UR Admissions...Any Final Stats for Class of 2012

UR_Admissions
Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:39:59 +0000

Hi Gang–

We have not yet calculated stats on the incoming first year class because we are still finalizing the class via the wait list. When that process is complete, we’ll start calculating. So I would say that while Spiders05 is projecting a yield figure, its a little too soon to do that at present. But he knows way more than me about the football stadium action!

I was pretty surprised by the Wake Forest announcement. I too am somewhat cynical about it but I also have respect for my colleagues there, so it is hard to be too critical. Students with strong scores will continue to send them and WFU’s averages will increase. We know that the tests are no good as a single predictive measure of college performance, but when you add them to the difficulty of the student’s curriculum and their grades, you get a superior prediction than when you do without them. In a holistic admission decision making environment, test scores can be devalued when you have evidence that the tests are going to underpredict performance for an individual student. But they are still helpful in knowing what students may need additional support. There is on-going discussion about the value of this approach (going test optional) to encouraging diverse applicants at Richmond as we progress towards a new strategic plan. It won’t be a decision made in the Admission Office–instead the faculty and trustees will determine the policy (we’ll be consulted and have input of course!). But then we execute whatever policies they give us.

Shecallsmedad is right that the tests are strongly influenced by family educational levels and socio-economic factors. This would be an example of holistic review. When you have a student who would be the first in his or her family to go to college, you can expect them to have lower test scores. So long as he or she has excelled within the school environment you can feel quite confident that the student is up to the challenge, overlook their scores and admit them anyway. But if your process is too formulaic for that, then maybe your best bet is to go test-optional and I would say that in the case of George Mason (for example) this is the right approach. They have a huge, extremely diverse applicant pool and a very formulaic approach to decisions. Richmond has a large pool but has thus far been able to continue to read each application one at a time and try hard to treat students as individuals.

As for the gun-man situation, Spiders05 is correct. It appears to be a case of mental illness and while it was quite scary at the time, we were incredibly proud of our emergency management systems. The campus is bordered by two different localities (Henrico County and the City of Richmond) and all three police departments came together to work seamlessly, apprehending the suspect within 24 hours. The alert systems worked and the few hiccups there are being evaluated. Within 1 week of the incident, we had firms on campus bidding on adding voice systems to our outdoor siren system, which up till now had only been enabled for tornado sirens. We found that there were people who weren’t in front of computer screens or hadn’t enabled the alerts to their cell phones who were out walking around after the campus had locked down, not knowing what was up. One week was all it took to have bidders for that work. So it was better than a drill in terms of how we got to practice our response to a critical incident, and the news was really great in terms of the way the systems worked together. We were proud and relieved to be assured our folks were as good as we thought they’d be in the event of a crisis. If nothing else it is a moment to remember that when you are able to enroll yourself in your campus alert system that you absolutely should do it even if you are worried you’ll have to pay for a text message or receive a few annoying calls. Please sign up wherever you are headed in the fall.

As soon as we have a completed profile, I’ll let you all know.

UR Admissions