Inquiring Minds: Michael Goldberger on the admissions process

Brown only recently cemented its Class of 2006, but already a new crop of prospective students is flooding campus as families use summer vacations for college tours. Before the applications start arriving, there is time to consider the intense nature of college admissions. Recent media coverage has focused on high school students' struggle to be accepted to selective schools. GSJ reporter Kristen Cole asked Michael Goldberger, Brown's director of admission, for his perspective.

During the span of your career, has admission to college become more competitive?

Yes, college admission has become more selective. To put it simply, there are more and more talented students applying each year for the same number of places. The number of applications has increased for several reasons. One reason would certainly be better recruiting efforts by the admission office. We spend a great deal of time traveling around the country visiting high schools and offering evening programs. Another significant reason for the growth is the Internet. The Internet offers a great deal of information to students immediately and it somehow seems to make the world smaller. Thus, students seem more willing to travel and application pools are becoming less regional.

What changes have you seen in the information students include in their applications?

The most important pieces of information included in applications have remained constant. The high school transcript, the high school counselor and teacher recommendations, and the students' essays are the most important pieces in our decisions. However, we are finding that students are often adding many additional pieces – extra letters of recommendation, supplementary materials like videotapes, newspaper articles, etc. More often than not, these additional pieces are not significant in our final decision.

Do students today apply to the same number of schools as students did 10 or 20 years ago?

I think it is pretty clear that students are applying to more schools today than they did 10 or 20 years ago. I would only have anecdotal data to support this, but I don't think anyone would contest this.

How has the ability to apply online affected the admission process?

I think the ability to apply online has made it easier for students to apply to more colleges. This is probably healthy in some respects in that it allows students more time to do school work rather than completing college application forms. However, it is problematic when it leads to boilerplate applications and less thoughtful submissions.

Why does Brown still require a handwritten personal essay?

The reason for this may have changed over the years. Now, we would say that it clearly personalizes the process for us – it serves as a good reminder to the application readers that this submission is the individual work of a real person. It is important to realize that our goal is not to get more applications; our goal is to get more thoughtful applications. The handwritten essay is our way of knowing that the applicant has read the Brown application questions and is responding to them, rather than just submitting another copy of some other application answer to another college.

How do admission officers safeguard against plagiarism?

This is a difficult issue. I feel pretty confident that students who want to plagiarize the application will figure out a way to beat any system. However, I believe that we ask for enough different information from enough different sources that we can feel confident that we will have a good sense of the applicant after reading the combination of different pieces. When one piece simply doesn't fit, we generally will investigate further. Overall, we have found that the vast majority of students are not plagiarizing and take this process very seriously.