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| Username | Post: Question about the current recruiting environment |
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rbg Postdoc Posts 3058 |
06-18-19 04:32 PM - Post#285218
Yale Frequently Asked Questions Related to Admissions Fraud Scheme https://president.yale.edu/frequently-asked-ques ti... Daily Pennsylvanian interviews with Dean of Admission Eric Furda: 10/23/18 - https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/10/jerom e-allen... 3/19/19 - https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/03/upenn -admiss... Cornell Daily Sun interview with President Pollack. https://cornellsun.com/2019/06/08/the-sun-in tervie... - The Sun: I wanted to talk about the admissions, and the admissions hoopla that happened recently. That’s going to be the phrasing of choice for now. So Yale, UPenn, and Dartmouth all said they were going to increase the oversight of their athletics recruitment program. Pollack: So we didn’t make a big public announcement about it, but let me back up and say it was appalling. What happened was just appalling. The whole scandal was appalling. We have in place oversight, but we immediately did go back in and looked at all of our incoming and incoming and first-year student athletes, because that’s where the biggest source of the scandal was. And we found no irregularities at all, we ensured that they were all legitimately on teams. So then, what we’re doing as a second step is we’re going to go back and, we are in the process of looking at all of our policies, not just around athletics, but across the board, because we have a very decentralized admissions system, and we’re looking at every touchpoint to make sure that there are no gaps that we have really full oversight. As of now, we have not identified any problems. Can I guarantee that there isn’t a student on this campus who cheated on their SATs or ACTs? I can’t guarantee that with 15,000 students, but we immediately went in and double-checked athletics, which was where the big issue was. The Sun: Okay, and that would be the Class of ’22 and ’23? Pollack: The freshmen and the recently accepted students. The Sun: What would you have done if you had found irregularities? Or if you do find them? Pollack: Well it depends, I can’t answer that abstractly, it depends on what irregularity we find and what the situation is. The Sun: So are you changing any practices going forward knowing about situations like this? Pollack: What we are in the process of doing right now is assessing absolutely everything that we do. Here is one thing we are going to change. I’m not sure if this is certain. One thing we are looking at changing, as an example as part of this overall assessment, is right now when a coach recommends a student, they write a fairly brief statement about the student’s academic credentials. And we’re thinking about expanding the set of information that they have to provide which would be an extra check on any kind of fraud. But we are looking across all of our systems to see whether there are such steps we should be putting in place. The Sun: So you’ve also checked every athlete, just like Brown University did? Pollack: Yeah. The Sun: Some universities have been looking at what constitutes a “legitimate reason†for not being on a team anymore. Pollack: Within days of the news breaking, our Athletics administrators conducted a thorough review, and we found that the few students who left did so for documented reasons. We found no irregularities. [Editor’s note: This response was provided to The Sun after the interview.] The Sun: Is there going to be similar screening done for academics? I know it’s a little bit harder because it’s more nebulous. Pollack: This is why we’re looking at the whole process, we’re looking at every touchpoint to see, should we do spot-checks? We actually have very good processes already in place. Not when there’s like massive fraud like this, but every once in a while there will be a case where a reason comes up to question the credentials of some student who’s either applied or been admitted, and we already have very good processes in place, where the admissions office checks — reaches out, checks with the guidance counselors, confirms all the data and so on — we have those. And we’re going to harden them as they were, make sure they’re really robust, and see if we need further changes. The Sun: Does Cornell use the academic index in athletics recruiting, where they weigh different factors? Pollack: Oh! the academic index? The Sun: It’s like a point system. It’s been widely reported on. Pollack: The academic index that I know of, there is a requirement across the Ivy League that all of the admitted students have a certain level of performance, maybe that’s what you are referring to? Yeah, yeah, being in the Ivy League, you have to use that, absolutely. The reason I was confused is that’s not, we don’t base whether you’re admitted on the academic index. Rather, after we have a class, we have to ensure to the Ivy League that the overall academic index is satisfied. The Sun: So you don’t factor that into the admissions? Pollack: What I’m saying is that’s a measure that we use to assure the Ivy League that we are only taking student athletes that are qualified to be here. The Sun: You say, when you say you’ll review things, who is in charge of that review? What office is that? Pollack: It runs out of the provost’s office. And actually my chief of staff right now is playing point person on that. The Sun: How big is that review team? How many people are involved in that process? Pollack: Oh gosh, I don’t know. All these details, yeah I don’t know. The Sun: We’re just trying to get a picture out of it, because we’re coming at it from the outside … Are you looking at diversity in athletics at all? Pollack: Are we looking at diversity in athletics? I’m always looking at diversity in everything. Do we specifically have a study right now that’s looking at the diversity of our teams, I don’t think so, but I’m always concerned with that in every issue. |
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