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How Maine Colleges Have Changed Their Admissions Procedures In The Wake Of ‘Varsity Blues’ Scandal

Robert F. Bukaty
/
Associated Press
In this photo made Friday, Jan. 23, 2015, students walk by the Pulver Pavilion on the Colby College campus in Waterville, Maine.

In March, the “Operation Varsity Blues” college bribery scandal made national headlines. The alleged multimillion dollar scheme, in which dozens of parents were charged with paying a consultant to fraudulently inflate test scores and bribe college officials, involved only a few schools. But the scandal has prompted many colleges — including some in Maine — to review their admissions policies.

Operation Varsity Blues shook the world of college admissions.

“I’ve been working in admissions in some way, shape or form for essentially my entire career. And it was something that I had never seen,” says Matt Proto, vice president for enrollment and communications at Colby College in Waterville.

Proto says while he was shocked when he first heard about the scandal, the details actually made him confident in his own school’s admissions procedures, which he says have long been guided by a system of checks and balances.

“One of the things that we were really confident and comfortable in saying is that a lot of things that actually happened as part of this scandal are not a part of the process — actually, all of the things that happened in the scandal are not a part of the process at Colby,” he says.

But Proto says the scandal did prompt him and his colleagues to reflect on whether it might lead prospective applicants and their parents to question or distrust college admissions as a whole. To ease those concerns and promote accountability, he says Colby immediately began performing random audits of individual applications.

“To ensure that the information that they’re presenting on their application is actually reflective of what they’re doing in terms of their own activities,” he says. “We’ve partnered with college counselors and school counselors in doing that, through the use of technology.”

Colby isn’t alone. Jayne Fonash, the president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, says the scandal served as a wake-up call to universities nationwide to increase oversight over admissions.

“To be sure that the athletic recruitment process is being conducted appropriately. And with regard to donations and the advancement department, looking to establish more of a firewall between admissions and advancement so that they would eliminate undue influence on the admission process,” she says.

While Brunswick-based Bowdoin College didn’t change its admissions procedures, Whitney Soule, the college’s dean of admissions and student aid, says it did add a statement to its applications with a message for students: that Bowdoin wants applicants to “be yourself and be honest,” and that any fabricated information could mean losing an admission offer.

“For our school, we felt like we don’t need to change what we’re doing. But we can be more articulate and more out front with what we believe and what our expectations are. Just to lay the grounding for students to know where Bowdoin stands on all of this,” she says. “I think the public needs to hear what the integrity is in the process, and that we value it.”

And Soule says there’s a bigger change happening in college admissions, too. Officials say that, independent of the Operation Varsity Blues scandal, many schools have been moving toward a more “holistic approach” in recent years and away from a focus on grades or test scores. Schools say it’s part of an effort to combat the growing industry of college and standardized test preparation, that can give an edge to wealthier students and families.

Just this year, nearly 50 schools adopted “test-optional” admissions policies. Colby College was one of them, and officials there say multiple admissions officers now read and discuss each application in order to get a range of perspectives on each student. And Bowdoin has added an optional video component to its application process in recent years.

Soule says students log into a website, are given a question, get about 30 seconds to think, then have two minutes to respond spontaneously. The answers are recorded, and the videos are reviewed by admissions staff.

“It is one of the things where it is about as authentic as something can get. There really is no opportunity for somebody to help the student prepare, help them edit it. Suggest how they go about it. They’re really not beholden to anybody else’s opinion except what comes to mind themselves when they want to answer the question,” she says.

But the admissions scandal hasn’t had much of an effect on the University of Maine System, says Robert Placido, the system’s associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. He says the state’s public universities aren’t nearly as selective as schools like Colby or Bowdoin, which have accepted fewer than 10 percent of applicants in recent years.

“We have a different mission. We’re here for the citizens of the state of Maine, to educate as many students as we can. So we have what’s called an open admission policy. Very few requirements. We want you to come in. We feel like you can be successful, and we’re going to be your partner in your educational success,” he says.

The University of Maine in Orono accepted 90 percent of its applicants last fall. And Placido says the university system is trying to move away from certain admissions policies, including certain SAT and essay requirements that may create barriers for economically disadvantaged or first-generation applicants.