Recent Supreme Court rulings that ended affirmative action and are looking to end legacy admissions make applying to college somewhat confusing. A recent college advisor on admissions has more on how to navigate the process.
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00:00 Recent Supreme Court rulings have ended affirmative action and are looking to end legacy admissions,
00:05 making applying to colleges somewhat confusing. Chris Stewart with Scripps News spoke with a
00:10 recent college advisor on admissions and has more on how to navigate the process.
00:14 It could be one of the most impactful moments of your life. The moment your application reaches
00:21 the desk of an admissions officer at a college or university, maybe your dream school,
00:25 and they make the decision whether you're in or you're not. So what does that decision process
00:32 now look like with the Supreme Court banning affirmative action and some colleges ending
00:36 legacy admissions? We're pulling back the curtain by talking to someone who knows firsthand.
00:41 Seconds. As a former Dartmouth admissions officer, Michelle Hernandez knows what works on a college
00:48 application. Focus on one thing and go in depth. That's like the best hack I can say is that be
00:53 really amazing at something, whatever that something is. She was a gatekeeper to one of
00:57 the most selective schools in the country. Dartmouth lets just 6% of applicants in.
01:04 Today, she says she was part of a system that's flawed. Sometimes it's subconscious, like, oh,
01:08 that letter seems lukewarm, but maybe it was just that that person didn't know how to write a
01:12 recommendation letter and the student was great. So, yeah, I mean, there's lots of talented kids
01:17 that they miss. She says as America reacts to the Supreme Court's decision to ban affirmative
01:22 action, it's important to recognize the other hooks that are valued just as much by elite
01:28 colleges that don't directly have to do with grades or S.A.T. scores. The orchestra is going
01:33 to need a certain number of musicians. The dance department is going to need a certain number of
01:37 dancers. So they're always looking for different things anyway. She says as many as half of the
01:41 spots in a class can be reserved for kids who fit certain criteria. She says in her experience,
01:47 roughly 10% of spots could be reserved for students of color, but even more could be saved
01:52 for students whose parents were alumni known as legacies, with an even larger group being saved
01:58 for students recruited to play sports. Hernandez says those other hooks beyond race are often not
02:04 filled with minority students. Going to an Ivy League school sets you on a better path, but why
02:09 is that advantage only reserved for like, you know, wealthy white kids? The U.S. Department of
02:13 Education is currently investigating Harvard's acceptance of legacy students, looking into
02:18 whether it violates the Federal Civil Rights Act. Two prestigious liberal arts colleges,
02:22 Wesleyan in Connecticut and Occidental in California, announced they will no longer
02:27 consider legacies. I think the quick ways to make it fair would be get rid of legacy admissions,
02:33 pay attention to income and really make a commitment to giving full financial aid to
02:37 anyone, let's say, who makes under $200,000. Along with doing more to evaluate a student's
02:42 socioeconomic background, Hernandez says prestigious schools need to change their
02:47 recruiting tactics when it comes to diversity. As an admissions officer, I visited high schools.
02:52 The whole fall is visiting high schools. I usually visited a lot of private schools and prep schools.
02:56 You could visit a lot more inner city schools and tell these kids, hey, you do have a chance to get
03:00 in. Here's what we're looking for. Here's what you need to do. Today, Michelle runs college prep
03:04 company Top Tier Admissions, which tutors students to get on the right track to one day apply to the
03:10 kind of institution she once worked at. Insight that parents are willing to pay tens of thousands
03:16 of dollars for. Not everyone deserves to go to the hardest school in the country to get into,
03:20 but they deserve to go to college and we can at least make it more equitable and try to open up
03:24 the pathways for them to get there. And that's kind of the American dream in a nutshell. A dream,
03:29 she says, is as much about grades as it is knowing how to navigate a system that isn't always fair.
03:35 Chris Stewart, Scripps News.