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The HigherEdJobs Podcast is dedicated to helping higher education professionals find fulfillment in their careers and be the change agents that higher education needs in today's world. Join hosts Andrew Hibel and Kelly Cherwin, along with guest experts, as they examine job search strategies and break down the latest news and trends in higher education.
Andy Hibel 0:01
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.
Kelly Cherwin 0:07
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. So our topic today is intended to speak to those campus staff members, faculty, administrators and others who may not directly work in admissions or enrollment management. And we're going to talk about what they should know. We are delighted to be joined by Brennan Barnard and Rick Clark. Brennan is the director of College Counseling and External Affairs at Khan School Network, California. He's also the college admissions program advisor with the Making Caring Common, a project the Harvard Graduate School of Education and director of College Counseling for the College Guidance Network. Rick is the assistant vice provost and executive director of undergraduate admission at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Thanks, guys, for joining us today.
Rick Clark 0:47
Thanks for having us for having us. Looking forward to it.
Kelly Cherwin 0:50
So before we get into the meat of the topic today, I want to highlight that in addition to role, I just mentioned, you are also the co-authors of the book The Truth About College Admissions A Family Guide to Getting In and Staying Together, which is published by Johns Hopkins. So I have a bit of a statement here and kind of a two part question. So first of all, I'm the parent of three high schoolers, so I'm kind of in the thick of it right now. I have a I have a senior in high school, and I know several of my colleagues here in the room are kind of either have gone through it or are going through it as well. So, one, I want to thank you guys for writing such a practical book. But also I wanted to give a nod to the Family guide to getting in and staying together part the staying together. This, for me personally, has been quite a emotional a little bit of a stressful year. So I just wanted to say thanks for like, you know, acknowledging that it is kind of the emotional part. So I will ask like what what was the reason behind t his book? And, you know, kind of did develop?
Brennan Barnard 1:48
Well, I mean, I think you you touched on it right there. I mean, there are a lot of books in this space around kind of college admission and getting in and the secrets to college admission and, what's the special sauce? And they're written by, journalists to have been embedded in the college admission experience or they're written by admissions officers who spent a year or two in highly selective admission. But we really wanted to focus this on kind of what matters, and that is family and having a meaningful experience and not not so much the just getting in, but kind of getting within and talking as a family.
Rick Clark 2:31
Ya, absolutely. I mean, I would I would echo that. And I think, you know, Brennan works on the grounds at the high school level and then I'm on the college side and we hadn't seen that done either, where we're trying to give perspective of, you know, what are the messages that maybe colleges are putting out and then how is that actually being received and how can people sort of translate that both ways? So giving the perspective of institutional mission and priorities and sort of what goes into making admissions decisions, but then also how that lands in living rooms and kitchens around the country too, is really critical. We both have two kids. You know, Brendan's got one in college and one about to go to college. I've got a high schooler and a middle schooler. And so we've seen this both in our families and our neighborhoods, but also certainly in our work go really well and really not well. And there is a way for it to go well. And I think there is a way, as he said, for it to kind of be bigger than the way people make it and approach it as as a process and make it more of an experience that can be actually instead of divisive, unifying. And that's really what we tried to to bring home, ya know, in the book.
Kelly Cherwin 3:37
That's great.
Andy Hibel 3:38
Thanks. That that is great. And once again, in full disclosure, I am one of those colleagues over college student, as well as a high school senior at this point. So going through it for the second time has been really, really interesting. And I think for me, if I was going to acknowledge one thing, the part that I didn't fully appreciate prior to having kids go through it is how much societal pressure there are in these 18 year olds to see their first 18 years as a success. And the college admission for so many of them is the single determining factor of whether or not they've just wasted 18 years of their life trying to get to this point. And as a parent, I have to say my number one goal both times was to de-escalate as much as I possibly could on that part of the process. So we have two kids, this is the the second, having to not have to go through that again, as a parent, I look forward to not having to do that again.
Brennan Barnard 4:40
And that's so true, Andrew. And and I think also for some parents, I mean, it sounds like you're not one of them, but for some parents, it ends up being kind of a referendum on how they've raised their kids. Right. Like, they get so invested in this is like, okay, you know, my son or daughter or my child got into this school or is applying to these schools. And that means I've done my job or I've I've been successful. And we really try to dial that back.
