Meritocracy and the University: Selective Admission in England and the United States
Abstract
Based on a hundred interviews with some of the key stakeholders in university admissions, and statistics from both primary and secondary sources, this book explains the values, processes and practices that judge some individuals as worthy of getting an education at elite universities and deny admission to other applicants.
By juxtaposing the UK and US systems the book invites readers from both sides of the Atlantic to see the familiar as strange and to reflect on the underlying values behind the selection of students. It illustrates how particular discussions of meritocracy affect individuals and relate to the history and social climate of each nation.
... In practice, these approaches overlap, with FYs often contextualising admissions criteria. However, despite growing policy discourses emphasising the need for CA and FYs (Mountford- Zimdars et al., 2016), these kinds of initiatives are under-researched and comparative research on these WP activities both within and across country contexts remains under-explored. ...
... The use of contextualised data is on the rise internationally and it varies in its application. For example, a holistic admissions approach is taken in the USA (for a discussion, see Zimdars, 2016), whereby each applicant is looked at individually in relation to all the information provided about or by them, while in England and Ireland the system flags indicators of disadvantage during admissions and provides these students with preferences in terms of interview or grade reduction. Four types of indicators are generally used: individual level, area level, school level and participation in WP programmes. ...
... In some universities contextual applicants are prioritised for a reduced grade offer at one or more grades below the standard offer, while in other universities they are guaranteed an interview. In a 2015 survey of 68 UK universities, 84% said they were using some form of contextualised admissions, but most appeared to use contextual information in a broad sense rather than for reduced grade entry (Mountford- Zimdars et al., 2016). ...
This article presents a cross‐national exploration of responses to widening participation (WP), with a specific focus on the provision of foundation year (FY) programmes and the use of contextualised admissions (CA) in selective Irish and UK institutions. There remains a dearth of research on these routes, with little understanding of the characteristics of students who utilise them, of why students use these routes and little knowledge of their effect on students’ experiences in university and their overall sense of belonging. A year‐long longitudinal comparative case study design examined three alternative entry routes in two selective higher education institutions (HEIs) in England and Ireland: a well‐established FY; a newly formed FY; and a CA pathway. Data were collected through a mixed‐method approach. Questionnaires and in‐depth focus groups were employed at fixed points with participating students in each route. Results indicated that FY students had lower levels of familial educational history and parental occupation. FY students’ sense of belonging significantly increased over the year, with students reporting increased confidence and sense of belonging due to the relationships established during the FY. CA students’ sense of belonging remained the same, with students reporting feeling different and isolated. Results indicate that while students utilising FYs may be ‘more disadvantaged’ than CA students, their experiences helped establish a sense of belonging; illustrating the need for diverse WP routes catering to a wide range of needs. Results highlight the importance of providing opportunities to develop social and bridging social capital for all non‐traditional students.
... There are key similarities and differences between the two countries. The two countries have similar overall rates of participation in higher education (just over 50%; Mountford-Zimdars, 2016) and feature stratified systems of higher education with elite and non-elite institutions (Raffe & Croxford 2015). However, the US system is more marketised than the English system with one in four providers being private compared to approximately 2% in the UK (Hunt & Boliver 2019). ...
... The Power of Professors and Professionals 8 results. For more information on ways complementary data were gathered and utilized to triangulate results, please see(Mountford-Zimdars, 2016). ...
Elite university admissions are administered by a range of organizational actors depending on national and institutional contexts. While the outcomes of high-stakes elite university admissions have been studied extensively, the opaque admissions selection process remains undertheorized and understood. Using theories of professions and systems theory to examine unique qualitative interview data from admissions selectors in both the U.S. and England, this paper sheds light on the opaque decision-making of elite university admissions shaped by professional contexts and organizational dynamics. We find that the self-regulated profession of professors and the less autonomous professional staff selectors influence the decision-making processes of elite university admissions. Understanding elite university admissions based on the macro/meso-context of professions and their organizational system structure offers a theoretically original approach for future research and the potential to create more equitable admissions processes through new change strategies.
... A prominent feature of higher education access in the United States since the 1970s has been a commitment on the part of most selective higher education institutions to affirmative action in admissions (Bowen & Bok, 1998;Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005;Espenshade, Chung, & Walling, 2004;Hinrichs, 2013;Howell, 2010;Karabel, 2005). UK institutions have something rather similar in the form of contextualised admission for institutions (Bridger, Shaw, & Moore, 2012;Lane & Parry, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, 2014. ...
... More forcefully, contextualised admission can take the form of accepting students with lower secondary school performance than is typical and offering them institutional financial aid or "bursaries" and targeted student service supports (Bridger et al., 2012, pp. 17-19, 31, 47-57;Moore et al., 2013, pp. 3, 17, 47-50, 53;Universities UK, 2016b, p. 65; see also Boliver, Gorard, & Siddiqui, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, 2014 We recognise that, if selective institutions are to make progress in admitting more students with high potential from disadvantaged backgrounds, they may want to admit some such students on the basis of lower entry qualifications than they would normally apply. To help them identify individuals with the greatest potential, institutions may sometimes want to use contextual data, for example about levels of average attainment in an applicant's school. ...
England and the United States provide a very interesting pairing as countries with many similarities, but also instructive dissimilarities, with respect to their policies for higher education access and success. The purpose of this paper is to explore these similarities and dissimilarities with an eye to what each country can learn from the other with regard to reducing social class and racial/ethnic differences in higher education access and success. We focus on seven policy strands affecting higher education access and completion: student information provision; outreach from higher education institutions; student financial aid; affirmative action or contextualisation in higher education admissions; higher education efforts to improve retention and completion; performance funding; and degree of reliance on sub-baccalaureate institutions. While not exhaustive, this list of interventions is meant to focus on key policies affecting the undergraduate student experience and to give a sense of their range. We explore possible lessons that England and the United States might draw from each other’s experiences, mindful of the dangers of uncritical “policy tourism”. In the case of the United States, we note why and how it might benefit from following England in the use of Access Agreements to govern the outreach efforts of its universities, making more use of income-contingent loans, and expanding the range of information provided to prospective college students about the programmes and institutions they are considering. Meanwhile, in the case of England, we examine how it might benefit from greater focus on the role of further education colleges, sceptical consideration of proposals to make greater use of for-profit higher education, greater use of grant aid in its financial aid system, more policy attention to decisions students are making in primary and early secondary school that affect their preparation for higher education, greater use of contextualised admissions, and very careful consideration of the possible downsides of performance funding.
... Such students may be invited for interviews. More forcefully, contextualised admission can take the form of accepting students with lower secondary school performance than is typical and potentially offering them institutional financial aid or 'bursaries' and targeted student service supports (Boliver, Gorard, & Siddiqui 2019;Bridger et al. 2012;Moore et al. 2013;Universities UK 2016; see also Mountford-Zimdars 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions 2016). A study of the admissions process of the Sutton Trust group of 30 highly selective universities found that 18 of them stated that they prioritised 'contextually indicated applicants' for a reduced offer one or more grades below the standard offer (Boliver et al. 2017, pp. ...
