OPINION: The glitchy FAFSA is just one drawback with entering into faculty. Right here’s the way to make the method much less complicated

Making use of to school has by no means been extra complicated.

The brand new model of the Free Software for Federal Pupil Support, which was meant to be simpler for college kids, is as an alternative a glitchy mess. The Supreme Court docket’s determination to strike down affirmative motion has left excessive schoolers and their counselors uncertain of what can and might’t be stated in purposes. School admissions officers worry lawsuits, and in lots of circumstances are struggling to steadiness their establishment’s acknowledged commitments to range with the realities of this new authorized panorama.

In the meantime, there’s a push to confess college students who’ve overcome adversity and who exhibit “grit,” or persistence via difficult circumstances. However we lack a shared understanding of what adversity means. On the identical time, college students really feel pressured to open up a few momentous problem or life impediment they’ve needed to overcome; essay prompts from the Widespread App assist gasoline such narratives and place an pointless burden on college students.

What’s extra, high-quality knowledge on college students’ excessive faculties and residential environments, which may assist admissions officers contextualize college students’ purposes and higher perceive what challenges they’ve overcome, stays missing. And admissions officers threat permitting their very own biases to cloud how they consider college students.

All of that is to say we’ve reached a breaking level. Policymakers and better ed establishments should strive more durable. Listed below are just a few beginning factors: 

More practical communication on the FAFSA. Many households are nonetheless uncertain of the way to navigate the federal assist course of. In response, each schools and the federal authorities should higher clarify what adjustments have been made and supply step-by-step steerage; this may be finished via webinars, easy-to-read pamphlets, and different direct and accessible channels.

Enhance alternatives for significant communication between admissions officers and faculty counselors. There’s too little readability on what schools wish to see mirrored in non-academic components of an software – much more so now {that a} pupil’s race will not be thought of. Earlier than we embark on one other admissions cycle, there have to be better dialogue between schools and excessive faculties on the way to greatest assist college-going college students. As an example, counselors would profit from native Q&A boards with admissions officers, offering an outline of what a robust software may seem like and the place counselors ought to direct their restricted sources.

Standardize the usage of suggestion letter templates. Officers should sift via big numbers of purposes whereas counselors typically juggle tons of of scholars on their caseload. A technique to enhance that is by streamlining the method for writing letters of advice:  States, for instance, may accomplice with a staff of upper ed professionals to construct a standardized template. Not solely would this save counselors time guessing what kind of content material admissions officers will discover most related, however it might spare faculty staff from studying letters of various high quality and codecs.

Mandate implicit bias coaching for admissions officers and that they extra equitably allocate their sources. Whereas having contextual knowledge about college students and their backgrounds is a crucial first step, how that info is used to guage college students is simply as essential: Officers’ private views on what a robust pupil profile appears to be like like may distort the analysis course of and result in some college students being neglected. Admissions workplaces additionally should take a tough have a look at their present recruiting practices and make investments extra money and time into recruiting at high-poverty faculties.

Guaranteeing that increased training is open to all college students has by no means been extra vital. With urgency to innovate and huge instruments at our disposal, I consider that we have now the potential to open doorways for college kids who may prior to now have felt a school diploma was unattainable. Reasonably than succumb to this tradition of confusion, we should problem our colleagues in Okay-12 and better training to construct a tradition of readability and newfound connection.

Matthew Nicola is a pupil on the Harvard Graduate Faculty of Training, finishing his Ed.M. within the Training Management, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship (ELOE) program. The intersection of faculty admissions, counseling, and fairness was the main target of an unbiased examine he carried out via the Faculty Counseling Analysis Lab.