TOEFL syllabus - Test Of English as a Foreign Language(Educational Testing Service) Updated: 2023

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College admissions are in a disastrous state. The 2019 “Varsity Blues” scandal showed just how easy it was to buy and sell access. Lawsuits that challenged, and put an end to, race-based admission preferences illuminated how elite colleges sell seats to deep-pocketed donors and favored children of alumni. Meanwhile, most colleges have dropped requirements that students take the SAT or ACT.

Through all the self-dealing, social tension, and scandal, the cottage industry of grifters who pass for “college admissions consultants” has quietly prospered. This says much about the state of higher education. After all, there are few fields of endeavor as untroubled about enabling such unapologetic parasites. Even ventures often denounced as “inequitable,” such as medical concierge practices or the merchants of high-occupancy toll lanes, are usually selling time savings, better service, or an improved experience.

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Admissions consultants are in the business of helping their clients buy access. Period. They help manufacture a persona for students seeking to cadge a spot at the elite colleges that specialize in giving their students a leg up in the world. This is a lousy deal for pretty much everyone, except the consultants: It puts a heavy thumb on the scale for wealthy students. It leaves participating parents feeling extorted. It infuriates those other parents who see their hardworking children get the shaft. This $3 billion industry is bad for meritocracy, democracy, and parents’ pocketbooks.

The consultants themselves can be remarkably frank about what they’re doing. The big-dollar influence peddlers at Ivy Coach have explained, “Over the years, many folks have been surprised by our fees. Some have derided us. ... [But] as the adage goes, ‘You get what you pay for.’”

Is there some discernible benefit from all this, other than helping clients poach seats from nonclients? Well, here’s how Command Education, one of the biggest players in the space, markets itself. Command Education’s website brags about how the firm’s “in-house design team” helped a would-be Ivy League student “create a website where she displayed her art portfolio” and launch a YouTube channel.

And it was just getting started. “Equipped with her new graphic design skills,” the site explains, “she and her [Command Education] mentor created and executed a business plan to offer her graphic design services to local artists and small businesses, redesigning logos and creating promotional and sales materials.” In short: The consultant built this student a website and a business plan so that she could fiddle with PowerPoint and then brag about her entrepreneurial streak.

Command Education cheerily reports the student wound up at Yale University.

How much does all this “assistance” cost? The Independent Educational Consultants Association reported in 2018 that the average “comprehensive” consulting package cost between $4,000 and $6,700. Those already substantial averages, though, obscure the truly eyepopping figures pocketed by the industry’s big players.

Command Education reports that its most popular package costs $85,000, with other fees ranging from a “few hundred dollars per hour” to more than $100,000 for its “all-inclusive multi-year package.” Top Tier Admissions charges $13,800 for 15 hours of “writing guidance” (Read: We’ll write your admissions essay for you). Ivy Coach reported charging “up to $1.5 million” for a five-year “full-service package” in 2018 — fees so exorbitant that it was actually kicked out of the IECA.

At these prices, companies obviously are doing more than tweaking application essays or prepping students for the SAT. They’re tailoring clients to be the kind of Stepford applicant who will pass muster with the liberal tastes that prevail in college admissions offices. Command Education boasts that it turns its clients into “award-winning nonprofit founders, community organizers, [and] political activists.”

That’s why the consultants offer a line of high-priced opportunities designed to pad a resume. San Francisco-based IvyMax offers “Global Philanthropy Leadership Programs,” which allow students to “travel to a desert in Mongolia to build sustainable-energy sources, or to Ningxia, China, to work on microfinance lending outreach.” The firm explains that the 15-day programs include time “each day for writing ‘reflections,’” designed to serve as “fodder for college essays upon returning home.”

Comprehensive packages frequently begin in eighth grade. Top Tier Admissions touts its ability to help 13- and 14-year-old middle schoolers “pursue high-impact activities, deepen their scholarly profile, prepare for standardized tests, maintain strong grades, and plan out classes to maximize course rigor.” This can all have troubling, if predictable, consequences. Former Stanford University Dean of Freshmen Julie Lythcott-Haims has observed, “I knew a large number of college students who had lived fully scheduled lives year-round as children and who, as young adults, couldn’t really tell you why they’d done most of it.” It turns out that being formfitted to the specs of college admissions staff may not be great for maturation, well-being, or sense of self.

It would be a problem even if this practice was just an affectation of the ultrawealthy, who can afford these eyepopping prices. But as selective colleges deemphasize testing and embed notions of social justice in “holistic” admissions, all while selling fast-pass access to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and elite graduate schools, more middle- and low-income families feel pressed to play this toxic game.