... Most of the variation by class and race/ethnicity in HE access and the most selective institutions is due to differences in academic preparation prior to HE (Adelman 1999;Chowdry et al. 2013;Gorard et al. 2007;Perna 2005;UK BIS 2015) and the understandable reluctance of less advantaged students to enter culturally unwelcoming institutions (Archer et al. 2002;Crozier et al. 2010;Mullen 2010;Reay et al. 2005). Moreover, we must not ignore that affirmative action policies have been a political lightning rod in many countries, including the US, England, India, and Brazil (Karabel 2005;Mountford-Zimdars 2016;Pazich & Teranishi 2012;Warikoo 2016). ...
England and the United States provide a very interesting pairing as countries with many similarities, but also instructive dissimilarities, with respect to their policies for higher education access and success. We focus on five key policy strands: student information provision; outreach from higher education institutions; student financial aid; affirmative action or contextualisation in higher education admissions; and programmes to improve higher education retention and completion. At the end, we draw conclusions on what England and the US can learn from each other. The US would benefit from following England in using Access and Participation Plans to govern university outreach efforts, making more use of income-contingent loans, and expanding the range of information provided to prospective higher education students. Meanwhile, England would benefit from following the US in making greater use of grant aid to students, devoting more policy attention to educational decisions students are making in early secondary school, and expanding its use of contextualised admissions. While we focus on England and the US, we think that the policy recommendations we make carry wider applicability. Many other countries with somewhat similar educational structures, experiences, and challenges could learn useful lessons from the policy experiences of these two countries.
... We focus on low-income students rather than students from all backgrounds as higher income students often naturally progress into higher education, which involves less complex decision-making (Archer, Hollingworth, and Halsall 2007). There is significant scholarship on how students, especially those from low-income backgrounds, aspire to postsecondary education (see Schneider and Saw 2016), how students choose postsecondary education (see Perna 2006), mechanisms to increase participation (Castleman and Page 2015), and the admissions process (Stevens 2007;Mountford Zimdars 2016), yet there is little scholarship that addresses these phenomena and concepts from an international comparative and human ecology perspective. This article will give a brief overview of both the English and US policy perspectives on financial aid and postsecondary education access, followed by the theoretical framework, methodology, results, discussion, and implications of the study. ...
... However, there is a relationship between social background and the type of postsecondary education institution students attend. Underrepresented students (those from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds, students of color, and adult learners) are less likely to enroll and persist at the most prestigious universities (Boliver 2015;Mountford Zimdars 2016). ...
This project investigated the postsecondary education aspirations of 27 secondary school-aged students living in greater London, England and greater Boston, Massachusetts, USA. An innovative research design was implemented to support a technology-facilitated international focus group allowing for exchanges between the US and English students. Using human ecology theory, the findings show that differences in students’ exosystems, specifically the financial aid and loan repayment processes, influence student postsecondary education and career aspirations. US student concerns about affordability and loan repayment made aspirations lower and more localized. In contrast, English participants felt comforted by their government’s deferred loan repayment process, so they did not express such strong constraints on aspirations based on financial considerations. Both English and US students were influenced similarly by the mesosystem when making decisions about which postsecondary institution to attend. In conclusion, altering exosystem policy and influencing mesosystem relationships could impact postsecondary education aspirations for low-income students.
... A prominent feature of higher education access in the United States since the 1970s has been a commitment on the part of most selective higher education institutions to affirmative action in admissions (Bowen & Bok, 1998;Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005;Espenshade, Chung, & Walling, 2004;Hinrichs, 2013;Howell, 2010;Karabel, 2005). UK institutions have something rather similar in the form of contextualised admission for institutions (Bridger, Shaw, & Moore, 2012;Lane & Parry, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, 2014. ...
... More forcefully, contextualised admission can take the form of accepting students with lower secondary school performance than is typical and offering them institutional financial aid or "bursaries" and targeted student service supports (Bridger et al., 2012, pp. 17-19, 31, 47-57;Moore et al., 2013, pp. 3, 17, 47-50, 53;Universities UK, 2016b, p. 65; see also Boliver, Gorard, & Siddiqui, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, 2014 We recognise that, if selective institutions are to make progress in admitting more students with high potential from disadvantaged backgrounds, they may want to admit some such students on the basis of lower entry qualifications than they would normally apply. To help them identify individuals with the greatest potential, institutions may sometimes want to use contextual data, for example about levels of average attainment in an applicant's school. ...
England and the United States provide a very interesting pairing as countries with many similarities, but also instructive dissimilarities, with respect to their policies for higher education access and success. The purpose of this paper is to explore these similarities and dissimilarities with an eye to what each country can learn from the other with regard to reducing social class and racial/ethnic differences in higher education access and success. We focus on seven policy strands affecting higher education access and completion: student information provision; outreach from higher education institutions; student financial aid; affirmative action or contextualisation in higher education admissions; higher education efforts to improve retention and completion; performance funding; and degree of reliance on sub-baccalaureate institutions. While not exhaustive, this list of interventions is meant to focus on key policies affecting the undergraduate student experience and to give a sense of their range. We explore possible lessons that England and the United States might draw from each other’s experiences, mindful of the dangers of uncritical “policy tourism.” In the case of the United States, we note why and how it might benefit from following England in the use of Access Agreements to govern the outreach efforts of their universities, making more use of income-contingent loans, and expanding the range of information provided to prospective college students about the programmes and institutions they are considering. Meanwhile, in the case of England, we examine how it might benefit from greater focus on the role of further education colleges, skeptical consideration of proposals to make greater use of for-profit higher education, greater use of grant aid in its financial aid system, more policy attention to decisions students are making in primary and early secondary school that affect their preparation for higher education, greater use of contextualised admissions, and very careful consideration of the possible downsides of performance funding.
... The child's individual achievements or 'potential' does not need to be scrutinized; it is either irrelevant, or simply assumed, based on pedigree. This focus on the group rather than the individual is reminiscent of admission processes to US colleges, where a holistic view of the ideal year group drives recruitment (Stevens, 2007;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016); it also evokes a model of direct social reproduction, stripped even of the mantle of academic elitism. ...
... A number of schools are consistently ranked at the top of these league tables and as already mentioned, students of fee-paying schools are overrepresented in high-point courses at university. As already mentioned as well, admission to university depends almost exclusively on points obtained in the Leaving Certificate examinations at the end of secondary schooling; unlike their US or UK counterparts (see Mountford-Zimdars, 2016), Irish universities do not require CVs, portfolios, references or essays, nor do they conduct interviews. 1 Yet, academic work and rigor are often dismissed as unnecessary preoccupations running counter to what really matters, namely camaraderie, leisure, extra-curricular activities and so on. This is even more apparent in the case of boys' schools, while principals of girls' schools are more likely to portray their students as hardworking (which we will examine further in this chapter). ...