Andy Hibel 5:08
to echo what Kelly said, that's what I love so much about the approach that you all have taken. Let's kind of just start off with kind of a meat and potatoes question for those who do not work in admissions on campus, what should they know to keep up with current admission trends? This thing called the pandemic has happened. There's political polarization, got a couple of wars happening. This is a different world than even five years ago on campus. What if you're not in admissions or in enrollment management? What should they know?
Rick Clark 5:39
I can take a quick crack at that. I mean, , there's so many things that we can head on. To your point. I mean, there have just been some tumultuous changes here, some really seismic shifts over the last 3 to 5 years in particular, one that we saw coming, one that we actually knew about and is a very real pressure and reality that I do think most faculty and others on college campuses are aware of to some extent, perhaps not as acutely as those who work in admissions and enrollment management. Is this demographic cliff, right, this sort of birth dearth that occurred in the Great Recession, And that's really coming now that the American birthrate slowed down and has plateaued. And those kids, those 2008, 2009 students, maybe even arguably 2007, 2008, 2009 students, high school graduates in the United States is about to start to plateau and level and then ultimately drop because of what's been happening. And so in addition to all the things that many people talk about, cost of college, value of college, all these like big macro conversations, we also have a shortening or a tightening of the domestic pipeline. And that is something that I don't know that everybody is probably as aware of. interesting is that you couple that with a international pipeline that's more fragile than ever, too. So when we think about admission, a lot of times people use the metaphor of a funnel and they think about the top of the funnel being a certain circumference. And that circumference is by all measures and determinations actually becoming smaller, less American high school graduates and more competition at the international level than ever before. Many countries in Europe, many countries in such as Australia, Canada, even in Asia, there's been a lot more investment in their own recruitment of international students. Therefore, not only Americans but other countries. And also, of course, you know, geopolitically in the United States, some fragility that's been occurring here. That's left us scrambling a little bit more than ever before for international interest. And so I think that that's just a reality. One of the trends that's occurring is simply the tightening up or the shrinking of the top of the funnel. And that has implications across the ecosystem in higher education.
Brennan Barnard 8:08
And, you know, I'll just add, I mean, you mentioned it briefly, Rick, but I think the one thing that wasn't expected to the extent that it has been is that questioning the value of college. college admission officers are increasingly not only needing to kind of sell their college, but they're having to sell the idea of college, which a shift that's happening, I think, more and more. And that value piece and the ROI.
Andy Hibel 8:34
I think what's so amazing about that, that if there's one thing that we've done in academia that's unified America is we've gotten America to agree that academics is too expensive. So President Biden puts out the student loan forgiveness. You never heard any arguments like, oh, no, higher education is affordable. Why are we doing this? You heard process arguments. Does he have the the ability to do it? That's the only arguments you heard. Nobody in America disagreed that college was expensive. In fact, we all agreed with it and thought it made sense that maybe people shouldn't be as burdened paying for this,
Brennan Barnard 9:09
Right. And that question about investment right the ROIs, I think increasingly, I mean, we're seeing it in a lot of colleges cutting back on programs because they're under enrolled and a lot of that comes back to return on investment and folks saying well I'm going to go to college this is what I need to know what the outcome is.
Andy Hibel 9:28
Absolutely.
Track 7 9:29
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Rick Clark 10:06
What we were just referring to there pretty macro trends that have implications not only on individual college campuses, but, as I said, across the kind of landscape. Another one that would fall into that category is, you know, a little bit more in the weeds of of admission and enrollment management. But it has implications across the entire landscape. And that is this test optional movement. You know, prior to the pandemic, there were less than a thousand schools around the country who were saying, if you'd like to send your test scores, you know, that's great. And we'll we'll review those. And if you would rather not send them, then that's not necessary. And it won't be part of our process because of the pandemic and because of the access that students essentially did not have to standardized testing, primarily S.A.T. and ACT both in the country and abroad, many schools made that shift. And now that number is closer to 2000. So, you know, it's more than doubled well, more than doubled the number of schools around the country. And systems like the California system has gone what many would call test free or test blind. In other words, even if you take it, you shouldn't send it. And even if you send it, they won't consider it or look at it. You know, that is a that's a major change because California does have an impact for a variety of reasons on the rest of the American higher education system. And given that, you know, if we're talking about ballpark 4000, you colleges and universities in the country, about half, I think actually even higher number than that are test optional. Now.
