Undergraduate Admissions Research Articles

Contradictory aims: How state flagship institutions undermine equity in undergraduate admissions.

Contradictory aims: How state flagship institutions undermine equity in undergraduate admissions.

ChatGPT as a prospective undergraduate and medical school student.

This article reports the results of an experiment conducted with ChatGPT to see how its performance compares to human performance on tests that require specific knowledge and skills, such as university admission tests. We chose a general undergraduate admission test and two tests for admission to biomedical programs: the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), the Cambridge BioMedical Admission Test (BMAT), and the Italian Medical School Admission Test (IMSAT). In particular, we looked closely at the difference in performance between ChatGPT-4 and its predecessor, ChatGPT-3.5, to assess its evolution. The performance of ChatGPT-4 showed a significant improvement over ChatGPT-3.5 and, compared to real students, was on average within the top 10% in the SAT test, while the score in the IMSAT test granted admission to the two highest ranked Italian medical schools. In addition to the performance analysis, we provide a qualitative analysis of incorrect answers and a classification of three different types of logical and computational errors made by ChatGPT-4, which reveal important weaknesses of the model. This provides insight into the skills needed to use these models effectively despite their weaknesses, and also suggests possible applications of our analysis in the field of education.

Predicting undergraduate OSCE performance using traditional and construct-driven situational judgment tests at admission.

Situational Judgement Tests (SJTs) are popular to screen for social skills during undergraduate medical admission as they have been shown to predict relevant study outcomes. Two different types of SJTs can be distinguished: Traditional SJTs, which measure general effective behavior, and construct-driven SJTs which are designed to measure specific constructs. To date, there has been no comparison of the predictive validity of these two types of SJTs in medical admission. With the present research, we examine whether the HAM-SJT, a traditional SJT, and the CD-SJT, a construct-driven SJT with an agentic and a communal scale, administered during undergraduate medical admission can predict OSCE (i.e., objective structured clinical examination) performance in a low-stakes (nLS = 159) and a high-stakes (nHS = 160) sample of medical students. Results showed a moderate positive relation between the communal scale of the CD-SJT and performance in OSCE stations with trained patients in the high-stakes sample (r =.20, p =.009). This SJT had also an incremental value in predicting the OSCE performance above and beyond GPA (i.e., grade point average), a science test (i.e., HAM-Nat), and gender (ß = 0.18, 95% CI [0.03; 0.33], p =.020). That is, individuals who chose more communal behavioral responses in the SJT were rated more favorably in interactions with trained patients in the OSCE. A comparable correlation coefficient was observed for the HAM-SJT when controlling for range restriction due to admission (rraw = 0.14 vs. rcontrolled = 0.20). Our research provides a first indication for the predictive validity of construct-driven SJTs in high-stakes undergraduate medical admission.

Test-Optional Policies: Impacts to Date and Recommendations for Equity in Admissions

Many institutions were forced by the COVID-19 pandemic to change admissions policies as a response to logistical challenges around testing. However, even as logistical challenges have resolved, pandemic-era changes to higher education testing policies which reduced or eliminated testing requirements have remained in place in many schools. Now, research evidence is beginning to emerge which looks at the effects that reductions to testing requirements are having on undergraduate admissions, making it possible to determine whether those policies are meeting their goals. This review examines the empirical evidence that has been gathered to date to identify trends in the effects of these testing policies and to make recommendations for increasing equity in admissions that institutions may wish to consider as they grapple with another change in higher education admissions: the striking down of race-conscious admissions. We find that test-optional admissions do not benefit equity in all cases, but that some contexts show more promise than others.

Undergraduate students admission practices and its relationship with students' academic performances at Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia, East Africa

Undergraduate students admission practices and its relationship with students' academic performances at Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia, East Africa

Integrating Implicit Bias Training for Undergraduate Holistic Admission Reviewers.

