Admissions in Graduate Education: Challenges and Promises

• In Event: Using Test Scores to Cultivate Equitable Education Systems

Abstract

Admissions in higher education has received heighted attention at both undergraduate and graduate levels. The pandemic has accelerated the changes in institutions’ and graduate programs’ admissions practices. In this presentation I will discuss the trend in admissions at the graduate level and possible strategies for fair and equitable admissions.

Standardized tests have been an important part of graduate admissions and research to date documents the validity of standardized tests in predicting students’ first semester and first year GPA, academic standing, and retention at both U.S. and international graduate programs (Klieger et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2016; Mayor et al., 2018). However, standardized tests have been criticized as being a gate keeper to fair admissions and also for their correlation with family income. The issue of equity in using standardized testing in admissions is a lot more complex than it appears. For example,a long-standing concern with standardized tests for higher education admissions is that there is considerable performance difference between White and ethnic minority students. However, such differences do not first appear on higher education admissions tests but can be traced back to K-12 assessment (Bohrnstedt, et al., 2015). Score differences do not necessarily suggest bias but could reflect inequities in prior education and experiences.

Many graduate programs have endorsed holistic admissions, which is loosely defined as the practices of evaluating a range of qualifications and experiences, rather than relying on a particular criterion. Research has shown mixed outcomes of holistic admissions in terms of diversity of the admitted class and its academic rigor. In order to harness the full potential of holistic admissions, it’s important to conduct further research to understand the promise and challenges of practicing holistic admissions and how admissions committee members should be trained to do that. In the context of holistic admissions, it’s also important to examine the association between all the evaluation criteria and applicants’ socio-economic status, not just focus on standardized tests. Alvero et al. (2021) found that the correlation between essays and self-reported family incomes is even higher than that between standardized test scores and family income. Dropping standardized tests in admissions is likely to amplify the role of essays which likely gives advantage to students from wealthier families. Implications of admissions’ policy change also apply to how certain application groups might be negatively affected. For example, taking away the standardized test scores means that international applicants lose a common ground to be compared with domestic peers, as international students are likely to be disadvantaged on the reputation of their undergraduate institution, essays, and reference letters.

Further research should be conducted to see how additional measures can be used to complement existing admissions tools. For example, innovative measures of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills are shown to predict important graduate school outcomes, with minimal performance difference among ethnic groups (Liu, 2021). Given that motivation, collaboration, and perseverance are critical for students to succeed in graduate programs, these measures offer great promise for equitable and effective admissions practices.

Author

• Ou Lydia Liu, Educational Testing Service