And they’re not wrong to feel that way. This summer, Harvard University researchers Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman released a damning study making clear that “holistic” admissions practices at selective colleges actually amplify the massive advantage enjoyed by students from the wealthiest families. The more opaque the admissions process, the more it’s driven by networks, resume padding, and social capital. And this is what the admissions grifters are selling.

Chetty et al. found that outliers such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which emphasizes test results more than essays and interviews, were more likely to enroll a socioeconomically diverse student body. But fewer and fewer four-year colleges put a lot of weight on those kinds of arm’s-length measures. More and more emphasize the kinds of things that are easy for students to manipulate. Indeed, more than half of four-year college students report lying on their college application, with 39% misrepresenting their race or ethnicity and 34% writing untrue stories in their admissions essays.

The result is fear and confusion among collegegoers and their parents, emotions on which the admissions consultants feed. A few years back, the New York Times depicted the experience of immigrants who’d spent $15,000 on college consultants they’d found “advertised in Chinese-language magazines and newspapers, offering an Ivy League entry to immigrant parents.” The fee covered a three-day workshop and a consultant who “recommended which extracurriculars to pursue and which to discard to build a personal narrative for his applications.” That “personal narrative” looms so large because there are shibboleths required by elite colleges and parents can be desperate to find out what they are.

Educational consulting in the United States is a burgeoning industry, with 400% growth between 2005 and 2019. By 2019, there were more than 8,000 people in the college admissions counseling industry. While hard numbers are scarce, a 2006 report by Lipman Hearne found that 26% of students who scored 1150 or above on the SAT reported using an admissions counselor. The IECA commented that the results showed a rate about triple that which had been generally assumed. Ivy Coach asserted that the study “grossly underreported the percentage of high-achieving students using private college counselors.” And the racket has grown, by leaps and bounds, since 2006.

Are colleges troubled by their role in enabling and encouraging all this? After all, in 2020, admissions leaders from over 360 American universities airily proclaimed their “commitment to equity and to encourag[ing] in students self-care, balance, meaningful learning, and care for others.” After the Varsity Blues admissions scandal, in which it turned out that colleges were cheerfully engaging in or turning a blind eye to corrupt dealings, over 140 college admissions deans insisted they weren’t really looking for students who “started a new project or conducted service in a far-away country” and that they “value students who are authentic and honest in their applications.”

Experience and admissions data suggest that college officialdom doesn’t mean any of this. In the aftermath of the FBI’s Varsity Blues sting, college presidents blamed American decadence for the corruption, not their own personnel and practices. And especially following the more latest striking down of race-based preferences by the Supreme Court, college officials have signaled that they intend to put even more weight on “impressive-looking” activities and narratives that feature tales of deprivation and oppression, giving applicants ever more incentive to be inauthentic and dishonest.

Given the opportunity to design application processes that are less opaque, secretive, and susceptible to manipulation, colleges have consistently opted to push the very behaviors that enable the consultants to flourish. Consider that three of the five experts touted on the “Ivy Coach Leadership” webpage were formerly admissions counselors at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Dartmouth College. Top Tier Admissions founder Michelle Hernandez previously worked as an admissions counselor also at Dartmouth.

These grifters have helped craft selective admissions systems that are stuffed full of paeans to “equity” but rigged to reward affluent, connected applicants. Then, after they tire of selling seats to wealthy donors, they go work for firms where they can sell their insider “expertise” at a hefty price. They make those Beltway bandits who do the government-to-lobbyist shuffle look like pillars of integrity.

And, of course, the college consultant class feeds on an elite college admissions racket that is increasingly disconnected from any straightforward conception of academic merit and shaped by social engineers with particular agendas. If colleges instead had clear, transparent admissions requirements, there would still be a market for tutors and test coaches, who are at least glancingly interested in academics and learning, but far less opportunity for influence peddling.

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Yet the college consulting racket is not a matter of a few thousand bad actors preying on hapless, defenseless colleges. Rather, it's just another iteration of the same self-dealing that characterizes so much of elite higher education. As selective colleges auction admissions slots to deep-pocketed donors, reserve seats for the children of connected alumni, and favor those who've learned to mouth politically correct sentiments, they've corroded the kind of merit-based admissions process that might keep the influence peddlers at bay. Confronted with misconduct, college leaders have denied responsibility and vaguely blamed America's innate sins. While we've tended in latest years to focus on the way these pathologies play out on campus, it's crucial that we not forget the remora that feed on the doorways into and out of the college system.