This book is the first significant sociological study of Ireland’s elite private schools. It takes the reader behind the gates of these secretive institutions, and offers a compelling analysis of their role in the reproduction of social inequality in Ireland. From the selection process to past pupils’ union events, from the dorms to the rugby pitch, the book unravels how these schools gradually reinforce exclusionary practices and socialize their students to power and privilege. It tackles the myths of meritocracy and classlessness in Ireland, while also providing keys to understanding the social practices and legitimacy of elites. By bringing out the voices of past pupils, parents and school staff and incorporating vivid ethnographic descriptions, the book provides a rare snapshot into a privileged world largely hidden from view. It offers a unique contribution to research on elite education as well as to the broader fields of sociology of education and inequality. As such, it will appeal to researchers, practitioners and the general public alike, in Ireland and beyond.
... The child's individual achievements or 'potential' does not need to be scrutinized; it is either irrelevant, or simply assumed, based on pedigree. This focus on the group rather than the individual is reminiscent of admission processes to US colleges, where a holistic view of the ideal year group drives recruitment (Stevens, 2007;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016); it also evokes a model of direct social reproduction, stripped even of the mantle of academic elitism. ...
... A number of schools are consistently ranked at the top of these league tables and as already mentioned, students of fee-paying schools are overrepresented in high-point courses at university. As already mentioned as well, admission to university depends almost exclusively on points obtained in the Leaving Certificate examinations at the end of secondary schooling; unlike their US or UK counterparts (see Mountford-Zimdars, 2016), Irish universities do not require CVs, portfolios, references or essays, nor do they conduct interviews. 1 Yet, academic work and rigor are often dismissed as unnecessary preoccupations running counter to what really matters, namely camaraderie, leisure, extra-curricular activities and so on. This is even more apparent in the case of boys' schools, while principals of girls' schools are more likely to portray their students as hardworking (which we will examine further in this chapter). ...
This chapter examines how students are selected by elite schools. Admission to elite schools is conditioned primarily by money, family connections and networks. Elite schools serve their traditional clienteles first and place more emphasis on the constitution of a socially homogeneous group than on individual merit or talent. In most schools, birth gives a near-automatic right to entry. Interviews and trial periods ensure all new recruits will fit in harmoniously; they also consecrate students’ elite status. The chapter examines the practice of scholarships in its multiple variations across schools and shows that these initiatives are rarely driven by a desire for diversity or social justice.
... The child's individual achievements or 'potential' does not need to be scrutinized; it is either irrelevant, or simply assumed, based on pedigree. This focus on the group rather than the individual is reminiscent of admission processes to US colleges, where a holistic view of the ideal year group drives recruitment (Stevens, 2007;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016); it also evokes a model of direct social reproduction, stripped even of the mantle of academic elitism. ...
... A number of schools are consistently ranked at the top of these league tables and as already mentioned, students of fee-paying schools are overrepresented in high-point courses at university. As already mentioned as well, admission to university depends almost exclusively on points obtained in the Leaving Certificate examinations at the end of secondary schooling; unlike their US or UK counterparts (see Mountford-Zimdars, 2016), Irish universities do not require CVs, portfolios, references or essays, nor do they conduct interviews. 1 Yet, academic work and rigor are often dismissed as unnecessary preoccupations running counter to what really matters, namely camaraderie, leisure, extra-curricular activities and so on. This is even more apparent in the case of boys' schools, while principals of girls' schools are more likely to portray their students as hardworking (which we will examine further in this chapter). ...
This chapter defines and identifies Irish elite schools, separating them out from the other schools in the broader private fee-paying sector. First, it outlines the funding structure and specific characteristics of the 53 fee-paying schools, highlighting the privilege of this sector as a whole. It then examines the hierarchy of prestige and privilege which orders these schools symbolically, making some distinctly more elite than others. Based on an analysis of the Irish Who’s Who, school fees and academic results, the last section proposes a flexible typology of fee-paying schools according to their degree of eliteness. Ten schools emerge as elite schools, constituting the ‘inner circle’ of private education in Ireland.
... The child's individual achievements or 'potential' does not need to be scrutinized; it is either irrelevant, or simply assumed, based on pedigree. This focus on the group rather than the individual is reminiscent of admission processes to US colleges, where a holistic view of the ideal year group drives recruitment (Stevens, 2007;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016); it also evokes a model of direct social reproduction, stripped even of the mantle of academic elitism. ...
... A number of schools are consistently ranked at the top of these league tables and as already mentioned, students of fee-paying schools are overrepresented in high-point courses at university. As already mentioned as well, admission to university depends almost exclusively on points obtained in the Leaving Certificate examinations at the end of secondary schooling; unlike their US or UK counterparts (see Mountford-Zimdars, 2016), Irish universities do not require CVs, portfolios, references or essays, nor do they conduct interviews. 1 Yet, academic work and rigor are often dismissed as unnecessary preoccupations running counter to what really matters, namely camaraderie, leisure, extra-curricular activities and so on. This is even more apparent in the case of boys' schools, while principals of girls' schools are more likely to portray their students as hardworking (which we will examine further in this chapter). ...
This chapter explores the construction of collective identities in elite schools. It examines how elite schools encourage bonding and collectivism on a daily basis. Through their practices, including team sports and charity work, they give students a strong sense of mutual loyalty, cohesiveness and social boundaries. Collective identities are constructed in opposition to the social ‘other’, who is excluded and treated as morally and intellectually inferior. Collectivism and exclusionary practices are prolonged in adult life, translating into a propensity to associate, socialize and marry within the same circles. Elite schools foster and legitimate exclusionary behaviors and help reinforce class boundaries.
... A prominent feature of higher education access in the United States since the 1970s has been a commitment on the part of most selective higher education institutions to affirmative action in admissions (Bowen & Bok, 1998;Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005;Espenshade, Chung, & Walling, 2004;Hinrichs, 2013;Howell, 2010;Karabel, 2005). UK institutions have something rather similar in the form of contextualised admission for institutions (Bridger, Shaw, & Moore, 2012;Lane & Parry, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, 2014. ...
... More forcefully, contextualised admission can take the form of accepting students with lower secondary school performance than is typical and offering them institutional financial aid or "bursaries" and targeted student service supports (Bridger et al., 2012, pp. 17-19, 31, 47-57;Moore et al., 2013, pp. 3, 17, 47-50, 53;Universities UK, 2016b, p. 65; see also Boliver, Gorard, & Siddiqui, 2015;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Supporting Professionalism in Admissions, 2014 We recognise that, if selective institutions are to make progress in admitting more students with high potential from disadvantaged backgrounds, they may want to admit some such students on the basis of lower entry qualifications than they would normally apply. To help them identify individuals with the greatest potential, institutions may sometimes want to use contextual data, for example about levels of average attainment in an applicant's school. ...
... The child's individual achievements or 'potential' does not need to be scrutinized; it is either irrelevant, or simply assumed, based on pedigree. This focus on the group rather than the individual is reminiscent of admission processes to US colleges, where a holistic view of the ideal year group drives recruitment (Stevens, 2007;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016); it also evokes a model of direct social reproduction, stripped even of the mantle of academic elitism. ...