The need to create a diverse nursing work-force has increased the use of a holistic admission process across the country. Holistic admission processes alone are insufficient to addressing bias that may have unintentional impact on the review process. Intentionality with implicit bias training is necessary to create a more equitable admission process. Integration of implicit bias training was multipronged and included overview information and individual activities, including the practice of reviewing applicants. Data from the practice reviews were aggregated and used for small group discussion. Since integration of implicit bias training, overall admission rates for underrepresented racial and ethnic applicants increased from 14.5% in 2019 to 29.1% in 2022. While other factors cannot be ruled out in contributing to the increased diversity, the integration of implicit bias education and bias-mitigating strategies throughout the required training for holistic admission reviewers is beneficial to increasing diversity in nursing admissions. [J Nurs Educ. 2024;63(X):XXX-XXX.].

Importance of undergraduate institution prestige in physics faculty hiring networks

Reforming the professionalization experiences of future faculty members, including their undergraduate experience, provides a possible means to create scalable change in higher education. However, this requires an understanding of where faculty undergraduate training occurs. We analyze data from 7748 tenure-line faculty members across 611 U.S. physics departments, including their undergraduate alma mater and their employer university. The resulting undergraduate professionalization network reveals a prestige hierarchy similar in strength to those previously found in hiring networks at the Ph.D. level, indicating that the road to faculty jobs begins during undergraduate admissions. Furthermore, 42% of physics faculty members earned their undergraduate degrees from institutions outside of the United States. These results reinforce the importance of institutional prestige in academia and offer a potential strategy for driving systemic change. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Exploring normative frameworks of fairness through (relational) institutional habitus in Oxford's undergraduate admissions process.

In the UK's stratified HE system the question of who is able to access the most selective and prestigious universities is fraught with issues of fairness. This paper explores how decision-makers in Oxford's undergraduate admissions process construct norms of fairness and how such norms inform their reflexive considerations and actions around admissions decisions. Framing such norms as multiple institutional habituses, the paper considers how decision-makers compromise and negotiate between institutional habituses in tension. Further, it presents an augmented conception of institutional habitus - the relational institutional habitus - which offers a conceptual tool to make sense of the existence of multiple contested institutional norms and their partial and fragile reconciliation in institutional action.

Impact of Masking Academic Metrics on Enrolling a Broadly Diverse and Mission-Aligned Student Body.

The June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action required medical schools to discontinue considering race/ethnicity in admissions decisions. Medical schools must now identify different strategies if they aim to recruit and admit applicants from groups underrepresented in medicine (URiM; race/ethnicity), as enrolling broadly diverse students remains critical for serving the U.S. population. Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine (established in 2015) has an admissions process that assesses academic metrics using national threshold combinations of undergraduate grade point averages (UGPAs) and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores (published on school's website), and legal residency in or ties to Washington state, as prescreening criteria for secondary applications. UGPAs and MCAT scores are then masked from further consideration, allowing for decisions to be made with a focus on mission-aligned criteria, such as certain personal attributes and lived experiences and coming from specific environments (i.e., educationally or socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, rural communities, military service, or a member of a federally recognized Tribe). In the last 5 admissions cycles (enrollment years 2018-2022), cohort data demonstrates that as the admissions funnel narrows and each subsequent pool is smaller than the preceding one, the representation of mission-aligned applicants increases, despite the masking of academic metrics. The most recently enrolled class (enrollment year 2022) of 80 had 14 (17.5%) URiM students, closely mirroring the state's general population. The overall yield (acceptance:matriculation) has steadily improved with the last 2 cycles to 1.68:1 and 1.65:1, indicating slightly more than 1.5 times the number of offers needed to fill the class are being made. Next steps include further refining the process by considering more granular data on applicants' childhood community characteristics and rural background and examining how admissions data may correlate with residency and practice location and communities served.

Predicting Graduate University Admission in Azerbaijan Using Multiple Regression

Each year, Azerbaijani universities strive to attract the best candidates for graduate degrees within the academic hierarchy. Since 2005, one-third of undergraduates have been applying for master’s programs. The admission decisions primarily depend on the State Examination Center exam scores. This quantitative research mainly discusses the predictors of graduate university admission based on numerous factors using multiple linear regression. This study statistically measured four independent variables to predict university graduate admission scores in 2021 (GAS21). Significant differences were found between the average graduate admission scores of 2021 and those of 2020 (GAS20) and the percentage of students who scored >86%. There was no evidence of a connection between graduate and undergraduate admission scores and undergraduate enrollment. There is a need for more theoretical and descriptive studies to verify whether universities/institutions lose their prestige after the undergraduate degree.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Commercialization of Higher Education in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the Business School Undergraduate Admissions Prospectuses

A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Commercialization of Higher Education in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the Business School Undergraduate Admissions Prospectuses

Evaluating the Performance of Large Language Models for Spanish Language in Undergraduate Admissions Exams

Evaluating the Performance of Large Language Models for Spanish Language in Undergraduate Admissions Exams

Prevalence of depression and its associated factors among undergraduate admission candidates in Bangladesh: A nation-wide cross-sectional study.