Brennan Barnard 11:46
I think it's 80% of four year colleges. And yeah and it remains this this area that we fixate on. Right And you probably saw The New York Times article that came out recently and there's been a lot of conversation about around test optional and what it really means and is it really true and so there's a lot of consternation on the part of families about kind of what test optional the implications of it. And so we focus on it as this, like we often do with different parts of the admission experience of like this is the thing that's going to get me in or not get me in. And and so I think we need to keep in perspective.
Andy Hibel 12:29
F or those are still seeking kind of a good solid footing on that. Maybe just giving that quick answer on what exactly is test optional and maybe how does it differ from institution to institution?
Brennan Barnard 12:41
I mean, test optional really is, you know, if if you feel like your test, your S.A.T. or A.C.T. are representative of you as a student and they're competitive for that school to which you're applying, it's in their kind of midrange or the top of their midrange or above their mid-range of acceptance students, then you should submit it. If if it's something that is kind of a feather in your cap, then you should submit it. if your your grades and your experiences and everything else in your application stands on its own without those and they are not adding value to your application, then don't send them and your application will be evaluated on everything else.
Rick Clark 13:25
Yeah, speaking from the college side, you know, think for faculty or others on campuses listening to this, one of the things that I would hope they would do and have already had, you know, campus wide conversations around is to say, how were we looking at tests prior to moving perhaps to the test optional policy and what data are we seeing? What correlation are we seeing between a student who does or doesn't have a test when we're making an admission decision? Because I've certainly talked to many faculty administrators, not just at Georgia Tech, but other places as well, where, you know, the question and certainly that neighbors and friends asked us to. Well, guys, isn't that the one and only objective measure that you have is if GPAs vary from high school to high school and if grading scales vary from high school to high school have access to certain classes varies from county to county or state to state, like we don't, we need one objective standardized measure. And aren't we giving up on predictive value by having that? The answer to that question is, I think, the frustration and yet beauty of American higher education. It depends. And it varies. And from college to college, you know, that's the due diligence of looking at the correlation, looking at the history, looking at the predictive models, and determining for our institution what is our best route forward, not just to bring in students who can be academically qualified, but also to keep us competitive within the landscape. And all of those type of determining factors go into the policies that schools adopt.
Brennan Barnard 15:00
While also considering how inequitable the tests can be and preparation for the tests and all that can be on student side.
Rick Clark 15:09
Yeah, guess I'll throw out one other trend. again, this one is huge, you know, and that is that the Supreme Court, this last summer made a decision on a 40 years of precedent that said that previously colleges, through a holistic process, could use race as one of many factors in order to make admissions decisions. this court has determined that that should no longer be lawful while a student, will still indicate their race or ethnicity on an application that when it is transmitted and when a school sees it on their side, that needs to be redacted. So the quote unquote box indicating a student's race or ethnicity just as much as you would have a box determining a gender or the major they're interested in or any other data that we receive cannot be viewed and cannot be used in order to make admissions decisions. And while many schools around the country weren't using it anyway, they were using very formulaic process as to make admission decisions. The more selective schools around the country, the more competitive schools around the country. Those are getting like Georgia Tech, 60,000 applications really prefer to see as much data as possible and as much information about any individual student as possible to make good decisions, but also to meet institutional goals and priorities. And so that is something that is a ever changing this year in particular conversation about how to do this lawfully, how to still, you know, meet some of your your goals around diversity and access and yet, obviously comply with the law. So it's a it's an ongoing conversation and actually has implications. I think this is relevant for faculty at the undergrad and grad side, other administrators. It also has implications for scholarships and financial aid. So it's been looked at as Harvard and UNC and the admissions case, but it actually has ripple effects well beyond that. And I think many people have also seen how this has been even written and for how employers and companies are considering, you know, what it is that they're doing to to make their their recruitment goals. And you know, the mission of their company moving forward. So this, I would say, too, is in that sort of seismic, unprecedented type of shift that's occurring in admission and enrollment management.
Kelly Cherwin 17:27
Thank you guys for bringing up. Yeah, that that was Yeah, I got more.
Brennan Barnard 17:31
I got more if you want.