It may not make sense to regulate this unsavory racket, but surely colleges concerned about either merit or “equity” should wish to do all they can to downsize the demand for it. And all of us, left, right, and center, should see the value in shaming the members of this anti-democratic, anti-meritocratic cabal.

Frederick M. Hess is the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Greg Fournier is a research assistant at AEI.

After technical glitches forced the cancellation of Chicago Public Schools’ High School Admissions Test last week, the district’s 26,000 eighth graders will finally be able to put the competitive assessment of their practicing and math skills behind them starting next week.

In a letter sent to families Wednesday, CPS announced that eighth graders, regardless of whether they were able to complete the initial test last week, will have the option to retake the test during the school day on Tuesday or Wednesday in English. Students taking the test in Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Urdu or simplified Chinese will retake the test during the school day Nov. 1.

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Students take the HSAT to apply to the city’s 14 selective enrollment high schools and to enroll at schools outside their neighborhood boundaries with special “choice” programs — such as STEM programs, fine and performing arts, and dual-language offerings — that their neighborhood schools may not have. In the competitive process to win a coveted selective enrollment seat, students can rank up to six selective enrollment schools and 20 choice schools.

Families have long criticized the high-stakes assessment of students’ practicing and math skills, for subjecting adolescents to stress akin to the college admissions process.

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“We recognize that students spend time preparing for this test and it was stressful when the test had to be paused amid the technical issues and we sincerely apologize for the disruption in this test administration,” the district wrote in an emailed statement Wednesday. “Over the past week, we’ve worked closely with the testing vendor, Riverside Assessments, LLC, to review the problems and resolve them. Our vendor has assured us that testing can continue.”

Riverside has since added server capacity, which the CPS Information and Technology Team said was successful in resolving the issues in the testing platform, according to CPS’ High School Admissions Test site.

Next week’s test will feature all new questions and CPS said it “strongly” recommends students take advantage of the opportunity to retest. But, any student who’d like for their initial score to be submitted with their high school application has the option to opt out of retesting. Students who were able to complete the HSAT on the initial testing date will not be able to submit their best scores among two attempts, but must choose whether to replace their initial scores.

The district said it has also reached out to the families of non-CPS students to register for new weekend testing dates by Monday. After the technical issues emerged last week, CPS had postponed the assessments of non-district students. Those tests which will now be held at Lane Tech College Prep High School and Lindblom Math and Science Academy at 8:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Oct. 28 and 29, and at 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. Nov. 5.

“We appreciate your continued patience, and regret any stress or frustration that these testing challenges have caused for your family,” the district wrote in the letter to families.

A spokesperson said Wednesday that despite the delays, CPS doesn’t expect families will need more time to submit their applications to selective enrollment and specialized high school programs. The Nov. 9 application deadline hasn’t been extended. But CPS is providing students with more time to rank their preferences, giving them until Dec. 1. In the meantime, the district said it will provide testing results in a “timely” manner.

smacaraeg@chicagotribune.com

A visual portfolio is required for all applicants to Parsons' BFA programs. It is optional for applicants to the BBA in Strategic Design and Management. We require applicants to submit their Common Application before uploading their visual portfolio. Parsons School of Design and Parsons Paris assess portfolios on the basis of the technical and conceptual abilities displayed in the work. In order to review your application, we need to receive all required materials. 

You must submit your portfolio through your Admission Hub after submitting the Common Application. After submission of your Common Application, you will receive an email with instructions for accessing your Admission Hub. Your portfolio must be submitted within nine days of the application deadline. You must use the same email address that you used to complete your Common Application when you create and upload your portfolio. You may not make changes to your portfolio once submitted. All submissions are final and may not be edited.

Please do not submit links or URLs to personal websites for your portfolio. You must submit individual images of your work. If you would like to submit images from your website, you may include a screenshot or screen grab as part of your image submissions. If you are submitting videos, film clips, or similar media, they should be no longer than three minutes.

BFA Program Applicants (All BFA Programs)

Freshman and transfer applicants to BFA programs must submit a visual portfolio. The portfolio must be submitted after submission of the Common Application.

The portfolio should consist of eight to twelve slides and may include a range of visual media such as drawing, painting, sculpture, fashion design, animation, performance, graphic design, and sketchbook pages. You may submit sketch book images, including videos of yourself leafing through your sketchbook pages. We encourage you to show experimentation and range in terms of subject matter, approach, skills, and materials. Your portfolio does not need to include work specific to your chosen major, unless you are applying as a transfer student, in which case we do encourage major-specific work as well as images of work completed in any studio courses you’ve taken. You may upload several images or process materials in one slide.

