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SKIMMING THE TOP. Viewed in this context, it's easier to see why the individualistic, hands-on style of admissions for a prestigious grad school won't work for the freshman class of a public university in one of the largest states in the union -- at least not without sizable investments in admissions staffs. And in these hard times, most states can't afford such aggressive personnel moves.
Nonetheless, some schools, such as Michigan, have used a point system of admissions -- including points for GPA, extracurricular activities, and yes, race -- to help cut through the mountain of applicants begging to be admitted. Other state universities have opted for the "10% rule" -- where the top 10% of students at each high school in a state is automatically eligible for acceptance.
Still, even that plan has its imperfections. Bernard Milano, president of the KPMG Foundation and a member of the President's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges & Universities, sees a growing trend of talented students leaving magnet and private schools to return to underperforming schools, where they'll be guaranteed a top 10% spot.
DESIRED OUTCOME. Instead of allowing for this kind of school-shopping, Milano says educators should embrace the critical part of the Supreme Court's decision -- racial diversity in the classroom is a desired outcome and shouldn't be disallowed. "It's the tools for achieving diversity that are being criticized," says Milano. "Since it's permissible to look at the whole person, we have to come up with some mechanism and process that allows us to achieve that."
That means corporations may have to pick up the slack in assisting universities, whether with grants to beef up admissions staffs or a compendium of best practices that can be used across the university universe.
The decision "will make admissions more cumbersome and more challenging, especially when many institutions are facing budget cuts," says Karen Johns, director of the Diversity Pipeline Alliance, an umbrella group that pulls together more than a dozen nonprofit organizations that support education programs for minorities from junior high school through MBA programs. "Companies should be convening some of the best minds...to help schools figure out best practices."
"CALL TO ARMS." Johns and others say it'll be up to companies to put their money and time where their amicus briefs were in the University of Michigan case -- behind properly administered preferences that foster a greater good. Says Johns: "This is really a call to arms for Corporate America to redouble their efforts and do even more."
That support could come in the form of a think tank for best practices, moving the financial burden of coming up with new ideas for implementing whole-person admissions away from cash-strapped universities. Or it could be an even simpler solution -- endowing funds to undergraduate admissions offices so they can take the same care and time with each application as graduate schools do already.
If grad schools such as Michigan's Law School have a formula that works -- and that's now Supreme Court-approved -- why not help make it easier for undergraduate institutions to do the same?
Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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