On September 14, the Cornell Admissions Task Force issued its final report recommending changes in how Cornell recruits applicants and in the greater use of data science. Because Cornell admissions are controlled by the individual colleges, the report addressed common elements that could affect all of Cornell’s colleges.
Timing and Implementation
President Pollack appointed the task force in November 2022 in anticipation of a Supreme Court decision involving affirmative action in cases brought against Harvard and UNC. Although the decision was issued in June 2023, the task force does not directly address that decision, but mentions it in a footnote.
The task force was supposed to have issued an interim report by May 31, then take community comment, followed by a final report due by August 31. A report issued at that time would allow for its recommendations to be implemented for the 2023-24 admissions cycle.
In addition, the task force recommendations and Cornell’s implementation of the Supreme Court decision was expected to be a major point of discussion at the October 2023 meeting of Cornell’s full Board of Trustees.
President Pollack stated in her announcement of the report:
I’m grateful for the work of the task force, and especially for the breadth and depth of their outreach and their thoughtful deliberations. Provost [Michael] Kotlikoff and Lisa Nishii, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Interim Vice Provost for Enrollment, will begin implementing a broad-ranging set of best practices and guidelines which will help us build exceptional future classes of Cornellians.
The Task Force’s outreach, if any, certainly was not public and was not documented in its Final Report.
Implementing the Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court ended the use of race-based affirmative action programs in higher education admissions. However, the Court did allow essay questions to consider the challenges that specific applicants had to overcome, without assuming that all students of that race faced the same challenges.
In response, the report recommends a new essay question to read:
When creating the university in the aftermath of the Civil War, Ezra Cornell wrote, “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” We remain committed to the importance of diversity in our educational mission. Explain how your life experiences, particularly with a community that is important to you, will enrich our “… any person …” ethos. We encourage you to think about community broadly. This could include family, school, or larger social circles.
This may be a subtle prompt to get minority students to plead their case for preferential admission treatment. Of course, this raised the underlying issue that has not yet been addressed as to whether it is good for society or for Cornell to pick a less academically qualified applicant over a stronger candidate just because the applicant is a member of a designated “community.” Chief Justice Roberts noted:
[D]espite the dissent’s assertion to the contrary, universities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.
The community and the Trustees need to discuss this important question before adding a new essay question.
RELATED: Who decides admissions policy at Cornell?
Legacy Admissions
Many critics of the Supreme Court as well as the U.S. Department of Education have called for reconsideration of any preference for legacy admissions or preference for children of faculty. However, the Task Force did not address those issues.
The Trustees have been monitoring New York State legislation on legacy admissions.
Use of Data Science
The report recommends investing in data systems to help automate the evaluation of the about 70,000 yearly undergraduate applications. However, if Cornell were to train an AI program based upon admissions decisions made prior to the Supreme Court decision, then the past impermissible consideration of race could be carried forward to bias future admission decisions.
In addition to the admissions process, the report says that data science can be used to identify those matriculating students that “would benefit from additional support to manage their transition to college during their first year.” In other words, instead of having special programs for black students and other minorities, data science could be used instead of race to identify who to target for extra help.
Financial Aid
The Task Force recommends increasing the Financial Aid Office staff to speed up the awarding of financial aid. The Report assumes that the size of financial aid packages affects the ability of Cornell to compete with other universities to get accepted students to decide to come to Cornell.
Although many commentators have questioned scholarships targeted by race or identity groups in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, the Task Force did not address this question.
Indigenous Students
The data presented in the Harvard and UNC cases suggested that dropping race-based affirmative action would increase the proportion of Asian-American students and decrease the portion of black students.
In this context, the Task Force’s recommendations that Cornell should improve financial aid support for indigenous students and expand efforts to recruit more indigenous students to apply to Cornell is a bit jarring. The report does not explain why this should take priority over admitting the most academically prepared students.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2021, 1.0% of the New York State population is Indigenous or Alaskan Native.
Retargeting Recruitment
The Task Force recommends identifying high schools outside of Cornell’s traditional “feeder schools” that would be a good source of applicants. This point has been debated since the 1970s when Cornell sent recruiters to inner city high schools to recruit minority students rather than attempting to recruit minority students from high schools in upstate New York.
The fact is that it is more difficult to convince an inner city NYC high school graduate to enroll at Cornell, when competing with city-based campuses like Harvard, MIT, and Columbia. In contrast, a graduate from an upstate or rural high school will face fewer culture shock issues when moving to Ithaca.
The task force recommends that Cornell work with ten “community based organizations” (CBO) to work to attract students to apply to Cornell. Again, some CBOs may have a race-focused mission, so it is difficult to understand how this recommendation is consistent with the Supreme Court’s majority opinions. To quote Chief Justice Roberts, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
President Pollack has promised that “Cornell will follow the law” in forming its future admissions policies that conform with the Supreme Court decisions. However, now that the report has been made public, it is time for robust community discussion leading to Trustee-level debates followed by actions by the individual colleges.