All applicants submitting a portfolio are required to use the available description/text boxes to give brief descriptions of their process, including their ideas and concepts, sources of inspiration, and use of materials, etc., for at least two of their favorite pieces in the portfolio. 

We recommend that you not submit AutoCAD drawings, anime drawings, or images that directly copy another artist’s work but instead focus on pieces that show us your unique style, point of view, and range. If you are submitting anime or cartoon drawings, consider full compositions instead of pieces that focus solely on character development and ideas.

Applicants are encouraged to learn more about the visual portfolio by reviewing our portfolio help tips.

BBA Program Applicants (Strategic Design and Management)

Applicants to the BBA in Strategic Design and Management are encouraged to submit a portfolio, but it is not required. BBA applicants may submit from two to twelve slides in their portfolio. For the full portfolio requirements, review the instructions for BFA program applicants. BBA applicants are welcome to include alternate work in their portfolio, like infographics pieces or data visualization work.

Applying to study at the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge (collectively often referred to as Oxbridge) is difficult for those outside the UK. Your students will most likely need a lot of support during the months that they spend preparing their applications, so we suggest learning more about how you can help them through the various steps of the process.

UK university admissions process

First, we will quickly review standard UK university applications.

1. Ucas applications

All applicants to UK universities – including Oxford and Cambridge – need to apply via the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas). The process for creating a Ucas hub is the same for UK and international students.

Along with their application form, applicants will need to provide supporting material, including a personal statement and a reference written by you or another member of the school faculty.

The expected standard for these materials is significantly higher for Oxbridge than for other universities, owing to the high number of applications received annually by both universities and the overall quality of applicants. It is vital that you research how you can best provide guidance to those writing Oxbridge personal statements – and learn how to write an Oxbridge-quality reference.

One slight difference between Oxford and Cambridge and most other universities is the need to choose a college. Oxford and Cambridge both operate on a collegiate system, where admissions and many aspects of student life are handled by individual colleges rather than the university itself. Applicants will need to make a college choice in their Ucas application form, so encourage students to research the various options available to them.

Oxbridge applicants – like any applicant to a UK university – have the option to apply to up to five universities. However, they are not allowed to apply to both Oxford and Cambridge. They will need to select which of the two they wish to apply for – this selection cannot be changed once submitted. Those applying to study medicine will also be limited to four medicine courses within their five choices.

The application deadline for all Oxbridge and medicine applicants is 16 October (previously 15 October), so all university/college choices, personal statements and references must be completed and submitted by this date.

2. English language tests

As with any application to a UK university, overseas students will most likely need to complete an English language test. Oxford accepts the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and C1 Advanced (formerly Cambridge English Advanced). Cambridge primarily accepts the IELTS and TOEFL, although some courses will accept the C1 Advanced (details are found on individual course pages).

3. Grade requirements

The last step of the standard application is to ensure that students are on track to achieve the required grades for their course. Oxford and Cambridge have some of the highest grade requirements in the UK, so your students will need to be high achievers to be considered for a place.

There is a large variation in grading schemes across the world, so both Oxford and Cambridge have pages dedicated to explaining the grade requirements for different countries. Oxford’s can be found here, and Cambridge’s can be found here. We strongly suggest using these resources to determine your students’ suitability for Oxbridge.

Oxbridge also accepts International Baccalaureate diplomas for their courses. The average requirements for Oxford are 38-40 points, with the potential for specific grade requirements, while Cambridge tends to require 40-42 points and 776 at higher level.

Oxbridge admissions requirements

For most universities, submitting the application form and achieving the required grades would mark the completion of their application. However, Oxford or Cambridge (as well as medicine and other select courses) require additional steps.

1. Oxbridge admissions tests

Other than for medicine and law, admissions tests are uncommon in UK university applications. However, most Oxbridge applicants are required to sit a test at some point in their application process. These tests can be very challenging and require a lot of preparation, so it is important that you make your students aware of the revision and practice they will need to undertake.

In addition to general admissions tests, such as the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMat) and Law National Aptitude Test (LNat), Oxford and Cambridge offer a range of subject-specific tests. These include tests such as the Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA), the Natural Sciences Admissions Assessment (NSAA) for Cambridge natural sciences and the Physics Aptitude Test (PAT) for Oxford physics.

