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标题: why Penn Admissions doesn't fact-check most applications [打印本页]
作者: 胡老师 时间: 2019-1-31 15:01
标题: why Penn Admissions doesn't fact-check most applications
By Gianna Ferrarin 【The Daily Penn】
Like most universities, Penn does not have a standard system for fact-checking applications. Admissions officers perform initial reviews in as little as four minutes, and a call to a high school guidance counselor or an email to an applicant is as thorough as checks get.
The New York Times reported in December that a student was admitted to Wharton after writing a compelling essay about the death of his mother. But after admissions officers called his home and his mother picked up the phone, Pennrescinded his acceptance.
Given the massive volume of applications the University receives — 44,957 applicants for the Class of 2023 — current and former admissions officers agree that fact-checking applications is not feasible and instances of outright fabrication seem to be rare.
“I don’t think rigorous fact-checking is necessary, but I also don’t think it’s feasible,” Elizabeth Heaton, a former regional director of admissions for Penn, said. “A whole industry would have to spring up around that.”
Penn Dean of Admissions Eric Furda said rigorous fact-checking would involve extensive documentation and place an unwanted burden on both applicants and admissions officers. During his tenure, Furda said there has only been one enrolled Penn student whose acceptance was rescinded for false application materials.
“At what level do you put up such barriers for either students or the people that are on the other side of this that basically paralyzes yourself for what may be a handful of cases,” Furda added.
Kathryn Bezella, Vice Dean and director of marketing and communications for Penn Admissions, confirmed that following up with a guidance counselor or applicant is rare.
“Within my region I might do it, I don’t know, 20 to 30 times across a single cycle,” Bezella said, adding that she reviews applications from Washington, D.C. and South and Central Asia.
Bezella said these follow-ups are not necessarily intended for fact-checking purposes, and can also involve clarifying questions or requests for more application materials.
Despite the lack of a formal fact-checking system, former admissions officers say they have still caught applicants lying.
Heaton recalled an instance when a regular decision applicant plagiarized their essay based on an essay written by another student who had already been admitted early decision. The former Penn regional admissions director said when she noticed the stark similarities between the two essays, she decided to make a call to the student’s high school.
“I had the time and I guess the interest and I went back and looked and discovered that yes, in fact, that's what had happened,” Heaton said. “We denied the student who had plagiarized and the other kid was able to keep his acceptance.”
Without a formal system in place, the validity of a student’s application is almost entirely determined by an admissions officer's intuition. Bezella said because of the high number of applications she reads and familiarity with her region, she can typically identify false transcripts and essays written by college consultants.
“After you’ve read several thousand essays by 17-year-olds, you do have some sense of ‘this is not how a 17-year-old writes',” Bezella said.
Even if an applicant is caught lying, Penn cannot legally notify other universities. Antitrust laws prohibit colleges from sharing information about applicants with each other, and colleges are also barred from asking candidates where else they applied.
Daniel Evans, a former Penn admissions officer, also said he once found out an applicant falsely claimed he had Native American heritage after he reached out to his high school.
“It’s hard for me to say the college needs to spend more time [on fact-checking],” Evans said. “A lot of colleges are seeing really robust increases in applications, and their staffs are not necessarily growing proportionally.”
While outright lying is rare, applicants exaggerating on their applications is more common, Director of One-Stop College Counseling and 1986 Wharton graduate Laurie Kopp Weingarten said. As a personal consultant for students applying to college, Weingarten said she often corrects students who state unrealistic total number of hours spent each week on extracurricular activities. She added that she questions students who have "50 hours a week of activities" on their application.
“Though this year, I did have a parent say ‘so how much can we fabricate,'” Weingarten said.
Exaggerations are more difficult to fact-check, however, and admissions officers agreed that formally investigating them would not be an effective use of time.
“With an eight percent admit rate if we’re not quite sure about something, guess what, we don’t have to take the risk,” Furda said.
