In the Nation's Compelling Interest Ensuring Diversity in the Health-Care Workforce (2004) / Chapter Skim
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2 Reconceptualizing Admissions Policies and Practices
2 Reconceptualizing Admissions Policies and Practices
Pages 55-87
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From page 55... ...
in the admissions process. In addition, the chapter reviews data regarding minority applicants' standardized test performance and explores how these tests are used in typical admissions processes.
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STANDARDIZED TESTS AND HIGHER EDUCATION ADMISSIONS A Brief Background on Standardized Tests Historically, standardized admissions tests emerged from the early work of psychometric psychologists who attempted to quantify human intelligence through a variety of testing and assessment tools. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these efforts were driven in large part by Darwinian theories of individual variation and natural selection (McGaghie, 2002)
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. Standardized tests scores were viewed as an efficient mechanism with which college admissions committees could assess the talent and skills of a growing applicant population (increasingly composed of individuals who were not part of the existing educated class)
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has been developed to assess content knowledge in academic subjects. The Benefits of Standardized Tests Standardized admissions tests remain beneficial in assisting admissions decisions for at least three reasons.
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colleges and universities, using average admission test scores of entering classes as part of the criteria to assess institutional "selectivity." The use of average admissions test scores in this fashion not only provides a misleading indicator of selectivity, it also results in pressure on some institutions to weigh test data more heavily in admissions, as a means of raising the average test scores of entering students. As noted above, almost all institutions (particularly selective private institutions)
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. The predictive power of standardized tests improves when used in conjunction with prior grades, and therefore most undergraduate admissions offices rely on a combination of high school grade point average and standardized test scores to assess applicants' academic potential, although in many cases prior grades are a more powerful predictor of future academic performance than standardized tests (Bowen and Bok, 1998)
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, analytic abilities, and creativity, with correlation coefficients ranging from .16 to .24 on these measures -- but only for male students. Given that standardized tests are good, but not entirely consistent or strong predictors of students' future academic or career performance, some scholars have sought to better understand how standardized tests can be supplemented and/or more appropriately used in the admissions process.
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academic performance, the predictive power of standardized tests has been found to vary by test takers' race and ethnicity. URM students tend to perform more poorly relative to white students than would be predicted by standardized test scores.
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Potential reasons for minority "underperformance" are explored below, following a review of group differences in standardized test performance. Group Differences in Standardized Test Performance Underrepresented minority students, on average, perform poorly relative to whites and Asian Americans on standardized admissions tests.
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African American test-takers score nearly a full standard deviation unit lower than whites on the SAT verbal and math scales (standardized difference2 [SD] = .83 and .92, respectively)
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As is the case with the GRE and SAT, African American and Hispanic test-takers score lower than whites and Asian Americans, who tend to perform at similar levels on this test. African American and Hispanic test-takers score approximately 1 full standard deviation unit lower than white test-takers on all three scales; this difference ranges from .96 to 1.08 on all scales for African Americans and from .88 to 1.00 on all scales for Hispanics.
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, in their seminal research on the academic performance of African American and white students who attended selective U.S. colleges and universities, suggest two sets of factors that may contribute to poorer URM performance on standardized tests, as well as their tendency to perform at lower levels academically than non-URM students who achieve the same standardized test scores.
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Even among racial and ethnic minority students who attend integrated schools, segregation within schools in common; African American and other URM students are more likely to be "tracked" into vocational or lower-level academic programs, which offer little or no college preparatory content (Camara and Schmidt, 1999)
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Experiences in Higher Education Institutions and HPEIs In addition to educational and socioeconomic inequities between United States racial and ethnic groups, the poorer performance of minority students on standardized tests, and their lower academic performance than would be expected on the basis of these tests, may also be traced to experiences of URM students in higher education and HPEI settings. Bowen and Bok (1998)
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This threat applies to those who are aware of the stereotype and value high academic performance, as is the case for most African American students in higher education settings. African Americans and others affected by stereotype threat need not believe in the stereotype's validity to be affected by their consequences, given the widespread nature of many stereotypes about minority intellectual ability.3 Rather, it is the students' concern about disproving the stereotype that confers anxiety and affects academic performance (Aronson et al., 2001; Steele, 1997; Steele and Aronson, 1995)
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Given that URM students tend to perform poorly relative to their white and Asian American peers on standardized tests, and that social and psychological factors may contribute to poorer test performance among URM students and other stigmatized groups, it is not surprising that admissions models that weigh quantitative data more heavily in admissions decisions often fail to achieve a racially and ethnically diverse class of students. Evidence, from both hypothetical analyses and policy changes in several states, suggests that absent admissions policies that allow for the consideration of applicants' race or ethnicity, URM student participation in health professions will drop precipitously.