Changes in admissions tests are fairly common, although applicants over the next two years will be facing a series of major changes. This includes the cancellation of various admissions tests in 2024, such as the BMat, the NSAA and the Test of Mathematics for University Admission, and various changes taking place in Oxford admissions tests. It is important to educate yourself about these changes and to communicate the information to those in your cohort who will be affected.

The tests are designed to examine both subject-specific knowledge and general skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving. They take a variety of formats, including multiple choice, written answers and free-form essays, all of which are scored and used when shortlisting applicants for interview.

Many of these tests are taken in October, although some Cambridge admissions tests are sat directly before interview. Either way, your applicants will need to dedicate time for preparation starting at least two months in advance, in order to be comfortable sitting the exam.

Most admissions tests must be sat at an official centre. There should be at least one official testing centre in your country, although distance and travel may be an issue for some of your students. Online resources are available to find the closest Oxford testing centres and Cambridge testing centres to you, as well as LNat testing centres, which are run independently.

There are various marking schemes used for the different tests. However, applicants should always aim to achieve an above-average score to stand a better chance of success. More details about Oxbridge admissions tests, including scoring statistics, can be found in this admissions test guide.

2. Oxbridge interviews

All subjects at Oxford and Cambridge require students to undergo at least two interviews, typically held between December and January. Conducted by college admissions tutors and subject experts, these interviews are intentionally rigorous, testing applicants on various skills and character traits.

A successful interview significantly improves an applicant’s chance of receiving an offer, meaning that preparation is crucial. Schools can support students through mock interviews and interview-technique lessons, as well as providing emotional assistance when it comes to dealing with the pressure of the day.

Your students will need to attend at least two Oxbridge interviews in the first three weeks of December. Applicants receive invitations for interviews roughly two weeks in advance via email, although preparations for interviews should begin much earlier than this. Full official interview timetables are released far in advance, and these outline when applicants for each subject will be interviewed – although exact dates and timings will also be included in the student’s invitation.

Be aware that some applicants may need to attend additional interviews if they are rejected by their original college choice. These typically take place in January, after initial offers are released.

In previous years, overseas applicants would have had the choice of attending interviews in person, attending an interview in their home country or having an online interview. In latest years, Oxbridge has pivoted to mostly holding online interviews, so your students will be able to attend their interviews without travelling.

They will need to ensure that they have an appropriate location and the correct technology for the interview. They may need to attend their interview at school, so ensure that they have a quiet, distraction-free environment for it.

Final steps

Once your students have completed their applications, the remainder of the process is roughly the same as for any other UK university. Offers are released in early January, meaning that these will likely be the first offers that successful students receive. The offers will be received via Ucas, and students can confirm their offer in the usual way.

Once the offer is confirmed, international applicants will need to complete a financial declaration and proceed with the standard processes for attending university in the UK. You can view the Oxford international student guide and Cambridge international student guide for further details on how to help your students prepare for their studies.

What if you could apply to a college in your state knowing that you would be guaranteed a spot?

That’s what the Common App is exploring this year with a full launch of its direct admissions program. Since 2021, the nonprofit member organization—through which students can apply to more than 1,100 colleges and universities, including Ivy League schools—has piloted this program aimed at motivating more first-generation, low-income students to apply to and enroll in college, said Jenny Rickard, CEO of the Common App.

Students fill out applications through the Common App and are notified of schools within their state that offer direct admission for which students are eligible. Once they submit the form, they know they have a spot secured and then can decide to enroll or keep applying elsewhere.

By Nov. 7, more than 200,000 students will receive direct admission offers from 70 colleges and universities in 28 states this year.

Rickard spoke with Education Week about the reasoning behind such a program, and the benefits she sees in expanding it to more students. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did the Common App pilot this program in 2021?

We were motivated by an initiative that the state of Idaho had embarked upon. They were seeing that students weren’t necessarily continuing on from high school to in-state colleges at the same rate, and so they worked within their own system to identify students who were graduating from high school, letting them know—because they had the data at the state level—that based on their GPA and test scores, that they could go to University of Idaho or Idaho State. And all they needed to do was go fill out this form. So it was this idea of being proactive, not just with stating admission criteria … but actually saying, “This is how you do that.”

There’s a narrative out there, that you can’t get into college. And this is really an effort to change that narrative. That access to higher education is not a scarce opportunity, but an abundant opportunity.

Our role as a nonprofit membership association is to remove barriers to access for students, and one of the big barriers is the fear of rejection and that narrative that you can’t go to college. How do we right away address it, and help the students who sometimes are the most fearful of rejection or moving forward, have that inspiration to pursue their dream?

