St. Lawrence staff are unconcerned about the future of the admissions process after the recent scandal. However, students and families may look at their application process differently.
According to St. Lawrence Dean of Admissions Florence Hines, the review of SLU applicants does not go extremely in depth. “Researching and challenging what a student has written is not normally part of the procedure,” she said. “Most people are not falsifying documents.” No admissions employees were indicted in the scam, but Hines believes it will make workers take a closer look at applicants.
Falsified SAT tests are also not much of a worry for SLU admissions. Hines said St. Lawrence admissions does not feel this poses a risk to them, as SLU is test-optional. “40 percent of students don’t send scores at all,” she says. “So you don’t have to deal with falsifying that.”
The scandal also highlighted the legal ways students can bribe their way into schools. One strategy that wealthy parents utilize involves a substantial charitable gift to a school prior to their child’s application, often providing funds for a new building or an endowed chair.
Thomas Pynchon, the Vice President of University Advancement, and the advancement officer in charge of major gifts, stated that such a strategy is prevented at St. Lawrence by university policy. “If we are working with an alum who is always giving, and then all of a sudden they say look, you’re in the middle of a giving campaign and I want to give a major gift … and they also say my son or daughter is going to be applying, then we have a conversation.”
According to Pynchon, the advancement office has no influence on the admissions office in order to prevent the possibility of parents attempting such a strategy. “We don’t want anyone to make a gift they feel is going to have any influence, and we don’t have any influence. We have a firewall between here and admissions.”
Students posing as athletes are not a concern at SLU. Hines says this would not be a problem at St. Lawrence, as it is Division III, so there are no saved spaces for athletes. Coaches cannot reserve spots for applicants who otherwise would not have the grades to get into St. Lawrence.
Mikayla Thomas, Assistant Women’s Rowing Coach at St. Lawrence, says coaches can get admissions to pre-read unofficial transcripts of athletes they are interested in. “We can look at students as early as eleventh grade,” she says “It helps see where a person may fall academically.”
Thomas says athletes could falsify achievements from high school when inputting times and scores on recruiting websites. “However, we can check with coaches and students can submit pictures of themselves with their results,” Thomas says.
Rowers Rebecca Shyne ’22 and Caroline Bell ’22 were not happy when they learned of the scandal. “Crew is not the easiest,” Shyne said. “It was pretty upsetting.”
Bell felt it was unfair how athletes were getting into schools when they did not deserve it. “I was just really shocked,” she said. Shyne and Bell both rowed throughout high school.
Shyne said if the scandal occurred while she was applying to colleges, her outlook on the team would have been a little different. “I would have been a little more cautious,” she said.
Patricia Blackstock, head of guidance at Newburyport (Mass.) High School, says potential changes to the process may include more oversight over the test-taking process administered by the College Board. She thinks athlete applicants may be scrutinized a little more.
People may start seeing college as a luxury item. “I think it will make people more cautious,” Blackstock says. “Your degree does not matter after your first job.” She also thinks people will question what they spend on college. “What is the value of a school that’s going to put students in $100,000 of debt?”