The undergraduate admission test is one of the most stressful assessments in a student's life, as it is required for admission to any of Bangladesh's public universities or medical colleges. Those taking the admissions test are under a lot of pressure to perform well. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of clinical depression among Bangladeshi admission candidates and the factors that contribute to it. Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and other socio-demographic information were collected from 5263 students from all over Bangladesh. Apart from descriptive statistics and chi-square tests, an ordinal logistic regression model was also applied to determine the factors associated with depression. The study revealed that among the undergraduate admission applicants, 74% of individuals were affected by depression, while 26% experienced moderate depression, 26% experienced moderately severe depression, and 22% experienced severe depression. The level of depression among females was 1.8 times higher than the male admission candidates. Our analyses found that gender (p <0.001), exercise (p <0.001), pre-marital relationships (p <0.001), daily study time less than 3 hours (p <0.001), practice of religion (p <0.001), victim of blackmail (p <0.001), family unrest (p <0.001), major illness (p <0.001), COVID-19 infection (p <0.001), GPA in higher secondary (p <0.001), mental problem (p <0.001), all categories of the variable confidence level for exam preparation (p <0.001) had a significant impact on increasing depression. The research found a severe rate of depression among Bangladeshi undergraduate admission candidates. Interactive mental health care programs must include family and teachers to tackle the problem. To alleviate mental stress and depression, students should learn to nurture their mental health.

Higher education policies for applicants with criminal records in the United Kingdom: Are universities ‘banning the box’?

In response to the introduction of the Data Protection Act (2018), the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) no longer require applicants to non-regulated degrees to disclose unspent convictions on their university applications. The UCAS application represents just one stage of the admissions process, but there are other stages where applicants′ criminal history information can be requested. This paper reports the findings from an analysis of 143 university criminal record policies to explore if, how and why applicants′ disclosures are used within the undergraduate admissions process. Findings indicate that 103 institutions continue to make it compulsory for applicants to non-regulated degrees to disclose their unspent criminal record. This requirement has the potential to create challenges for a substantial proportion of the population, should they decide to apply to university. University policies often justify the use of compulsory criminal record disclosures to support `safeguarding procedures´ or as part of their ???duty of care towards staff and students???. Yet university policies provide no evidence or explanation to suggest that asking applicants to self-disclose their unspent criminal records effectively supports these aims. Consequently, this paper calls into question the rationalities universities use to justify their practices towards applicants with criminal records.

Criminal History in Undergraduate Admissions: A Racial Equity Analysis of Administrator Perspectives

Using original data collected from a national survey, this research examines the perceptions of administrators in the functional areas of Admissions, Dean of Students, and Student Affairs regarding the use of criminal history questions in undergraduate admissions. We use a lens of equity mindedness to analyze whether administrators connect criminal history questions in admissions to inequalities of punishment, and find that administrators working for institutions that require disclosure overwhelmingly agree or somewhat agree with the practice.

Architecture admissions interviews at the University of Cambridge: Analysis and experience

This article explores the gatekeeping practices in undergraduate Architecture admissions interviews at the University of Cambridge. Using the techniques of Interactional Sociolinguistics, we show how the interview involves two consequential modes of talk – the experiential and subjective on the one hand, and the analytic, rational and objective on the other hand – that derive from the opposed academic traditions that comprise the discipline of Architectural studies. We demonstrate that the interview requires these two modes of talk to be synthesized in specific ways, despite wide variation in how this requirement is signalled within and across the constituent phases of the interview. As such, we show that the means for demonstrating academic competence are linguistic and discursive. Finally, we discuss how the interactional requirements of Admissions interviews compare to those of job interviews.

Depression symptoms, anxiety, and stress among undergraduate entrance admission seeking students in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional study.

