There were just days left to process a batch of federal financial aid applications when Education Department officials made a fateful discovery: 70,000 emails from students all over the country, containing reams of essential data. They were sitting in an inbox, untouched. That discovery last week started a panicked, three-day crash effort by more than…
The Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to hear a challenge to new admissions criteria at an elite public high school in Virginia that eliminated standardized tests, clearing the way for the use of a policy intended to diversify the school’s student body. As is its custom, the court gave no reasons for turning down the…
It’s been called affirmative action for the rich: Harvard’s special admissions treatment for students whose parents are alumni, or whose relatives donated money. And in a complaint filed on Monday, a legal activist group demanded that the federal government put an end to it, arguing that fairness was even more imperative after the Supreme Court…
For the head of admissions at a medical school, Dr. Mark Henderson is pretty blunt when sizing up the profession. “Mostly rich kids get to go to medical school,” he said. In his role at the medical school at the University of California, Davis, Dr. Henderson has tried to change that, developing an unorthodox tool…
In the Supreme Court decision striking down racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. had harsh words for Harvard and the University of North Carolina, calling their admissions process “elusive,” “opaque” and “imponderable.” But the court’s ruling against the two universities on Thursday could lead to an admissions system…