... A number of schools are consistently ranked at the top of these league tables and as already mentioned, students of fee-paying schools are overrepresented in high-point courses at university. As already mentioned as well, admission to university depends almost exclusively on points obtained in the Leaving Certificate examinations at the end of secondary schooling; unlike their US or UK counterparts (see Mountford-Zimdars, 2016), Irish universities do not require CVs, portfolios, references or essays, nor do they conduct interviews. 1 Yet, academic work and rigor are often dismissed as unnecessary preoccupations running counter to what really matters, namely camaraderie, leisure, extra-curricular activities and so on. This is even more apparent in the case of boys' schools, while principals of girls' schools are more likely to portray their students as hardworking (which we will examine further in this chapter). ...
Against the backdrop of the present economic crisis, the connections among various spheres of influence in Ireland have become the object of much criticism. Recent corruption scandals have brought to the forefront what is sometimes viewed as a collusion of political and business interests, leading to an increased concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small minority (Allen 2007; Cooper 2009; O’Toole 2009; Ross 2009). The Irish business landscape is indeed characterized by high levels of interlocked directorships, and the political and business worlds are brought into close contact by numerous consultative corporate bodies, frequent crossovers from one sphere to the other, and consensus on the neoliberal ideology. These connections are often prolonged in social life: high-profile social events and exclusive golf clubs allow political, corporate, and social elites, old wealth and new wealth, to mingle informally. The terms “Golden Circle” or “Old Boys Network”—evocative of power elite theories (e.g., Mills 1956; Useem 1984 )—have been coined recently in the media in reference to a core group of Irish corporate leaders and politicians. However, the part played by education in the cohesiveness and solidarity of Irish elites has been left largely unexplored. This is partly due to the fact that there is no distinct elite third-level institution in Ireland, and as a result institutional mechanisms of elite reproduction are less visible than in some other countries such as France or the United Kingdom.
... Students' application files are often conditioned by their background: For example, students with parents of low SES cannot typically show an impressive list of extracurricular activities on their resume in contrast to their peers with parents of high SES (Jayakumar & Page, 2021). Since these factors contribute to the inequality already at the entrance to higher education-at the undergraduate level (Zimdars, 2016), they may further exacerbate their effects in the selective graduate level of education, where there are even fewer places available. It is, therefore, often the case that a straightforward assessment of application files is not feasible because of the multifaceted nature of each application. ...
This review presents the first comprehensive synthesis of available research on selection methods for STEM graduate study admissions. Ten categories of graduate selection methods emerged. Each category was critically appraised against the following evaluative quality principles: predictive validity and reliability, acceptability, procedural issues, and cost-effectiveness. The findings advance the field of graduate selective admissions by (a) detecting selection methods and study success dimensions that are specific for STEM admissions, (b) including research evidence both on cognitive and noncognitive selection methods, and (c) showing the importance of accounting for all four evaluative quality principles in practice. Overall, this synthesis allows admissions committees to choose which selection methods to use and which essential aspects of their implementation to account for.
... Approaches to file reading, the data they contain, recruitment and other work to shape incoming classes each year are all products of institutional priorities and goals (Stevens, 2007;Zimdars, 2016). Different colleges pursue different goals through admissions (Zwick, 2017). ...
This study focuses on how admissions at selective colleges and universities represent key racialized organizations. We analyzed data from 50 individual interviews of admissions professionals, through a theory of racialized organizations to recognize admissions as practices that consistently reproduces systemic inequities. We reveal how organizational structures centering an array of institutional priorities can maintain the systemic reproduction of intersectional racial inequalities, by privileging priorities like budgetary constraints, geographic diversity, and other interests, minimizing racial diversity as a priority. Our study bears key implications for future research and practice, by demonstrating that much like a Möbius strip, admissions organizations are difficult to fundamentally change for diversity and equity goals. Even with seemingly dramatic alterations to practices (e.g. test-optional policies) in isolation, Möbius strips generally maintain their structure. Institutional priorities, especially fiscal priorities, maintain the durability in racially unequal admissions outcomes through logics of racial capitalism. Unless institutional priorities fundamentally change, admissions processes will likely continue to reproduce inequalities. Research and systemic change efforts in college admissions should go beyond focusing on isolated elements (e.g. test requirements) and approaches to admissions (e.g. percent plans) to confront admissions and enrollment management systems, by interrogating underlying institutional logics and routines.
... Research on the selection of individuals has been conducted utilizing various other theoretical perspectives, including evolutionary biology (Darwin, 1859), sociology (Mountford Zimdars, 2016;Posselt & Grodsky, 2017;Wakeling, 2021;Warikoo, 2016), and human capital theory (López-Cabrales et al., 2011;Polachek, 1981). They have also been analyzed from a historical (Karabel, 2006;Douglass, 2010, amongst others) and political philosophy point of view (e.g., Sandel, 2020). ...
The last decades have seen a number of developments highlighting the need for evidence-based selection methods for admissions to research masters’ programs. Among them are: (1) a switch from an open admissions model and the weighted lottery approach to selective admissions, (2) yearly increasing numbers of (inter)national applicants, (3) rising diversification of application files and a commitment of universities to the diversity mission, and (4) increasing societal expectations for fair, objective, inclusive, and transparent admissions. Accordingly, among the stakeholders (applicants, admissions committee, policy makers) calls for such an evidence base have grown louder. This dissertation seeks to enlarge the evidence base which is sought to (a) to contribute to the research field of student selection and (b) to help admissions committees to choose evidence-based selection methods for their selection decisions.
In doing so, this dissertation aims to evaluate available selection methods in regard to their validity, acceptability by stakeholders, procedural issues, and transparency. As part of this dissertation, a number of selection methods have been assessed for their predictive validity. Additionally, a review has been conducted evaluating a wide range of selection methods used in STEM-related disciplines. Based on this dissertation, a number of recommendations can be formulated. First, the use of selection methods that lack predictive validity should be discontinued. Second, evidence-based selection methods should constitute an important part of a sound admissions process. Finally, researchers and admissions practitioners alike should perhaps remain open to alternative ways of admissions rather than selective admissions in their current form.
... Universities are part of society, and can generate and are subject to forces that operate within that society. For example, there are many areas where universities are associated with causing problems rather than solving them, whether it is failing to pay staff a living wage (Grant, 2021), or maintaining inequitable admissions practices (Zimdars, 2016). This sense of humility would help to counter claims from authors such as Readings and Marginson that universities are wholly self-serving, and prioritise their own interests over those of others. ...
My research project reflects on the public role of UK higher education through an investigation into the emergence of Grand Challenges. Grand Challenges are initiatives that bring people together to identify and address global problems, such as those that relate to health, wellbeing, climate change, security and sustainability. Universities promote them as an opportunity to make connections, develop transferable skills and to make a difference in the world. My research investigates how the emergence of Grand Challenges informs the debate about the public role of UK higher education through a critical analysis of why Grand Challenges have emerged, who they are for, and how they should be designed. The research employs a methodological framework called critical realism, which involves identifying ‘generating mechanisms’ through an exploration of lived experiences and events. Within this framework, I use a combination of interviews and digital ethnography to identify three generating mechanisms that contribute towards the development of Grand Challenges in higher education. These relate to perceptions of precariousness, powerlessness and status. I use this analysis to reimage Grand Challenges by developing a new set of guiding principles. These principles are designed to help those in higher education to generate responses to complex global problems, to think together, to reflect on their obligations and to help people act in the world. They have already informed my own academic practice as a curriculum designer, and will be of value to those planning or participating in challenge-based education, as well as those developing higher education policy at the level of institution or sector.