Kelly Cherwin 17:32
Yeah. No go, go for more trends. Go ahead.
Brennan Barnard 17:34
Well I mean, I mean other trends, I mean I would say mission creep. Kevin and we both have seniors, as do I. And the admission experience is beginning so much earlier in high school that in many ways we're losing high school for students who are college bound. I mean, it is, the amount of early action and early decision applications and the push to fill sometimes over 50% of the class through early programs is really changing the calendar around. And it has been over, you know, a decade or so, really changed in the calendar of college admission. And and I think that has a lot of implications on the high school experience and on not only junior year and the pressure and how much is going on but also senior year and and when half or more of some classes are into college in the fall of their senior year. It kind of negates a lot of what happens after that. And so that's a huge trend that I've been seeing.
Kelly Cherwin 18:41
I'm glad you mentioned that because. Yeah, November 1st rolled around here and it was a little again, I used the word stressful and I didn't we didn't exactly know what to do. So how is this affecting kind of the the admissions professionals, as early actions, early decision? mean, how is it affecting institutions? I mean, obviously it's affecting the students, but like, what's the result on the other side.
Brennan Barnard 19:03
Some ways And Rick and talk more about it. But in some ways it's to serve them. I mean, the reason that early action exists is so in some ways so they can spread out their applicant pool, right? So January 1st or whatever comes and they don't have, you know, 60,000 applications. Right. Like they can spread out the work. and it also increases yield and all that kind of stuff.
Rick Clark 19:24
And again, thinking about maybe faculty or administrators or others listening and you know, what questions might they be asking and how can they stay curious about what's happening at their campus? one of the things we talk about the deadlines is like they're not arbitrary. Like they're very strategic and they're also not isolated to your individual campus, because at the end of the day, it is an ecosystem, you know, higher education is an ecosystem. And if your primary three or five overlap, competitor schools are setting deadlines and enrolling higher percentage of their students through a binding early decision plan, it is forcing your hand whether or not you agree with going early. This is in or some of the known implications for what that might mean, perhaps from a from an equity standpoint or otherwise. You have to deal with the reality of who you're competing against and who students who are looking at you are also, know, what other schools they're looking at. One thing that Brennan mentioned that's very just a fiscal reality, too, is, if you do secure students through, say, a binding ED plan, then your yield goes up. That has implications for rankings. The profile, you know, typically it can go up on a lot of various measures for your incoming ED cohort. But then the truth is that every school in the country, just like every person and every company, has a budget and the budgets vary in size. But at the end of the day, we're all working with limited dollars and if you know that you've gotten this percentage of your class in through early decision, you actually know a lot earlier how much money you have to play with to then leverage that to get the rest of your class. And so I think that's one of the things there's a lot of people out there who are big naysayers about early decisions and pretty much just lump it completely into being bad bucket. I see Brennan raising his hands and and I would have to say that, you know, knowing the reality on the college side, though, and I think most people can understand this again because we all have our own limited dollars that we use for our families and in our own life, like having something set in your budget, having something set to meet your class goals allows you then to have some discretion to figure out how are we going to then prioritize those dollars to round out and shape our institutional priorities and mission? Right? So it's complicated and it is not made in a vacuum. And I think that's something, in my experience with faculty and administrators, sometimes people will come to us, you know, with questions or sometimes frankly, with complaints and say, why did we do this right? This doesn't make sense. This isn't who we are. This isn't the best path forward. And, you know, I think it sometimes is important for admission enrollment leaders to educate their campus about things like test optional or why are we making the decision we are. Well, this is also made in context of the reality of the broader landscape. Why are we going ED you're not going ED. Why are we setting, you know, multiple headlines that get very confusing for students? And I have all kinds of crazy acronyms. Well, that's about us meeting our institutional priorities goals. So, you know, I think that's important for people again, on campus. I mean, it's an invitation to ask questions. And I think that's what this is all about.
Brennan Barnard 22:41
And that's a great point. my naysaying is more twofold. And one is and it's more around early decision as a practice, the binding decision, whereas a lot of schools, their acceptance rate, their admit rate for early decision is sometimes double or more what it is for regular decision. And so it leads to this kind of gamification of college admission and where students are are making educational decisions based on kind of the process and not based on what they really want. And so there's that piece of things, and then there's the equity piece of things. I mean, early decision ends up being something that favors kind of the wealthy who don't need to worry about being able to compare packages during regular decision and it favors those who have access to, you know, quality counseling and to folks who can advise them on how best to kind of strategically look at college admission. And so so those are my my to kind of push backs against it.
