Systematically providing selective colleges with detailed information about applicants’ high-school backgrounds could significantly raise the admission rates of low-income students, a new study concludes.
The authors of the study based it on an unusual experiment in which more than 300 admission officers at selective institutions passed judgment on hypothetical applicants from various socioeconomic backgrounds. Officers who had been provided with detailed information about applicants’ high schools were about 13 percentage points more likely to recommend the admission of a student of low socioeconomic status than were officers who had been given more basic information conveying a humble background.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/Richer-Data-on-College/234109