By Whitney Graham
Following a change to the faculty bylaws, next year there will be separate faculty and student admissions committees. The new student committee, whose members will be decided in appointments next September, will meet once a month to discuss admissions from the students’ perspective. The committee will also represent admissions to the student body at SGA and meet with the faculty admissions committee.
The new committee was given a vote of confidence at the SGA meeting last week, showing support for the new positions.
In past years, some students have read applications and worked with admissions, but starting next fall, the new committee will handle broader concerns between students and the admissions process. “From my perspective it would be helpful for me to have students more well-versed in admissions and where Bryn Mawr stands in the landscape of higher education,” said Jennifer Rickard, dean of admissions and financial aid. “It is not that students will no longer have access to files, but [their role] will be more big picture.”
The new committee will include non-seniors, to allow students a chance to reapply for the position for a second year. Having one student with more experience from the previous year will add some continuity to the process. This is a change from the old committee, which included only seniors, due to confidentiality concerns regarding applications.
“This committee will be four people; three seniors and one junior, so we can have people on it for more than one year,” said Jessica Rosenberg ‘07, a community member and tour guide who has been involved in discussions about the new committee.
The previous groups of students who worked with the Admissions Office on admissions issues and decisions consisted of about six seniors each year, who helped to read applications. They each had about 30 applications to read, not a very large percentage or impact on the applicants for each year. The new committee will have more reach into other areas of admissions and will look at the whole process. “This new committee will have students that read files, but also look at admissions through a wider lens,” said Rosenberg.
The new committee will have a more involved role with the entire process, acting as liaisons between students and the administration, through its meetings with SGA and the faculty admissions committee. “The student admissions committee would be advisory, and bring student concerns relevant to admissions [to the faculty admissions committee],” said Rickard.
This setup is designed to help make student, faculty, and administration input in admissions more cohesive. The students and admissions officers, who are working to create this, designed it to cover many relationships between campus groups of students, faculty, and admissions.
Rumors about the admissions process or changes to that process are sometimes floated around campus. Rickard hopes the new student admissions committee will help minimize this and refute some of the speculation about admissions. “It is my hope that having students involved in the broader scope of admissions, they can confirm or deny those rumors,” said Rickard.
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Editor's note: Articles that appear in the Last Word section are works of satire.
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