Rick Clark 23:45
And that's totally fair. I mean, you can say the same thing of first generation students, right, who are disproportion currently not represented in early decision plans. But you know, you're seeing Andy and Kelly, you're seeing play out in real time how the book essentially got written is, you know, and saying all the things on the high school side. And I'm saying, you know, here's what's happening on our side. We really that's what we tried to bring to life is, you know, how do you kind of acknowledge the reality on both sides give people as transparent and big a picture as possible, you to understand like, yeah, there's going to be some things that you just can't control, right? I mean, it feels like, you know, a decision is being made very much individually about you, but like there's all these swirl in macro type of, institutional goals and things that are that are actually informing how this whole thing plays out.
Brennan Barnard 24:34
Right. And and I'm not naive. I mean, higher ed is a business. let's be honest. Right. I mean, just like, you know, supermarkets, right, Like they had their Valentine's decorations out before Christmas, it even happened. And if you're the store down the road and you haven't done that and your competitor has, then your missing out.
Andy Hibel 24:55
Well, interesting. I regularly take notes through podcast and I usually put stuff off to the side like, Oh, I have to get to it. And I have to say for this podcast so far we're little ways into it. I have the longest list I've ever had and things I want to keep talking about, and it's really interesting how many issues that we're talking about related to the admissions process that are the key issues affecting colleges, universities at their core. it's interesting we get back to the business part of it. And before we talk business, I always feel like I need to offer this disclaimer. I love I love how much academia values the difference it makes in people's lives in so many different ways. The people who work there, of course, the students, service to society, college communities are incredible. And I'm talking from the biggest of the big football programs to the smallest of the smallest schools, whatever the sport is on campus and game day on campus, whatever that might be on a fall Saturday, those are the things that make college special And the the learning how to be an adult and being a part of that. If you're working there that make it so great. But the business of higher education now has changed significantly. one of the things that I had written on that list of things to talk about is Georgia Tech is a very blessed institution, But if you're a more tuition dependent institution, these are life and death decisions that if you're yield and your retention and maybe we should talk a little bit more about specifically what those are for folks might not be as familiar isn't what it should be. It's not only affecting this year of business, but you're projecting out another four years of hurt for that or doing additional work on the back end. And then we can talk about, hey, let's go to the Valentine's Day side. You go into that store and you're going to buy box of candy for your special person in your life. And let's say that the box of candy is price at $100, but the store will allow you to pay 40 bucks for it. But the other store there tells you right off the bat that it's 40 bucks, like, hey, what's going on here? Like, are we and this is a large question, are we doing ourselves a service, by the way, that particularly Brendan, you're talking about the equity side of it. Wouldn't it just be fair to tell people what they're going to pay no matter what? a general rule, schools have in the nineties of percent of, of scholarship aid that everybody's net cost is pretty much knocked down. A they really doing themselves a service? But hey, if you have a $100 box of candy competing with a $40 box of candy, that's a tough place to sell. You're going to think that $100 box is really, really good. But if you're going to end up paying $40 for it, are you pretty much talking the same box Candy there?
Brennan Barnard 27:54
Well, and to your point, right, that the I think the national tuition discount rate is now over 50%. Right. So their schools are discounting tuition or setting tuition at a certain rate and then discounting it over 50% on average.
Andy Hibel 28:10
It seems like asking an obvious question, but do people really like having to click again on Amazon to reveal the price or do they just want to see the price on the first screen? I mean, are there students and families who who are working through this process or are. Rick are their admissions professionals who love this? How do people like this? And maybe more importantly, why are we here.
Rick Clark 28:34
Who have That is a huge question. I honestly I mean, your metaphor I started going so many ways in my head. First of all, of course, I was doing Forrest Gump with Life is like a box of chocolates. And maybe, you know, college is like a box of chocolates.
MW
Join us in two weeks for the second half of our conversation with Rick Clark and Brennan Barnard. If you would like more information about them or their book, The Truth about College Admission, check out their website at www dot TruthAboutCollegeAdmission dot com. Thanks for joining us. We look forward to talking soon.