... Our exploration of students' postsecondary experiences begins with the understanding that, despite the common perception, the education system is not equitable or meritocratic, and as such often fails to respond to the diverse needs, interests, and aspirations of marginalized students (Baldridge, 2020;Fernandez, 2002;James & Taylor, 2008a;Mountford-Zimdars, 2016;Wiederkehr et al., 2015). Furthermore, recognizing that research often fails to adequately represent the experiences of students of color and rarely includes their voices and perspectives (Tecle, 2021), we are particularly interested in critical perspectives that draw attention to how race, gender, sexuality, and social class influence how individuals understand and experience community and education-and how these experiences lead to different interpretations, aspirations, and perceptions of opportunity. ...
... This change to the education system did not achieve the ideal of equality. Conversely, merit-focused educational practices, such as standardised tests and educational selection, are still embedded and normalised in education, making social advantage and merit hard to disentangle (e.g., Darnon et al., 2018;Sandel, 2020;Zimdars, 2016). ...
Measured by psychologists, conceived in critical terms, popularised as satire, and exploited by politicians, meritocracy is a dilemmatic concept that has changed its meanings throughout history. Social psychologists have conceptualised and operationalised meritocracy both as an ideology that justifies inequality and as a justice principle based on equity. These two conceptualisations express opposing ideas about the merit of meritocracy and are both freighted ideologically. We document how this dilemma of meritocracy’s merit developed from meritocracy’s inception as a critical concept among UK sociologists in the 1950s to its operationalisation by U.S. and Canadian social psychologists at the end of the 20th century. We highlight the ways in which meritocracy was originally utilised, in part, to critique the measurement of merit via IQ tests, but ironically became a construct that, through its psychologisation, also required measurement. Through the operationalisation of meritocracy, social psychologists obscured the possibility of critiquing meritocracy and missed the opportunity to offer alternatives to a system that has been legitimised by their own work. A social psychology of meritocracy should take into consideration the ideological debate around its meaning and value and the implications of its measurement and study.
... Additionally, while qualitative research has explored working-class students' experiences in international contexts (for example, to learn about working-class students in the United Kingdom, please see Reay, 2017;Reay et al., 2005;Willis, 1977), I focus on the United States. Given that social class is shaped directly by factors such as history, culture, and relationship with race (Mountford Zimdars, 2016;Warikoo, 2016), the national context provides an important frame within which to understand participants' experiences. ...
Sense of belonging has been used to gauge students’ adjustment to and persistence within higher education. Social class is associated with sense of belonging and working-class students report lower levels than their middle- and upper-class peers. In this study, I examined how working-class students described their sense of belonging through a critical constructivist narrative inquiry of 24 working-class students across two public research institutions. I found that students developed academic and co-curricular spaces of connectedness to challenge the broader campus culture that they saw as catering to middle- and upper-class students. The same resources were supportive or unsupportive depending on students’ circumstances. Belonging was viewed as something that students themselves created rather than was facilitated by institutions. Moreover, while participants expressed varying degrees of support, connectedness, and belonging, they rarely felt valued by institutions that exploited their labor or tokenized their presence under the guise of supporting diversity. Implications from this research suggest the need to revisit conceptualizations of sense of belonging while providing recognition of working-class contributions, increasing cultural competence, and developing additional structural supports for students.
... An interview study on selective admissions to undergraduate programs supports this explanation in the context of American and English elite universities. The study found that admission on academic record alone is typical for English universities and is an exception at the American universities, where much more attention is given to personal attributes of applicants (Mountford Zimdars 2016). Also, the survey study of the MasterMind project showed that only one-third of European programs consider personal skills in admission decisions (MasterMind Europe 2017). ...
In this study, we investigated the currently applied selective admission criteria and tools of the two-year research master’s programs of both the Graduate Schools of Life Sciences and Natural Sciences of Utrecht University (the Netherlands). In addition, we evaluated their transparency to applicants. Both admissions staff members and applicants participated. To determine admission criteria that are important for admission decisions, we ranked 51 admission criteria and, on their basis, combined into six domains: academic background, grades, cognitive ability, research background, personality and personal competencies, motivation factors. To evaluate transparency, we contrasted the perceptions of applicants with the actual importance of admission criteria, as reported by admission staff members. We found that admissions criteria related to personality and personal competencies are less important in admission decisions than criteria related to grades, academic background and motivation. The applicants find the admissions decisions transparent to a moderate degree. This study also revealed that selectors use criteria and tools both with and without predictive value for later graduate performance. Moreover, some of the currently applied admission instruments might be prone to admission biases. We advocate selectors to use admission criteria and tools that are evidence-based, resistant to admission biases, and transparent to the applicants.
... Class inequality has been extensively and exhaustively researched and discussed in sociological studies of education. A significant sub-set of these studies has discussed forms of exclusion and self-excluding mechanisms that bear upon the educational experiences and life chances of working-class students (e.g., Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990;Lareau, 2011;Putnam, 2015) and especially their unequal access to elite or selective schools and universities (e.g., Karabel, 2005;Reay et al., 2005;Zimdars, 2016). Although much of the current literature focuses on the patterns and consequences of the seemingly inexorable processes of class domination in different countries, a few authors (e.g., Aries and Seider, 2005;Authors, 2018;Granfield, 1991;Hurst, 2010;Lehmann, 2013;Reay et al., 2009;Xie, 2016) address the experience of 'deviants' (Bourdieu, 1996) or 'exceptions' (Wacquant, 1993) to the workings of social reproduction -working-class students who achieve school success against all the odds and gain entry into elite universities. ...
studies in relation to working-class students at elite universities document on the one hand the role of ‘mundane reflexivity’ in dealing with class domination while on the other indicate a new form of domination and disadvantages working on these working-class ‘exceptions’ – they may achieve academically at university but experience various exclusions and self-exclusions in areas of social life. By drawing on a very small sample of ‘counter-evidence’ and ‘exceptions within exceptions’ – working-class students who achieve great social accomplishments at elite universities – this paper further explores the role of ‘mundane reflexivity’ in negotiating class domination and the possibilities of transcendence. We demonstrate the creative and transformative ways in which class domination is dealt with and document the prevalence of high-level reflexivity. Furthermore, we distinguish different forms and degrees of reflexivity, which then indicate the ‘contingency’ of reflexivity – the relation of the possibilities of reflexivity to the unequal distribution of social, cultural and economic capitals. We further argue that what appears to be a form of self-emancipation achieved by the ‘transcending group’ in our study also involves the discrete and insidious reproduction of social inequality.
... For the cited authors, admission process is not only the standardized test per se, but the purpose of the entire process itself. For Zimdars (2016), when a selective university admits one applicant and rejects another one, it inadvertently makes a statement about what it considers to be fair way to choose among applicants. Michael Nettles suggest greater attention should be given to examining college admission criteria and asks whether "college and university admissions policy [are] sufficiently flexible to admit talented students from a variety of racial/ethnic and socioeconomic status backgrounds who demonstrate merit in a variety of ways". ...
