College Joins Coalition for Accessibility

Middlebury has joined 83 other colleges and universities in forming the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, a new application system that was created in hopes of making the college application process easier for disadvantaged high school students.

The coalition—which includes all eight Ivy League schools, all NESCAC schools save Trinity College, and many prominent state universities—requires that its members meet the full financial need of accepted students and have a six-year graduation rate of at least 70 percent.

The initial version of the program will be available to freshmen, sophomores and juniors in high school beginning in April 2016. The coalition application will open in summer 2016. However, Middlebury is considering to delay its rollout until 2017, following the University of North Carolina’s decision to do so.

Dean of Admissions Greg Buckles said that the coalition formed from informal talks among admissions deans about an alternative to the Common Application.

“We joined first from a pragmatic standpoint: we needed to have a backup plan for the failure of one system,” he said. “Soon, deans began to see it as something more than a simple alternative—they had the hope of achieving a nobler set of goals like access and equity.”

Buckles said that his office had been in discussion with the original group of organizers, and that Middlebury had indicated its interest in participating early on.

The online application will include a ‘virtual college locker,’ in which students can securely and privately store classwork, awards, journals, and notes for their application. Admissions officers will not have access to a student’s locker unless the student asks for help and advice with specific elements. The locker was designed as an optional tool to help students, especially under-resourced students who do not have access to college counseling or college planning tools, prepare and organize for the college admissions process.

Students could opt to share (privately, if they desired) some or all of their portfolio with people who might provide advice. Colleges could, at students’ invitations, provide feedback as early as freshman year of high school.

The coalition has partnered with CollegeNET to produce their platform of tools, which are designed to be used on tablets and mobile phones. CollegeNET is a Portland-based technology developer with expertise in creating dependable, student-oriented programs and applications.

The coalition application will not replace the Common Application. Colleges and universities using the new application will neither expect nor require the use of other coalition tools, either as part of the Coalition Application or other application systems accepted by that institution.

In the wake of Common Application glitches that prevented students from applying on deadline days, many administrators have become critical of it. Technical failure is especially problematic for the any schools that completely rely on the Common App. Each year, about 860,000 students use it to submit more than 3.5 million applications.

According to Aba Blankson, director of communications for the Common Application, 32 percent of the 860,000 applicants who used the Common Application last year were first-generation students. Many of these students enroll at colleges that, in part because they serve many disadvantaged students, don’t have the graduation rates to be eligible for the coalition, she said.

Currently about 13 percent of Middlebury students receive federal Pell grants, which are given to low-income students. The New York Times ranked Middlebury 51st based on college access index in a list released in November 2014. As of that same month, 43 percent of the student body received any amount of financial aid. The average aid package to those students was $41,870, including subsidized and unsubsidized loans. The average per-undergraduate-borrower cumulative principal borrowed was $17,975. On the other hand, 57 percent of the student body pays full tuition, which increased by 3.9 percent from last year to $61,046.

The coalition has described its efforts to improve the admission process as being grounded in research that shows that many talented low-income and first-generation students do not aspire to college or get hung up in the complexity of the process. The coalition intends to get these students thinking about college earlier in order to create the expectation “that college is for them” and affordable, and that the “top schools in the country want students like them.” Many of these students, the coalition’s website reads, do not get access to sufficient information in high school and they may even be actively discouraged from aiming for college.

“The coalition, in my opinion, paves the way for students to spread out the stress of a one year application process across four years of high school,” said Natalie Figueroa ’18, an International and Global Studies major withLatin American focus. “I see this as a tool to become more inclusive and effective in widening the applicant pool to include multiple ethnicities and people who identify as first-generation college students who otherwise would be discouraged about the stress of a one-year application process.”

“My experience as a first-generation college student revolved around my old brother’s disadvantages that he wish he knew about pre-college process. He went to a great state school, but he reflects on how if he knew now then maybe he could have achieved more and been able to strive for more,” she said.

While the coalition aims to help disadvantaged students, many of the high schools it is intended to help have not been deeply involved in its development. Many counselors at low-income schools could not afford to attend the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the yearly conference of admissions deans and high school counselors. Held from October 1st to 4th in San Diego, members of the coalition’s core group announced the program’s rollout. According to Buckles, by not reaching high school counselors in underprivileged districts the coalition may not be as effective as intended.

Though Buckles noted valid concerns among some admissions deans about the coalition, he applauded its overall goal of access.

“I’m excited out the potential of this. It’s a huge undertaking, but it’s one of those rare opportunities to serve the needs of the greater good and not just Middlebury,” said Dean Buckles. “That’s a worthy thing to do in higher education.”