A new online platform for applying to universities in the US will roll out this autumn with the aim of improving access to higher education. However, college counsellors around the world are unconvinced that it will make the application process easier or higher education more accessible to international students.
Ninety-three universities form the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success which aims to “improve the college application process for all students as they search for and apply to their perfect college”. Its Coalition Application provides students with a centralised platform where they can begin curating material for their college application as early as 9th grade.
Come autumn, 56 schools including American University, Texas A&M and Rutgers University, say they will be accepting the Coalition Application. An additional 38 will begin accepting it for the 2017/18 admission cycle.
Almost all will still allow students to submit an application via their own home-grown form or the Common Application which was introduced 40 years ago and is now used by some 600 institutions.
“I’m not opposed to the concepts that they’re trying to do but boy it seems like they’re just not ready”
In an effort to enable greater access to higher education, the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, has created the Locker – a virtual space where students can upload academic materials and projects from grade nine that they might eventually want to use on a college application.
But since it was announced at the National Association of College Admission Counselors conference last year, the application has received pushback from college counsellors who claim there has been little communication around the rollout and are concerned technology problems on the as-yet untested platform could prevent students from applying at the final hour.
“I’m not opposed to the concepts that they’re trying to do but boy it seems like they’re just not ready,” Dale Ford, a counsellor at the British International School in Phuket, Thailand told The PIE News.
“No counsellor, no student, really knows how it’s going to work and frankly new technology like this doesn’t normally work initially,” said Ford who was the department chair of counseling at Singapore American School for 16 years.
“There are mechanisms that could make this all more efficient but this doesn’t feel like it is doing it, at the student level, especially the less-advantaged student level, and the counsellor level in the larger public schools where they are serving hundreds and hundreds of students.”
Counsellors are also concerned about the possible confusion that could arise from students not knowing whether to apply via the Common Application or the Coalition Application.
“This is throwing a third application into the mix. You have increased the workload of the counsellor and you have definitely increased the number of applications that will require extra work because the documents didn’t arrive,” said Ford. “It could be a student had to use the Common App and now they have to have this other application. Could be the situation that a student has two half complete applications.
“It hasn’t been tested internationally so I don’t really know of international counselors that are suggesting that anybody use it this year unless you have to,” he concluded.
Courtney McAnuff, vice president of enrollment and management at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told The PIE News he’s not concerned by the initial resistance from admission counsellors. “Every time there’s change people balk at it. I think if they’re uncomfortable with it, they shouldn’t use it. But I think ultimately the market will decide if they want to use it.”
“Every time there’s change people balk at it”
The university joined the coalition to “expose Rutgers to a more diverse international and out of state population,” said McAnuff.
Rutgers does not use the Common Application because it doesn’t allow self-reporting of academic records, McAnuff said, adding that the new application’s Locker will get students who don’t have access to a college counsellor to start thinking about university earlier.
“It is used to help students get a better idea of what they have done when they write their application because there are things that they’ve done in 9th grade or 10th grade that they’ve forgotten about,” he said, underlining that Rutgers is hoping target lower income, urban students in New Jersey though the initiative.
But he added: “Hopefully our platform is flexible enough that we can expand it. I’d like to see poorer countries around the world have it as an advising tool. I think those kinds of things can be adapted for it. Our challenge is finding sufficient aid for those students.”
So far the coalition consists of a variety of US universities including Ivy League schools, large public state schools and small private elite institutions but McAnuff said the number of schools on the platform will “expand significantly” next year.
The coalition also plans to announce a partnership with the Khan Academy’s SAT preparation programme soon.