The main aim of this paper is to analyze the admission process in public and private Albanian Universities. Another aim is to identify the factors considering by students perspective in choosing between a public and private university in Albania. The first analyse is qualitative and quantitative, while the latter one is only quantitative. The quantitative analyse is based on a questionnaire with 8 articles. The questionnaire is with self-report, completed by 179 students of the first year of schooling (May, 2018), attending the Public Universities of Tirana and Shkodra. Regarding the first aim, the actual admission process in institutions of Albanian higher education is centralised, penalize students' candidates and doesn't allow flexibility in designing admission politics. Regarding the second one, from the answers, 69.8% choose a public university, while 30.2% in different condition will choose a private university. These numbers change in dependence from the faculty and location; in both cases of choosing between a private and public university, the first reason listed is the professionalism, but however must be emphasised the slightly differences in meaning on "professionalism" when refer one or other university; the second reasons goes for the low tuition fees in public universities, which is replaced with "good infrastructure" in 206 private universities; the reliability is the third reason in both cases; in opposite with the general opinion, the tradition and history of public university is listed in the fourth place. Finding of the differences between private and public universities from the perspective of students is a good start to draft and make better educational politics in higher education.
... The English higher education system-where some agency remains to disrupt national policy and institutional strategy at the point of enactment (Ball 2015)-offers fertile ground for exploring issues of professional identity. Our research seeks to inform debates about how university admissions processes relate to social justice (Burke 2013;Mountford-Zimdars 2016) and to the contested notion of social mobility (Bathmaker et al. 2013;Chitty 2014). As the quote in our title suggests, findings do not point to a fixed binary, but rather to a dynamic, complicated arena in which actors reposition themselves frequently, and sometimes counter-intuitively (Winter 2009), while attempting to preserve personal integrity (Sheridan 2013). ...
The role of staff involved with undergraduate admissions and recruitment has changed since the turn towards marketisation in higher education. This article focuses on the system in England following both a sharp rise in student fees and an associated tendency for the public university agenda and related social priorities, such as widening participation, to come up against more private and commercial priorities, such as business engagement, league table performance and internationalisation. Drawing on evidence from detailed interviews with admissions personnel, both academic and non-academic, across three disciplines within one higher prestige university, we revisit the notion of selectivity and the practice of selection. Tensions are revealed between two opposing approaches: a more traditional model of university admissions, as based on local knowledge and sensitivity towards underrepresented groups, and a purportedly merit-driven model, as driven by perceived market position. We explore the intricate and often unexpected ways in which staff reconcile their professed beliefs with their professional practices, and the complex identity work needed to renegotiate personal values in light of shifting institutional needs. Findings are offered as a microcosm for broader trends in the higher education sector.
... Of course, Scottish universities which lay claim, or aspire to lay claim, to the most esteemed organisational identities are not unique in restricting the scope of progressive admissions policies to what might be called the 'heroic disadvantaged'; a similar phenomenon has been observed at elite universities in England and America (Mountford-Zimdars 2016;Boliver 2017). Nor are distinction-seeking Scottish universities unusual in expecting members of marginalised groups to conform to the norm of the dominant group ( Maher and Tetreault 2007) or in regarding students that are less well-prepared for university study as a threat to excellence (Ghosh 2012). ...
Widening access policy has historically focused on tackling the socioeconomic barriers to university access faced by prospective students from under-represented groups, but increasingly policy makers are seeking to also address the barriers to wider access posed by undergraduate admissions policies. In this vein, the Scottish Government has recently called upon universities to set separate academic entry requirements for socioeconomically disadvantaged applicants which recognise that “the school attainment of disadvantaged learners often does not reflect their full potential” and which better reflect the minimum needed to succeed in higher education. In this paper, we draw on in-depth interviews with admissions personnel at eighteen Scottish universities to explore the scope for more progressive admissions policies of this kind in light of universities’ identities as organisations and in light of corresponding organisational strategies for position-taking in global and national higher education fields. We present a theoretical model and an empirical illustration of three hierarchically-ordered ideal types of organisational identity—globally competitive, nationally selective, and locally transformative—and show that the more dominant of these tend to constrain the development of more progressive admissions policies. This is because globally competitive and, to a lesser extent, nationally selective organisational identities are understood to require admission of the ‘brightest and best’, conceptualised as those with the highest levels of prior academic attainment who can be expected to succeed at university and beyond as a matter of course. We conclude that universities must recognise and redress the implicitly exclusionary nature of their organisational identities if genuine progress on widening access is to be made.
... By contrast, many admissions officers assume that a good deal of implementation of the institutional mission will happen outside of formal instructional time in the classroom, which is why GPA may not always perfectly reflect the development of the highly valued core competencies. Indeed, most admissions officers, at least in the United States, think about admissions in terms of "creating a class" of students who will inhabit the institution and who will reflect many different types of diversity Zimdars, 2016). Efforts to bring diverse students to campus are prioritized because it is thought that students will benefit from informal interactions that take place outside of class time: in the dorms, at the dining hall, at the gym, in club meetings, at parties, at university events, etc. From an admissions point of view, these informal interactions also bring with them the opportunity for students to develop core competencies such as communication skills, ethical reasoning, and intercultural competence. ...
... With evidence also suggesting that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds underperform at university (Mountford-Zimdars et al. 2016) and are less likely to secure positive graduate employment outcomes (Cai 2013), a more devolved Greater Manchester HE sector might actively seek interventions that seek to equip all students with the social and cultural capital needed to flourish in the workplace. Research suggests that the accumulation of such capitals is cyclical , with those on the carousel accreting further employability skills while those excluded fall further behind. ...
Human development means putting people at the centre of economic and social development. This approach adopted by the United Nations for its Human Development Reports casts a new light on the purposes and outcomes of economic growth compared to conventional measures that are bound by national income
accounting methods.
This human development report for Greater Manchester is about people and about how human development enlarges their choices. The most critical of these choices are to live a long, healthy and fulfilling life, to be educated and to have access to resources needed for a decent standard of living Additional choices are access to knowledge, guaranteed human rights, living in dignity and personal self-respect. Equity is at the heart of the idea of human development. And equity has an inter-generational dimension as well. A focus on Greater Manchester is very opposite. Not only is revolution opening up a new political space for rethinking priorities and policies but the characteristics of Greater Manchester also provide a window on the complexities of the human development challenges and possibilities fro British society as a whole. Greater Manchester is a melting pot of communities and cultures, divergent legacies and opportunities and intergenerational as well as inter-area differences.
The theme chosen for this human development report is in fact 'Human development over the life course'. Key life stages or transitions are critical for the development and exercise of capabilities and require timely and cost-effective support from both the employment system and the social system- from the state and community, not just families. Rhetoric that all should share equally in adjusting to economic downtowns does not recognise that those who are at the key life stage may find their whole lifetime chances affected. The concern is to identify the different challenges within Greater Manchester for human development at each key life stage and transitions and to consider the implications of poor transitions for human development goals over the life course. Inequalities within each life stage by gender, ethnicity, social class and locality are explored.
