Divergent Approaches to Access: How Selective College Admissions Offices Recruit Lower-Income, First-Generation, and Working-Class Students

In recent years, selective colleges and universities have made diversifying their student bodies a top priority, yet the class diversity on these campuses has barely shifted. While most research on class disparities in college admissions focuses on student explanations, this study seeks to understand how campus admissions approaches to recruitment may also contribute to why so few lower-income, first-generation, and/or working-class students (LIFGWC students) attend selective colleges. To address this question, we conducted interviews with seven admissions officers from selective campuses with both relatively strong and weak records of LIFGWC students recruitment. Institutions with stronger records of recruiting LIFGWC students actively sought out new initiatives to make their college more accessible for LIFGWC students, and these actions were motivated by a shared focus on improving larger societal inequality. Although campuses with weaker records also expanded their recruitment strategies, their efforts were often piecemeal and motivated by competition for students and institutional rankings rather than a larger mission to improve diversity and equity. These findings suggest that institutional missions and philosophies are central to increasing access.

Characterization of the Geometric Distribution Via Linear Combinations of Observations and of Records

In a sequence of independent identically distributed geometric random variables, the sum of the first two record values is distributed as a simple linear combination of geometric variables. It is verified that this distributional property characterizes the geometric distribution. A related characterization conjecture is also discussed. Related discussion in the context of weak records is also provided.

Records in Set Partitions

A partition of $[n]=\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ is a decomposition of $[n]$ into nonempty subsets called blocks. We will make use of the canonical representation of a partition as a word over a finite alphabet, known as a restricted growth function. An element $a_i$ in such a word $\pi$ is a strong (weak) record if $a_i> a_j$ ($a_i\geq a_j$) for all $j=1,2,\ldots,i-1$. Furthermore, the position of this record is $i$. We derive generating functions for the total number of strong (weak) records in all words corresponding to partitions of $[n]$, as well as for the sum of the positions of the records. In addition we find the asymptotic mean values and variances for the number, and for the sum of positions, of strong (weak) records in all partitions of $[n]$.