Intense academic pressure and unhealthy competition have turned the university entrance exam scenario in Bangladesh into a Pandora's Box, which might cause mental health difficulties among young students. However, there is a severe scarcity of studies concerning such issues of university entrance examination-seeking students in Bangladesh. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of depression symptoms, anxiety, and stress among undergraduate entrance admission-seeking students in Bangladesh. A cross-sectional study design was followed using an online tool including socio-demographic questions, and the 21-item Bangla Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (BDASS-21). The survey form was completed by 452 Bangladeshi students who passed the higher secondary certificate (HSC) examination in 2020 and were planning to get admission to the undergraduate level during the data collection. The prevalence of mild to extremely severe levels of depression symptoms, anxiety, and stress was 57.7%, 61.4%, and 44.6%, respectively. Females were more likely to have depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms than males. The students from science backgrounds were at higher risk of developing depression and stress symptoms when compared with students from business studies backgrounds. Besides, students with a previous history of mental illness, a preference for getting admitted into the public university, and less monthly family income (<25,000 BDT) were more likely to develop depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. In addition, students with a previous history of neurological disorders were more likely to develop anxiety symptoms than those without. This study revealed a high level of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among undergraduate entrance admission-seeking students, which calls for in-depth exploratory investigations. Adequate low-intensity interventions should be designed to support this young population.

NEW STUDENT CLUSTERIZATION BASED ON NEW STUDENT ADMISSION USING DATA MINING METHOD

The process of admitting new students to the Faculty of Information Technology (FTI) at Universitas Budi Luhur produces a large amount of student data in the form of student profile data and other data. This happens causing a buildup of new student data, thus affecting the search for information on that data. This study aims to classify regular undergraduate admissions data at the Faculty of Information Technology (FTI) Universitas Budi Luhur by utilizing the data mining process using the clustering technique. The algorithm used for clustering is the K-Means algorithm. K-Means is a non-hierarchical clustering data method that can group student data into several clusters based on the similarity of the data, so that student data with the same characteristics is grouped in one cluster and those with different characteristics are grouped in another cluster. An implementation using RapidMiner is used to help find accurate values. This research produced a description of what clusters were formed from data on regular undergraduate admissions at the Faculty of Information Technology (FTI) at Universitas Budi Luhur. This will help recommend decision-making to determine the marketing promotion strategy for each study program at Universitas Budi Luhur. Based on the results of the K-Means algorithm cluster, it can also be seen which majors or study programs are of interest in each school from which new students come.

Changes in the usefulness of communication channels for prospective undergraduates about university studying: afore and during the pandemic

PurposeThis study investigated the usefulness of various communication means for providing university study information with prospective students before and during the pandemic for three consecutive academic years.Design/methodology/approachStudents who had recently taken undergraduate program admission indicated how useful communication channels were in providing the information about university studying. Seven communication channels were examined: open/information day, admission talk, campus visit, education fair, admission website, social media and summer activities. The students were asked to complete an online survey at the beginning of an academic year. In the survey, they were asked to indicate the usefulness of each of the communication channels using a five-point Likert scale with the descriptors: 1 = not useful, 2 = slightly useful, 3 = somewhat useful, 4 = useful, 5 = very useful. If students did not have any usage experience with a communication channel, they were asked to choose “no experience.” There were 1798, 1735 and 1961 students at a university in Hong Kong participating in the study in academic years 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22, respectively.FindingsThe pandemic has transformed the landscape of the university's ways of marketing channels to communicate with prospective students. The top useful channel of information for students during the pandemic was admission website, followed by social media and then open/information day. Before the pandemic, open/information day was the most useful channel of information for students and then admission website; the least useful one was social media channel. Significant differences were revealed in the usefulness rating on open/information day and social media channel among the three academic years.Originality/valueThe findings facilitate educational managers to determine the appropriate marketing and recruitment strategies for connecting with prospective students under dynamic context in the era of new normal. They helped identify where to focus the marketing efforts to achieve the most impact in particular under budget constraints.

Undergraduate Students Admission Practices and Its Relationship with Students’ Academic Performances at Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia, East Africa

Undergraduate Students Admission Practices and Its Relationship with Students’ Academic Performances at Madda Walabu University, Ethiopia, East Africa