... Admissions, the MIA Model, and MOOCs research-article2017 Stemler the classroom, which is why GPA may not always perfectly reflect the development of the highly valued core competencies. Indeed, most admissions officers, at least in the United States, think about admissions in terms of "creating a class" of students who will inhabit the institution and who will reflect many different types of diversity (Steinberg, 2002;Stevens, 2009;Zimdars, 2016). Efforts to bring diverse students to campus are prioritized because it is thought that students will benefit from informal interactions that take place outside of class time: in the dorms, at the dining hall, at the gym, in club meetings, at parties, at university events, etc. From an admissions point of view, these informal interactions also bring with them the opportunity for students to develop core competencies such as communication skills, ethical reasoning, and intercultural competence. ...
Access to higher education is often competitive, and much attention has been placed on the question of admission decision‐making in such high stakes situations. We identify various approaches to distributive justice and consider these under the framework developed by Pike distinguishes between ‘egalitaria’ (everyone gets the same); ‘necessitia’ (people get what they need); ‘desertia’ (people get what they deserve); and ‘marketia’ (the market decides what people get). Considering applicants in context is one approach to deciding admissions designed to enhance fairness and support social justice. This approach is practiced in a range of countries including the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan and operates under names such as Contextual Admissions (CA), Holistic Assessment (HA) or Holistic Review (HR). This thought piece considers the philosophical/normative and practical reasoning approaches that underpin CA. We use the case of English higher education to illustrate the political and philosophical debates, to highlight practical challenges and potential limitations and to identify further considerations for realising the benefits of contextualising university applicants.
In the UK's stratified HE system the question of who is able to access the most selective and prestigious universities is fraught with issues of fairness. This paper explores how decision‐makers in Oxford's undergraduate admissions process construct norms of fairness and how such norms inform their reflexive considerations and actions around admissions decisions. Framing such norms as multiple institutional habituses, the paper considers how decision‐makers compromise and negotiate between institutional habituses in tension. Further, it presents an augmented conception of institutional habitus – the relational institutional habitus – which offers a conceptual tool to make sense of the existence of multiple contested institutional norms and their partial and fragile reconciliation in institutional action.
This original study followed up ten beneficiaries of a UK charity‐led programme that supported disadvantaged students in applying to elite US universities. First interviewed in 2015 during their early university days in the United States, in our 2019 follow‐up all participants had graduated. Six remained in the United States and four had returned to the United Kingdom, with only one returning to their pre‐university community. They reported benefitting immensely from their international opportunities and were nearly all in high‐paying graduate jobs or high‐profile graduate programmes. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of the ‘cleft habitus’, which can result from rapid and substantial shifts in field, we found that this was rare. Rather, the majority had undergone a ‘wholesale escape’, replacing their originary habitus with one that was consistent with their new field. The significance of the study is that the findings allow us to propose the concept of ‘helicopter mobility’ to describe individualised approaches to social mobility, whereby those considered to have merit are removed from their communities without questioning or affecting wider structural inequalities.
Athletics occupies an ambiguous place within the greater university mission, particularly at religious institutions. Intercollegiate sports programs may purport to reinforce the university’s aim to develop the whole person, but the nature of athletics can compromise student-athlete religiosity and well-being. Little research has focused on the religiosity of student-athletes and the potential implications for religious institutions. Our analysis features data from 884 senior students at a private, religiously affiliated, NCAA Division I university. Comparing student-athletes to non-athletes, we found that student-athletes scored higher than non-athletes on religious beliefs, religious behaviors, and sense of religious identity.
Why do Chinese elite graduates choose to study abroad? How do they construct boundaries of distinction? We first conceptualise distinction-making as a complex social process which connects individual agency and educational processes with organisational intermediaries. We use a case study of Peking University and draw upon original data consisting of 36 individual interviews, one-month documentation of a poster culture and observational data from eleven study-abroad events. We find a pattern of ‘building triple halos’, which encompasses dual processes of educational emulation and (mis-)recognition. By not recognising those from outside their ‘halos’ (i.e., elite schools, PKU and the Ivy League scholarship-holders), these elites signal superiority by gradually narrowing the circle of ‘us’ and excluding aspirational ‘others’. This individual level of distinction-making is coordinated with collective ‘consensus’, and organisational intermediaries in seeking, justifying, and (mis-)recognising studying abroad as a pathway to distinction. We further reveal the complexity of the ‘identities’ of the PKU elites as both possessors and challengers of distinction. During this process, the agents of the study-abroad industry not only consolidate their client base in PKU but also pursue a new business route of accommodating the challengers.
This paper empirically evaluates the relationship between the university admission process and the study success of online students. We investigate data from fully accredited higher education courses over multiple cohorts, yielding a sample of 502 students from both Bachelor- and Master-studies. We link rankings from 3 test procedures, an interview, a resume analysis, and an aptitude test, with grade achievements and successful course completion. We find that all procedures predict grades, but only resume analysis has a robust relationship with successful course completion. Crucially, the predictive power of the resume analysis depends on controlling for a student’s age. Our results thus call for nuance in evaluating and interpreting admission scores when allocating seats in online education.KeywordsAdmission procedureOnline studentsPredictive powerAdmission interviewStudy success
This paper explores how fairness was conceptualised by those responsible for admission to highly selective undergraduate courses at 17 universities in England. Fairness was conceptualised principally with reference to the traditional meritocratic equality of opportunity paradigm, which holds that university places should go to the most highly qualified candidates irrespective of social background. There was sympathy for an alternative meritocratic equity of opportunity model of fairness, involving the assessment of prospective students’ qualifications in light of their socio-economic circumstances. However, our interviewees reported institutional resistance to reducing academic entry requirements for socio-economically disadvantaged students for fear of setting them up to fail, and acknowledged that existing pedagogical practices and academic support structures were inadequate for the task of supporting disadvantaged students entering with lower grades to fulfil their potential at university.
The study provides a review of the admission to universities models in different countries and also a comparative analysis of the educational systems characteristics from an international perspective. The aim of the research is to assess the possible impact of the educational system characteristics on the accessibility of higher education. There is also proposed an analytical model which explains how the level of autonomy and selectivity of the educational system, along with the characteristics of the student financial support influence the level of accessibility of higher education. The framework of the model is supported by the cases of selected groups of countries: post-Soviet countries, the USA and the UK, Scandinavian countries and Western European countries. Based on the classification of higher education systems, countries with the highest level of access to higher education tend to have low levels of autonomy and selectivity, or they also can be characterized by highly developed system of financial support. As a result, it was found that high selectivity and autonomy level can negatively influence the accessibility of higher education, while high level of the financial support system may neutralize this effect and positively influence on the access to higher education. Results of the study can be useful while reforming the selection system in Russia, since comparative analysis shows which tools make it possible to increase the accessibility of higher education and, as a result, to reduce educational inequality among different social groups.
