to this university. It’s in my backyard, and it’s my dream school. But I just don’t think I can get in, so I don’t want to apply.” And the student didn’t know that the university was an open enrollment university and the only thing you needed to go was a high school diploma.

Kevin: Wow.

Melanie: And so I think, exactly to your point, it begs the question of particularly for open enrollment universities or what’s called broadly accessible universities with these higher acceptance rates, why put all of these barriers in front of the application, right? It should be as automated as possible and proactive as possible.

The unfortunate thing is that most colleges and universities model their admissions and application process off of the most highly selective colleges and universities. So it’s kind of here’s the process, and that’s going to be the same process all the way down. And I think now is the time to reconsider that fundamental transformation that’s needed.

So one of the first things I did at Lumina Foundation was to launch The Great Admissions Redesign, which we very grandly called this contest basically. And it was a call to the country to say, “Hey, states, systems, and institutions, give us your best ideas. We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think is the best way, the best ideas you have around fundamentally changing your admissions process.” And we wanted to or we formatted it around these three pillars. So the three pillars are simplicity, automation, and proactivity.

So simplicity, I think, is defined as the least number of student action required to actually apply. And so we know that, particularly this generation, two or three clicks, you lose them, right? And we want to ensure that the process is simple and simple to understand as well. Another thing we know from research is that the more simple a process is, the more equitable it is. The more complicated or complex the process is, the less equitable it is, because it requires so much prior knowledge to navigate.

And so all of that to say we launched this big contest. Because of, you know, kind of the timing of it and the time constraints, we expected maybe 20 to 30 applications. We actually received 71, which to me felt really heartening. To me, it meant that there are people across the country, colleges, universities, state systems of higher education that are thinking about this and wanting to fundamentally transform it. They might just need a little bit of resources and support from maybe a private foundation to help with that, right?

And we are in the middle of selecting finalists, and an announcement should come maybe in a month to six weeks. But I was so excited by the ideas that the 71 applications proposed, everything from a university that says, “You apply, you get in. There’s no rejection. You might have to take a few classes at the local community college that’s a mile away, but we are not going to be in the business of rejecting anyone from our university anymore.” What a cool thing, right?

Kevin: Yeah.

Melanie: There’s also something called direct admissions, where essentially in its most true form there is no application at all. A high school senior is sent a notification that says, “Congratulations, based on your high school transcript, you qualify for these institutions.”

Kevin: Wow.

Melanie: “And all you have to do is scan this QR code to select which one and enroll in classes.”

And there is also a ton of interest from the applications in the transfer process for community college students who are wanting to continue on. Why would they have to then apply and go through all this bureaucracy to get to a university? That should be more streamlined.

So all of that to say it feels incredibly exciting to see the ideas out there. And I think that there’s some energy around this right now, and I think it could be this really wonderful and exciting time in higher ed of transformation.

Kevin: Yeah, I think you’re right, Melanie. Those are great ideas. And the last thing I’ll say on this is while higher ed has its obligation responsibility, the K-12 system has its as well. And we talked about, you know, the counselors and just the lack of information flow to students. That example you gave of talking to the student who said, “The dream school, I’m not going to apply to, I won’t get in,” it’s open enrollment. Well, there’s no way a senior should not know that, especially if they have a counselor or, you know, they have teachers or administrators at a school. And there’s no way you shouldn’t know that. So don’t you think that while higher ed has a responsibility, you know, the K-12 system also has a responsibility to meet higher ed and students where they are in a way that leads to change?

Melanie: Absolutely. I think that’s such an important point. I will say, however, working with counselors in Utah, particularly after the pandemic, oh, my gosh, the things that they had to navigate. You know? Everything from school closures, just ensuring students take the classes and are able to graduate. In Utah, in particular, we’re seeing an incredible mental health crisis among our youth.

Kevin: Yes. And that’s all over the country. Yes.

Melanie: Yeah, right? And so high school counselors have so much on their plate. And often I would say college and career readiness is really important, but how does that stack against a suicidal student and a school closure? You know. It’s hard.

One thing that we did in Utah, that I felt really proud of, was we are working on expanding statewide this program called the Utah College Advising Corps. The College Advising Corps is a national program, and we have a statewide program here. And it takes a recent college graduate, so a bachelor’s degree graduate and puts them in a high school 40 hours a week with a direct reporting line to a high school counselor to help with FAFSA completion college applications, to help with scholarships, helping students have a meaningful connection to their campus. If a student has, you know, basic needs concerns, they connect that student, the high school senior to the basic needs center on campus, right, so they’re meaningfully connected.

To me, that has felt like a really interesting and meaningful program that I would love to see expanded and become a standardized thing. I think there’s something really meaningful about a near peer who looks like the student, looks like the graduating class, meets with the student, sometimes has the ability to actually pull a student out of, I don’t know what they call it, a non-foundational class and say, “Listen, I just did this. You can do this too. And let me help you.”

And so, all of that to say, I think there’s a ton that can be done together between K-12 and higher ed, co-funding these access advisor programs to take a little bit off of the school counselor’s plate, but also ensure that that student or that college access advisor still is integrated into the counseling team.

Kevin: Yeah, I think those are great points. And I think that I’ve heard about that program. The near peer approach makes sense. But I also think, Melanie, that the challenge that higher ed has in embracing change is the same challenge that bureaucracies, as I said in the beginning, and K-12 has, that the default is, “Well, we can’t do this, and it’s either/or. We’ve got counselors.” Well, you know what, I’ve heard of change is doing something.

And you mentioned the near peer example. There are other examples where some schools have said, “We’re going to have an assembly, and every junior is required to come to this assembly once a month. And we’re going to just do the nitty-gritty of the whole college or community college or skill certification program process.” And they have people come in. And it doesn’t cost a lot of money.

The point is that the default can’t be, in my view, we can’t do it because we got other things, which is kind of a bureaucracy speak approach. And, you know, for those superintendents, school leaders out there who may be listening, do something different in order to meet the need that’s obviously there.

And with that, Melanie, thank you so much for joining. This is really, really an important topic. I think that you’re doing work that’s meaningful. We have got to make the college higher education experience more accessible to young people.

Melanie: A hundred percent agree. Thanks so much, Kevin. It was lovely to chat with you. Really appreciate your time.

Kevin: And thank you for joining us on “What I Want to Know.”

Thanks for listening to “What I Want to Know.” Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education. And write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That’s #WIWTK.

For more information on Stride and online education, visit stridelearning.com. I’m your host, Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining “What I Want to Know.”