{"id":576,"date":"2014-03-17T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T08:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/03\/is-this-a-college-admissions-office-or-the-nsa.html"},"modified":"2014-03-17T08:45:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T08:45:00","slug":"is-this-a-college-admissions-office-or-the-nsa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/03\/is-this-a-college-admissions-office-or-the-nsa.html","title":{"rendered":"Is this a college admissions office, or the NSA?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

That\u2019s the page 4 article in the Chicago Tribune today: \u00a0\u201cColleges admissions offices mine data on prospective students<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0Yes, I had known that colleges would google a prospective student, or look at a Facebook page open to the public. \u00a0But this article describes far more extensive data mining, with the sort of invasiveness that we\u2019d associate with the NSA:<\/p>\n

Many testing companies, along with the Common Application, forward personal information to colleges. That, along with an IP address, is usually enough to pinpoint identity and track online behavior, experts said.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such software can aid in the courtship but is also a trade-off, Barnes said. \u201cIf you wrote a play for your high school, you might hear from some small college in New Hampshire with a playwright program that you would never otherwise know about,\u201d said Barnes, who studies the use of the Internet in admissions. \u201cBut you might also be denied a prestigious scholarship and not know it was because of the sites you visit online. What is missing here is the awareness. Just know that you are being watched \u2026 and the standard of consent is using the Internet.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ugh. \u00a0Remind me to add, \u201cask the prospective university to disclose its practices regarding internet snooping\u201d to my list of to-dos when my kids begin to look into colleges \u2014 because if they\u2019re invading my son\u2019s privacy, they\u2019re invading my privacy, too.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s worse is why they\u2019re doing this: \u00a0this isn\u2019t the old issue of trying to unearth the partiers. <\/p>\n

Universities have priced themselves so high that they have to work overtime to try to convince prospective students that the pricetag is worth it, with targeted appeals, finding out a student\u2019s interest via data-mining (a vegan? \u00a0a would-be world traveller?) and then pitching the ways the college (literally or figuratively) caters to their interests. <\/p>\n

The desire for a high \u201cyield rate\u201d \u2014 the percent of applicants who accept \u2014 for reasons of prestige, has always meant that universities are likely to turn down applicants they think are using them as a safety school and won\u2019t actually enroll, but they\u2019ve ramped up the efforts to identify them.<\/p>\n

And the fact that they\u2019ve constructed a system of differentiated pricing and \u201cinstitutional aid\u201d means they\u2019re now in an all-out search for students who won\u2019t squack at being asked to pay full price, and using data to indentify who should and shouldn\u2019t be offered scholarships, even apart from the family finances data revealed in the financial aid forms. \u00a0How far this goes isn\u2019t clear, including whether students are denied supposedly \u201cmerit\u201d scholarships because the software determines they\u2019ll enroll regardless. <\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the final paragraph:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, it\u2019s still a highly emotional decision made by 17- and 18-year-olds,\u201d said [Vanderbilt University admissions director Thom] Golden. \u201cAnd it can still all turn on a bad piece of pizza.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What an awful system we\u2019ve constructed, in which teenagers, who are not old enough, depending on when their birthdays fall, to sign a contract, who are considered too young to drink, who in many ways are still not considered adults, if not legally, then in terms of society\u2019s expectations, are still expected to sign on the dotted line to commit themselves to, in some cases, significant amounts of debt, based on these pitches and the sophisticated marketing of universities, with parents being told to step out of the way.<\/p>\n

Now, granted, in this household, my expectation is that we\u2019ll sit down with each son, in turn, and set realistic expectations and a budget, but I do worry that they\u2019ll see their friends headed to any number of private or out-of-state public schools, backed by student loans and the sort of financial aid that\u2019s given to children whose parents don\u2019t save for college, and feel cheated by stingy parents. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the page 4 article in the Chicago Tribune today: \u00a0\u201cColleges admissions offices mine data on prospective students.\u201d \u00a0Yes, I had known that colleges would google a prospective student, or look at a Facebook page open to the public. \u00a0But this article describes far more extensive data mining, with the sort of invasiveness that we\u2019d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nIs this a college admissions office, or the NSA?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the page 4 article in the Chicago Tribune today:  "Colleges admissions offices mine data on prospective students."  Yes, I had known that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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