You may have read or heard recently that more than 60 organizations have combined to file a complaint with the federal government against Harvard University, alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian applicants.  And this is not the first time the issue has been raised, of course; late last year a suit was filed in federal court alleging […]

In my last post, I recapped my panel presentation from this year’s IACAC Conference in May.  Most of what I wrote I said, and most of what I said, I wrote, but there were some things I left out of each.  One thing I said but did not write was that the people in admissions […]

Fair warning: This is an intellectual exercise in which you may have to throw out some of your most long-held beliefs.  Be careful!  Stop now if you’re unwilling to consider this modest proposal. I’m a novice when it comes to the study of game theory.  It’s always been very interesting to me, although even in […]

No, don’t worry.  Merit aid is probably not going away. But perhaps–maybe–the term “merit aid” could go away. For years, journalists and other self-proclaimed higher ed wonks have bemoaned the growth in non-need based aid, somehow thinking that financial aid was a pot of money from which dollars were extracted. These types have become fond […]

First, some interesting news this morning: Goucher College in Baltimore, a fine liberal-arts college, has announced it will no longer require a transcript for admission purposes.  Instead, students have the option of submitting some writing samples along with a short application and a self-made video of up to two minutes in length. Predictably, comments on […]

Maybe, I thought to myself, the problem is that we allow people who really have no concept of how higher education works to have too much say in the discussion.  Higher education is a fairly esoteric little world; even accountants find it hard to move to a job in a university because the way we […]