College admissions shift amid court rulings

23ABC News

Recent Supreme Court rulings that ended affirmative action and are looking to end legacy admissions make applying to college somewhat confusing. A recent college advisor on admissions has more on how to navigate the process.

Transcript

00:00 Recent Supreme Court rulings have ended affirmative action and are looking to end legacy admissions,

00:05 making applying to colleges somewhat confusing. Chris Stewart with Scripps News spoke with a

00:10 recent college advisor on admissions and has more on how to navigate the process.

00:14 It could be one of the most impactful moments of your life. The moment your application reaches

00:21 the desk of an admissions officer at a college or university, maybe your dream school,

00:25 and they make the decision whether you're in or you're not. So what does that decision process

00:32 now look like with the Supreme Court banning affirmative action and some colleges ending

00:36 legacy admissions? We're pulling back the curtain by talking to someone who knows firsthand.

00:41 Seconds. As a former Dartmouth admissions officer, Michelle Hernandez knows what works on a college

00:48 application. Focus on one thing and go in depth. That's like the best hack I can say is that be

00:53 really amazing at something, whatever that something is. She was a gatekeeper to one of

00:57 the most selective schools in the country. Dartmouth lets just 6% of applicants in.

01:04 Today, she says she was part of a system that's flawed. Sometimes it's subconscious, like, oh,

01:08 that letter seems lukewarm, but maybe it was just that that person didn't know how to write a

01:12 recommendation letter and the student was great. So, yeah, I mean, there's lots of talented kids

01:17 that they miss. She says as America reacts to the Supreme Court's decision to ban affirmative

01:22 action, it's important to recognize the other hooks that are valued just as much by elite

01:28 colleges that don't directly have to do with grades or S.A.T. scores. The orchestra is going

01:33 to need a certain number of musicians. The dance department is going to need a certain number of

01:37 dancers. So they're always looking for different things anyway. She says as many as half of the

01:41 spots in a class can be reserved for kids who fit certain criteria. She says in her experience,

01:47 roughly 10% of spots could be reserved for students of color, but even more could be saved

01:52 for students whose parents were alumni known as legacies, with an even larger group being saved

01:58 for students recruited to play sports. Hernandez says those other hooks beyond race are often not

02:04 filled with minority students. Going to an Ivy League school sets you on a better path, but why

02:09 is that advantage only reserved for like, you know, wealthy white kids? The U.S. Department of

02:13 Education is currently investigating Harvard's acceptance of legacy students, looking into

02:18 whether it violates the Federal Civil Rights Act. Two prestigious liberal arts colleges,

02:22 Wesleyan in Connecticut and Occidental in California, announced they will no longer

02:27 consider legacies. I think the quick ways to make it fair would be get rid of legacy admissions,

02:33 pay attention to income and really make a commitment to giving full financial aid to

02:37 anyone, let's say, who makes under $200,000. Along with doing more to evaluate a student's

02:42 socioeconomic background, Hernandez says prestigious schools need to change their

02:47 recruiting tactics when it comes to diversity. As an admissions officer, I visited high schools.

02:52 The whole fall is visiting high schools. I usually visited a lot of private schools and prep schools.

02:56 You could visit a lot more inner city schools and tell these kids, hey, you do have a chance to get

03:00 in. Here's what we're looking for. Here's what you need to do. Today, Michelle runs college prep

03:04 company Top Tier Admissions, which tutors students to get on the right track to one day apply to the

03:10 kind of institution she once worked at. Insight that parents are willing to pay tens of thousands

03:16 of dollars for. Not everyone deserves to go to the hardest school in the country to get into,

03:20 but they deserve to go to college and we can at least make it more equitable and try to open up

03:24 the pathways for them to get there. And that's kind of the American dream in a nutshell. A dream,

03:29 she says, is as much about grades as it is knowing how to navigate a system that isn't always fair.

03:35 Chris Stewart, Scripps News.

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