This article investigates the association between cultural capital and the likelihood of attending an elite university within the Chinese socio-educational context. Drawing on data from the Beijing College Students Panel Survey, we show that (1) objectified cultural capital is negatively correlated with the likelihood of attending an elite university whereas embodied cultural capital shows a positive effect; (2) both types of cultural capital enhance the proficiencies of extracurricular activities, which, however, are negatively associated with different quantiles of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) score; (3) learning capabilities can be strengthened by both types of cultural capital, but they cannot guarantee the attendance of an elite university since they only raise the middle and lower quantiles of the NCEE score; (4) only embodied cultural capital helps one attend an elite university by virtue of the channel of the NCEE exemption.
The difficult work of decolonizing UK anthropology teaches us important lessons about our field. Rethinking the curriculum may be the easy part. Making university admissions fairer is a harder task. The biggest challenge of all is transforming the institutional cultures and demographic profile of anthropology’s students and faculty. The Covid-19 pandemic showed that rapid change is possible: its aftermath is an opportunity for more radical rethinking of this diversity work in anthropology. Many UK universities currently use ‘contextual’ information about undergraduate applicants to make admissions ‘fairer’. Would a more self-reflective understanding of ‘contextuality’ include the institutional contexts of universities themselves? Most social anthropology departments are found in ‘Russell group’ and ‘Sutton-30’ universities. Their student populations are more likely to be able-bodied, white, female and middle class than those in other universities: these students have a disproportionate opportunity to access PhD research funding. The growth in postgraduate education also exacerbates these differences. This paper combines institutional history and student data to reconceputalise and broaden debates around ‘contextual admissions’. Acknowledging the institutional racism within UK universities, a more encompassing definition of ‘contextuality’ would allow a critical attention to the academic cultures that create barriers to widening participation, retention and progression to postgraduate study.
The U@Uni Academy provides a case study of a composite preparation and access programme, integrating key elements of widening participation, alternate entry and enabling schemes. It is offered to students from a low socioeconomic background andfocuses on non-traditional indicators of attainment in order to prepare for, access and successfully transition from secondary school to higher education. This article outlines the methodological and theoretical approach, purpose, and context surrounding the programme, as well as its significancewithin the contemporary Australian and international education systems. The strengthening momentum of alternate entry and enabling schemes within the context of equity and diversity in higher education is illuminated, highlighting the need for innovative approaches in this sector. Such a perspective invites the international education community to reframe how they approach attainment, admissions and success, shifting from a traditional focus on high-stakes, single-mark assessment, to a rich, layered and contextualised representation of a student’s skills and, through this, revealing the often invisible potential of a student. This is timely within the global context of future-focused tertiary education and debate surrounding admissions processes across the Australian higher education sector. Its significance is underscored by potential to influence the landscape of university admissions on a broader scale.
Highly selective higher education institutions (HEIs) are simultaneously mandated to enable access for populations which have traditionally been excluded (‘equality’), and to ensure that admitted students have the potential to succeed in higher education (‘excellence’). This article uses original empirical case study data from 2018, from nine highly selective English HEIs, to explore current uses of contextual data in undergraduate admissions. The results show that all participating HEIs thought holistically about their applicants. In particular, HEIs considered the context in which applicants had achieved their grades, and aimed to identify academic potential not captured by those grades. However, ideological and theoretical disagreements, as well as practical barriers, hamper a more widespread and consistent application of contextual data in English undergraduate admissions. The article therefore identifies further practical steps for HEIs and other stakeholders that would enable a more valid, evidence-based and coherent position on contextual data use across the HE sector. Overall, advancing more consistency in how contextual data are used might enable greater certainty among applicants, and those advising them, regarding how applications for admissions are likely to be judged. Ultimately, contextual admission policies have the potential to increase diversity among the admitted students at selective HEIs.
Affirmative action policies are oftentimes pitted against the need of universities to maintain meritocratic standards in enrollment. The current study tackles this institutional dilemma against the standard of student attrition. It does so by analyzing records of 41,483 undergraduate students who attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2003–2015). Approximately 5% of the students were marked eligible by an affirmative action policy that is unique to Israel. Specifically, a non-governmental organization oversees the Israeli indirect affirmative action policy and grants applicants with the status largely based on class. Descriptive statistics reveal no significant differences in dropout rates between affirmative action students and their normative peers. To verify those patterns, we test hierarchical logistic models alongside advanced decision tree models. The findings show the superiority of first-year grade point average and other academic indicators in predicting dropouts. They also confirm that students who are eligible for affirmative action depart at virtually the same rates as normative students and other risk groups. We conclude by suggesting that under certain conditions, universities do not pay any price by admitting students through the backdoor of affirmative action. Therefore, universities can and should open their gates wider.
Contemporary meritocratic education discourse in England positions schools as ‘engines of social mobility’, responsible for enabling students’ educational ‘success’ regardless of their circumstances. Building on critiques that characterise meritocracy as a neoliberal cultural motif that legitimates inequalities, and the capabilities approach, this paper investigates the challenges of navigating meritocratic expectations in practice by drawing on qualitative and photovoice interviews conducted with teachers and students at a highly rated London school serving a disadvantaged community. While many participants endorsed meritocratic narratives, all expressed doubts that the school could ‘make up for’ the significant structural disadvantages faced by many students. This led our participants to describe challenges associated with meritocratic discourse, including: the stresses of meeting these expectations; uncertainty about attributing responsibility for ‘failure’; and questions about what could and should be done in practice to enable disadvantaged students to ‘succeed’. We argue that meritocratic rhetoric imposes significant burdens on students, teachers and schools by holding them responsible while obscuring the role that social inequalities play in shaping students’ educational opportunities. Greater critical discussion in schools could help students and staff to challenge meritocratic education discourse and to negotiate its expectations.
This article calls into question the view that educational expansion has a causal effect on class-based inequalities of educational opportunity. This view, the impetus for many studies, is flawed because the empirical literature is hampered by poor measures of expansion and because it rests on simplistic understandings of the causal structure that relates supply, demand, and inequality of educational opportunity (IEO). The literature arose as it did because the institutions that are actually expanding and allocating—schools, colleges and universities—are treated as black boxes in conventional macro-level theories of expansion. If the black box is opened, we see that educational institutions at once make decisions about expansion and allocation, thus undermining a simplistic model that has expansion affecting allocation. Drawing upon examples from college education in the United States, I argue that the field must develop new measures of educational expansion and supply in order to identify the true relationship between educational expansion and IEO.
This article examines a series of well-documented changes in post-war English higher education: the massification of, and increased differentiation within, the system, as well as changing relationships between credentials, skills and incomes. It offers an account of the new liberal arts degrees rapidly emerging at both elite and non-elite universities in England, explaining these as a response to, and negotiation of, an ever-changing higher-education landscape. Through an analysis of the promotional websites of the 17 English liberal arts degrees offered in the 2016–2017 academic year, the article links their emergence to broader trends, while insisting that there are crucial differences in the ways in which elite and non-elite universities use new degrees to negotiate the higher education landscape.
This chapter focuses on excellence in its multiple forms, and explores how each facet of excellence is constructed and cultivated in elite schools. The chapter examines in turn: excellence as ease; excellence as intelligence; the physical embodiment of excellence; the gendering of excellence; excellence as confidence; excellence as performance; and moral excellence. The final section examines how the social construction of excellence in elite schools legitimates dominant positions and, therefore, social inequality.
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