作者: admin 时间: 2019-2-25 23:01
【谷歌译文】
像大多数大学一样，Penn没有事实检查应用程序的标准系统。招生官员在短短四分钟内进行初步审查，并且打电话给高中辅导员或发送给申请人的电子邮件与支票一样彻底。
“纽约时报”12月份报道说，一名学生在撰写了一篇关于他母亲去世的引人入胜的文章后，被沃顿商学院录取。但在招生人员打电话给他的家和他的母亲拿起电话后，Penn 取消了他的录取。
鉴于大学收到的申请数量庞大 - 申请人数为44,957人 - 现任和前任招生人员同意，事实核查申请不可行，而且直接制造的情况似乎很少见。
“我不认为严格的事实检查是必要的，但我也不认为这是可行的，”宾夕法尼亚州前招生局局长伊丽莎白·希顿说。 “整个行业都必须围绕这一点兴起。”
Penn Dean of Admissions Eric Furda表示，严格的事实核查将涉及大量文件，并对申请人和招生人员造成不必要的负担。在他任职期间，Furda说只有一名入学的宾夕法尼亚大学学生，他的录取被取消了错误的申请材料。
“你在什么程度上为学生或者另一方面的人们设置了这样的障碍，这些障碍基本上使自己陷入瘫痪状态，”Furda补充道。
Penn Admissions的副院长兼营销和传播总监Kathryn Bezella证实，跟进辅导员或申请人很少见。
“在我所在的地区，我可能会这样做，我不知道，在一个周期内可以做到20到30次，”Bezella说，并补充说，她审查了来自华盛顿特区和南亚和中亚的申请。
Bezella表示，这些后续行动不一定用于事实核查目的，也可能涉及澄清问题或要求提供更多申请材料。
尽管缺乏正式的事实核查系统，但前招生官员表示他们仍然抓住申请人撒谎。
Heaton回忆起一个例子，当一个普通的决定申请人根据另一个已经被录取早期决定的学生写的一篇文章抄袭他们的文章。这位前宾夕法尼亚州地区招生主任说，当她注意到这两篇文章之间存在鲜明的相似之处时，她决定打电话给学生的高中。
“我有时间，我觉得有兴趣，我回过头来看，发现是的，事实上，这就是发生的事情，”希顿说。 “我们否认了剽窃过的学生，另一个孩子能够继续接受他。”
如果没有正式的系统，学生申请的有效性几乎完全取决于招生官员的直觉。 Bezella说，由于她阅读的应用程序数量很多并且熟悉她的地区，她通常可以识别由大学顾问撰写的错误的成绩单和论文。
“你读过17岁的几千篇论文之后，你确实有一种感觉'这不是一个17岁的孩子写的'，”Bezella说。
即使申请人被骗，Penn也不能合法地通知其他大学。反托拉斯法禁止大学相互分享申请人的信息，大学也被禁止向候选人询问他们申请的其他地方。
前宾夕法尼亚招生官丹尼尔埃文斯也说，他曾经发现一名申请人在高中毕业后错误地声称他拥有美洲原住民的遗产。
“我很难说学院需要花更多的时间[事实检查]，”埃文斯说。 “很多大学都看到应用程序的增长非常强劲，而且他们的员工不一定按比例增长。”
虽然彻头彻尾的谎言很少见，申请人夸大他们的申请更为常见，一站式学院咨询主任和1986年沃顿商学院毕业生Laurie Kopp Weingarten说。作为申请大学的学生的个人顾问，Weingarten说，她经常纠正那些每周花在课外活动上的不切实际总时数的学生。她补充说，她对在申请时“每周工作50小时”的学生提出质疑。
“虽然今年我确实让父母说'我们能制造多少'，”Weingarten说。
然而，夸大事实更难以进行事实核查，招生官员同意正式调查它们不会有效利用时间。
“如果我们对某些事情不太确定，接受率为8％，那么我们就不必承担风险，”Furda说。
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