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Conservative critics of these plans have charged that percent plans are merely affirmative action plans under a different name, given that the plans' proponents argue that the plans will maintain racial and ethnic diversity while eliminating the explicit consideration of race and ethnicity in the admissions process. In addition, these critics charge, guaranteeing admission to even the narrowest top percentage of high school graduates threatens to weaken state university admission standards, and that because of the relatively poorer academic resources of majority-minority high schools, even top minority graduates who gain admission will be poorly prepared for the academic rigors of selective state universities (Horn and Flores, 2003)
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, before and after implementation of the "Top 10 Percent" plan, and found that while some minority students who graduated among the top 10 percent of their high school class gained admission to UT and A&M under this plan (students who might previously have been rejected because of low standardized test scores or poor essays) the plan has resulted in lower minority admissions and matriculation rates for African American and Latino students than during the pre-Hopwood era.
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. Tienda and colleagues note that while the decline in URM representation at Texas' flagship institutions was not as dramatic as some critics had predicted (due in large part to the heavy weight placed on high school grades and class rank in UT undergraduate admissions prior to the Hopwood decision)
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American and Hispanic freshman admissions dropped significantly from 1995, when African Americans and Hispanics represented 4.4 percent and 15.8 percent of freshman admissions, respectively, to 1998, when African American admissions fell to 3.2 percent, while Hispanic admissions fell to 12.9 percent of the freshman class (Horn and Flores, 2003)
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. ALTERNATIVE ADMISSIONS MODELS Given the barriers that "race-neutral" and heavily quantitatively weighted admissions policies pose to achieving racially and ethnically diverse classes, many leaders in the academic health professions have begun to reconceptualize admissions policies and practices in an attempt to enhance both the diversity and quality of admitted students.
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, have begun to devise new admissions models that balance consideration of applicants' quantitative and qualitative information in an effort to achieve both quality and diversity in assembling a student body. Conforming Admissions Policies to the Institutional Mission A fundamental paradigm shift in health professions training programs' admissions policies and practices begins with an assessment of whether admissions process and practices conform to the institutional mission.
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In both cases, a review of the institutional mission suggested that medical student diversity is critically important to achieving these institutions' goals of expanding research and service to underserved communities and improving the health of individuals in the region and nation. Training and Composing Admissions Committees Another important step toward a fundamental paradigm shift in health professions training programs' admissions policies and practices involves an assessment of the admissions committee itself, including giving careful consideration to issues such as who should serve on the committee, how will committee service be rewarded, and how should committee members be trained.
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And because minority faculty often face additional demands such as mentoring and recruiting URM students, service on institutional committees can present additional pressures that compete with teaching, research, and other work important for promotion. Service on important institutional committees, such as admissions committees, should be more appropriately rewarded to encourage the participation of URM faculty and staff.
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. Common attributes of admissions committee training programs include skills and knowledge development in areas such as: · How to assess qualitative attributes of applicants; · How to interpret the academic and standardized test performance of URM students, whose performance may be influenced by a range of factors, such as poor prior academic training and psychosocial factors (e.g., stereotype threat)
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In addition, the description of these institutions' efforts should not suggest that innovative admissions strategies are being developed only in medical schools. Rather, they reflect innovative adaptations of these unique institutions to particular circumstances and policy contexts: one, at a state institution that faced a courtmandated ban on the consideration of applicants' race or ethnicity in the admissions process, and the other, at a prestigious, well-funded private institution that, like many other similar institutions, did not have an impressive record of inclusion of underrepresented groups.
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In response, the Texas A&M Medical School, like other institutions in the state, attempted to develop a "race-neutral" admissions process that would allow the institution to continue to admit and enroll URM students. As a first step, the admissions committee considered the Health Sciences Center and College of Medicine's (COM)
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. The admissions process is driven by the institutional mission and includes: · Training of admissions committee members, who are taught about the impact of "stereotype threat" on minority test performance and other contextual factors that are important for assessing minority applicants, such as the role of cultural and language barriers, family background, and the educational "distance traveled" (e.g., the impact of prior experiences of prejudice or discrimination, the greater likelihood that minority students must work during college to meet financial obligations)
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. Stanford has achieved significant success in recruiting and admitting URM students (over 20 percent of the medical students in 20022003 were African American, Hispanic, or Native American)
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When quantitative variables such as standardized test scores are weighted heavily in the admissions process, URM applicants, because of their generally poorer academic preparation and test performance, are less successful in gaining admission than non-URM applicants. Absent admissions practices that allow applicants' race or ethnicity to be considered along with other personal characteristics of applicants, URM student participation in health professions education is likely to decline sharply.
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Admissions models should balance quantitative data (i.e., prior grades and standardized test scores) with these qualitative characteristics.
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2000. Use of standardized tests in admissions in postsecondary institutions of higher education.
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1995. Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of Afri can Americans.
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