Interviewing Selective Admissions Systems Leaders in the Post-COVID "Test-Optional" Era

• In Event: Qualitative Evidence and Systemic Interrogations of Admissions Research, Logics, Practices, and Norms

Abstract

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, colleges and universities have increasingly adopted test-optional admission policies, perhaps at a more rapid pace than was already underway pre-pandemic (Bennett, 2022). Notably, “test-optional” can mean a variety of policies and practices. Baker and Bello (2020) identified at least three types of policies–test optional, test flexible, and test free. To date, there is little research examining the variety of “test-optional” policies in admissions. Although quantitative researchers have raised important questions about the impact of “test-optional” admissions on student equity and access (Belasco et al, 2015; Bennett, 2022), few have identified and differentiated between “test-optional” practices and their outcomes. Moreover, few have examined how admissions leaders navigate institutional power and decision-making systems and organizational norms to make policy and practice changes.

With rapid changes to “test-optional” policies since 2020, our interview study seeks to understand how admissions leaders worked to implement them on their staff and in relationship to stakeholders and interest groups such as other administrative leaders and groups with positional authority (e.g., faculty, president, provost, board of trustees, state legislature, etc.), prospective students, high schools and counselors, and news media. More than two years into the pandemic, little remains known about the decision-making contexts and processes of admissions leaders making organizational shifts and facilitating implementation of “test-optional” policies–in whatever form. The complexities of these contexts of institutional power and implementation changes, which shape practices, cannot easily be captured by quantitative research approaches.

We interviewed 10 senior admission leaders of selective institutions (50% or lower admit rate), located across the country at a variety of institutional types, to discuss the challenges of implementing their version of test-optional policies. This qualitative interview study will complement the findings of a survey with a sample of over 300 admissions rank-and-file admissions professionals at selective institutions. While the survey focuses on identifying the range of “test-optional” policies implemented since the pandemic and whether and how tests may still be used in admissions or other practices, our analysis of interview data focuses on institutional logics and contexts of power that led to policy changes.

Given our focus on institutional power structures and admissions leaders’ strategic navigation of decision-making processes and norms, it may not be surprising that we encountered hesitation from admissions leaders to participate in the interview study. Notably, interviews are being conducted just months before the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC-Chapel Hill. Although the timing of interview data collection and likely other factors may be discouraging potential participants from responding to direct invitations to join the study, our survey study yielded a robust list of willing interview participants, by asking survey completers to volunteer for an interview. This study highlights the benefits of designing admissions studies to incorporate complementary methodologies.

Authors

• Nancy Wong, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• OiYan A. Poon, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author