How does the program work?

This year, it’s open to seniors or students who are planning to enroll as a first-year applicant, first-year student in the fall of 2024. So a student will need to identify and add their information, their address, where they live, academic information, and then potentially some of the family background. Colleges have given us their GPA thresholds, so they are open to admitting students over a certain GPA or maybe within a range. [They] also can provide us with a capacity, like they only want to make 1,000 direct admission offers.

We then mine that data for the institutions in that state and look at all the students [who input their information in Common App]. We are the ones basically sending the message to the applicant that based on their self-reported information, these are the institutions in their state that they could pursue a direct admission offer from. And all they need to do is click here, and then add the school to their “my colleges” list, and then submit whatever the requirements are for that institution and press submit. The big difference [between early admission processes] is you’re filling out that application knowing you’re getting admitted.

We’re focusing on students who are underrepresented relative to the population in Common App. So it’s basically low- and middle-income students and first-generation college students that we’re focused on. And part of that is, we’ve developed a moonshot goal for ourselves at Common App. After looking at the data of students who apply to over 1,000 colleges and universities, public and private, in Common App, 55 percent of the applicants are from the top income quintile. And 70 percent are above the national median income, and 30 percent below. We have a goal to close our equity gap in students pursuing post-secondary opportunities through Common App, and so are focused in particular, on populations of students who don’t always get to a four-year institution.

We’ve done some user research about where students get stressed out or where they might have difficulty in the application process. A number of years ago we found that the most stressful moment for students was pressing the “submit” button in Common App because it’s now sending your information off to this institution, and you have no idea how they make decisions, but you know that they are going to judge you. And somehow your self-worth is being questioned, or your worthiness is being questioned.

Particularly for students who might have that greatest fear of continuing in the process, how do we say to a student right away, “Hey, you’re in Common App, that’s great, and you already have options and we want you to see those options, and one of these options might be the great place for you and now you know you’re in.” But it also might inspire you to say, “Hey, maybe I can take a look at other other opportunities as well, that aren’t necessarily direct admission.”

What have been the pilot results?

We compared the students who were receiving direct admission offers to a control group of students who did not get those offers. We found that students who were underrepresented minority students—Black, Latinx, Indigenous students—were more likely to take the offer to actually pursue one of these direct admission offers than were white students. And same based on income levels: First-generation college, low-income students were more likely to take that offer. What we also found, though: There wasn’t much of a difference between the control group and treatment group in terms of students actually enrolling at the school.

But what we also saw was that the students in the treatment group behaved differently than the control group in terms of the number of schools that they applied to. So they actually applied to more schools than those in the control group, helping us see the impact of “Oh, OK, maybe I can apply to some other places.” And we also did qualitative research, where students said things like, “I was so proud to get this offer that it made me more confident about continuing in this process.”

In the second pilot we did, 18,000 students received offers, and I believe that was to six different schools. And [830] ended up accepting, they said, “Yeah, I want to get a direct admission offer.” And that’s about [4.5] percent. So you might say, well, that’s not very many. From my vantage point, if it’s making a difference for [4.5] percent, great. And then [208] enrolled, so 25 percent of those students who were offered admission, ended up enrolling at one of the direct admission schools. And for me, that’s actually a pretty significant yield, if you will, on an admission offer for students.

Some of the things that make our approach to direct admission unique, because there are a lot of different approaches to it, is the fact that it’s starting with our mission, and this moonshot goal, that we have to truly create more access to opportunity for students. It’s grounded in research. So we will continue to look at the results of this. We want to see students enrolling, we also want to see them persisting at that institution and ultimately graduating. So we’ll be continuing to evaluate this effort and continuing to Strengthen it.

How has the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action impacted the decision to expand this program?

We made some adjustments because we had done outreach to students from underrepresented groups based on race/ethnicity, and we’ve modified it. But the only modification is that we’re focusing on income and communities and first-generation college students. And so we see this as a way to get students who might not otherwise be persisting in this process to do so.

What are the goals for this program moving forward?

We are also doing outreach to the students’ school counselors, as well as a parent or guardian so the student has a trusted adult to help them navigate the direct admission opportunity.

Probably the biggest barrier to access to college is cost. And so that’s our next frontier: to really simplify access to financial assistance for students. And we know we can’t do that alone. There are a variety of initiatives that we need to put forward, but we aspire to be able to help a student not only get a direct admission offer, but know how much it’s going to cost them over that time period, and also be able to point them to financial resources.

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