Admissions Innovations in Global Contexts
Byun, B. & Bastedo, M. N. (in press). Admissions Officers as Street-Level Bureaucrats: Exercising Discretion to Enact Competing Conceptions of Equity. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
- Selective higher education institutions around the world are increasingly adopting holistic admissions practices—making it crucial to understand how admissions personnel make decisions, with what consequences for access and equity. Based on 51 interviews with admissions officers and faculty at Korea’s most selective universities, we examine competing definitions of who is worthy of admission and how these in turn influence evaluations. We demonstrate that admissions decisions are profoundly shaped not only by formal policy but also values and interests stemming from evaluator’s own personal and professional backgrounds, as well as power dynamics among evaluators. Our findings suggest that microprocesses of discretion among admissions officers and faculty undermine government policy efforts to increase equity in admissions outcomes
Michael N. Bastedo. 2025. “Holistic Admissions: Global Drivers, Global Pitfalls.” in Holistic Admissions as a Global Phenomenon: Improving Higher Education Practices and Policies, edited by M. N. Bastedo. New York: Routledge.
- Although holistic admissions varies quite widely across different country contexts, there are surprisingly common drivers behind the adoption of these policies, and surprisingly common pitfalls that are driving backlashes against these policies, leading to rollbacks in many countries. This chapter seeks to provide a framework for understanding these common drivers and common pitfalls that are faced in countries from China to Chile. Although holistic admissions can be a key policy lever to address the failures of examination-only admissions systems, holistic admissions practices have blind spots of their own which must be addressed to meet the policy goals of countries that seek to adopt them.
Byun, BK, and Michael N. Bastedo. 2025. “Is Masking Information a Path to Equity? Examining the Gogyo Blind Policy in Korean Holistic Admissions.” in Holistic Admissions as a Global Phenomenon: Improving Higher Education Practices and Policies, edited by M. N. Bastedo. New York: Routledge.
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- Drawing on qualitative interviews with 51 admissions personnel at Korea’s most selective institutions, this chapter examines how cognitive biases manifest under the Gogyo Blind policy and their unintended consequences for equity in college admissions. Findings reveal that masking high school information makes easily-identifiable proxies on exam schools particularly salient, and this in turn often triggered existing stereotypes about exam schools. Findings also suggest evidence of correspondence bias, which refers to a cognitive tendency to attribute an individual’s performance to their inherent ability – overlooking situation factors that likely also shaped the individual’s performance.
Baker, Dominique J., and Michael N. Bastedo. 2022. “What If We Leave It Up to Chance? Admissions Lotteries and Equitable Access at Selective Colleges.” Educational Researcher.
- Many prominent social scientists have advocated for random-draw lotteries as a solution to the “problem” of elite college admissions. They argue that lotteries will be fair and equitable, eliminate corruption, reduce student anxiety, restore democratic ideals, and end debates over race-conscious admissions. In response, we simulate potential lottery effects on student enrollment by race, gender, and income, using robust simulation methods and multiple minimum thresholds for grades and standardized tests. In the overwhelming majority of lottery simulations, the proportions of low-income students and students of color drop precipitously. With a GPA minimum, we find the proportion of men could drop as low as one-third. Admissions lotteries with minimum bars for GPA and/or standardized tests do not appear to produce more equitable outcomes.
Bastedo, Michael. 2021. “Holistic Admissions as a Global Phenomenon.” In Heather Eggins, Anna Smolentseva, & Hans de Wit (Eds.), The Next Decade: Challenges for Global Higher Education. Leiden: Brill.
- Globally, standards for college selection have been historically dominated by national entrance examinations, with the U.S. an outlier in its development of holistic review for selective universities. This chapter discusses the gradual diffusion of elements of the U.S. holistic model to other admissions systems around the world, including Australia, China, England, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, and South Korea. There are many drivers of the move to holistic admissions, including student anxiety, stifled creativity and innovation, rote learning for examinations, shadow education, stratification and inequality, and workforce preparation. Serious concerns are raised across country contexts, however, including transparency, fairness, equity, and corruption.