1st Edition
College Admissions and Admissions Testing in a Time of Transformational Change
Perhaps no topic in higher education is more controversial than admissions, whether it be to a prestigious college, graduate schools, or professional schools. In response to the pandemic and a host of race relations issues in the country, many colleges and universities have changed their policies regarding admissions testing. In this foundational volume, renowned chapter authors address a diverse set of themes related to college admissions, examining new perspectives, exploring the strengths and weaknesses of current practices, and discussing how institutions might use different techniques to attract diverse students, particularly those who have not traditionally attended college. Experts in college admission testing, admissions research, and psychology come together to provide empirically based approaches and ideas. Ultimately, this volume advances a future in college admissions where more students are able to succeed in college and beyond.
Foreword, Robert Sternberg Preface , Kurt F. Geisinger Chapter 1 College Admissions: What Our Goals Should Be and What Works to Get Us There, Kurt F. Geisinger Chapter 2 Admissions Testing Impact on Access and Alternative Options, Wayne J. Camara Chapter 3 The Interconnectedness of Issues Confronting Four-Year Colleges in the Area of Admissions, Transparency, and Equity: Ethical Considerations, Don Hossler Chapter 4 Three Reasons Why the Black-White Test-Score Achievement Gap is Mythology: Implications for College Admissions, Janet E. Helms Chapter 5 College Admissions for Students with Disabilities: A History and a Future, Kurt F. Geisinger Chapter 6 Biographical Data and Situational Judgment Measures of Student Potential, Neal Schmitt Chapter 7 Improving the Validity and Diversity of a College Admissions Selection System: The Utility of Social and Emotional Learning Measures, Krista Mattern & Kate Walton Chapter 8 Context Matters: The Importance of Environmental Information in College Admissions, Jessica S. Howell, Michael Hurwitz, Samuel Imlay & Greg Perfetto Chapter 9 Using Quantitative Techniques to Promote Diversity in Admissions, Rebecca Zwick Chapter 10 Colorado’s Affirmative Action Experiment: Disadvantage, Overachievement, and New Routes to Racial Diversity, Matthew Gaertner & Malerie Barnes Chapter 11 Some Final Thoughts on College Admissions: International Perspectives, Summary Thoughts, and a Look to the Future, Kurt F. Geisinger Afterword, Edmund Gordon Administrator’s Actions, Karen M. Alexander Glueckert Contributor Bios
Biography
Kurt F. Geisinger is Director of the Buros Center for Testing and W.C. Meierhenry Distinguished University Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA.
"…The essays in this volume represent serious and reflective approaches to improving college and university admissions. The contributors to the volume include many leaders in the field drawn largely from the psychometric approach to improving college admissions. We are fortunate to have researchers who take such an important problem seriously and bring psychometric thinking to bear on how to make college admissions better."
--From the Foreword by Robert J. Sternberg, Professor of Psychology, Cornell University
"These essays may prove to be referenced to a kind of institution of higher education in the future that is yet to emerge and to an admissions process that is itself as educative as it is facilitative of one’s admission to college. In another of my lives, my colleagues and I are dreaming and speculating about the repurposing of educational testing and measurement to better serve the interests of learning. The college admissions process could become more a part of the college teaching and learning functions than of the facilitation of the transition from high school to college."
--From the Afterword by Edmund Gordon, John M. Musser Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Yale University and Richard March Hoe Professor, Emeritus of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
“It is rare that you read a book on educational research and think, ‘I know a LOT of people who should read this.’ College Admissions and Testing in a Time of Transformational Change, however, is one of those cases. It goes back to the original point of this review: college admissions touches more lives that most topics in our field, and criticisms thereof are usually made without a thorough understanding of history, context, and complexity. This book provides all of those at an important time for our field. I share Dr. Geisinger’s optimism for how higher education will emerge from these times, and I certainly foresee this book playing a part.”
--Ross Markle, from the review in Applied Measurement in Education
