The Daily Agenda: Role-reversal hits the college admission process
When students apply to college, they have to wait to see if they’re accepted … But what if universities asked students to accept them? … Deputy sues Nanos.
If you’ve been through the college application process, you probably remember what a hassle it was. The endless questions, the daunting personal essay and worst of all, the uncertainty.
But what if you could get accepted into a four-year university and be awarded financial aid before you even apply?
Turns out that these days, you can, thanks to the Personalized Admissions Project, which was launched a few years ago by the ASU Helios Decision Center for Educational Excellence. The center is a partnership between Arizona State University and the Helios Education Foundation that aims to drive positive change and better student outcomes.
The idea behind the project was to get students who think that maybe college isn’t for them to start thinking that it could be.
In the fall, the University of Arizona will be welcoming its first group of students accepted under the project, after it expanded to include UA and NAU last fall.
The program got its start after the superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District told the center’s Director, Joseph O’Reilly, that they have students who ASU would accept, but they’d never apply. She suggested that ASU should just accept them. O’Reilly took the idea to ASU leaders, who said, “Let’s try it.”
In the 2021-22 school year, ASU sent out nearly 1,500 acceptance letters to students in the Phoenix Unified High School District who met admissions standards, telling them that there was a spot waiting for them at ASU if they kept up the good work.
In the two years since its launch, the project has grown to include UA, NAU and dozens of K-12 school districts across the state. And when it comes to students, the growth has been exponential:
This school year, nearly 11,000 high school seniors received acceptance letters, a 653% increase from the program’s first year and a 51% increase from the year before.
The project now serves a little over half of the high school students in the state, with at least 14 more school districts getting ready to sign on next September. O’Reilly said he’s aiming to reach two-thirds of the students in the state.
“We’re all over the state. We’re (working with)) Lake Havasu, Douglas, Yuma Union, Sunnyside, Flowing Wells and we’ve got a couple of other districts down there that say they’re going to participate next year, so we’ll see what happens there,” said O’Reilly. “So I think it’s an Arizona program and not an ASU program.”
The process behind the project is surprisingly simple: At the end of May, a guidance counselor at each high school pulls student transcripts and sends the information along to the Department of Education to analyze. DOE verifies the information and puts it into a spreadsheet broken down by students who are on track or close, then sends the information back to the districts, who pass the list of students along to the project.
O’Reilly said that it’s not a lot of work for school districts, but the benefits to students are huge.
“It’s not like you’re going to fill out an application hoping someone accepts you. There’s a university asking you to accept them,” O’Reilly said. “It really turns it on its head.”
For Ariana Romayor, receiving the letter was life changing, since she was thinking she’d be attending community college after graduation.
“I got emotional when I opened it, but I got excited, too,” Romayor told the Tucson Agenda. “To know ASU wanted me, that felt good and that’s when I decided to go to ASU. They already accepted me, so this was the beginning of my journey.”
Romayor had always dreamed of being an engineer and now she’s on track to do just that. A first-generation college student, Romayor said that she pushed herself to get all As in her senior year after receiving the letter.
Alexis Alba, another student accepted as part of the project, said that he’d already applied to all three state universities, but after receiving the letter from ASU, his mind was made up. An Obama Scholar, Alba said that making his decision early allowed him extra time applying for scholarships.
Of the 11,000 letters sent out this last year, nearly 43% of the students who received them were Latino and more than 40% qualified for free or reduced lunch while in high school.
At ASU, the overall response rate for the pre-acceptance letters has been about 65% and the enrollment rate is about 43%, according to the center’s O’Reilly. This last year, the response rate rose to 70% with the enrollment rate climbing to 53%.
Since the UA just sent out its first batch of letters in September and the admissions office is still finalizing the 2024-25 class, data about students admitted under the project isn’t yet available. But Assistant Vice President of Enrollment Management Emily Ross said her team is excited about the opportunity to remove barriers for students during the application and admission project.
“(This allows us to) really just celebrate with them that they’ll be admitted,” Ross told the Agenda. “Going to college has changed so much in recent history, a lot of what we do is myth bust and tell students, ‘You don’t have to do x, y or z,’ and really help students understand the realities of going to college.”
The UA is all-in, but when it comes to Southern Arizona, there’s one major player that’s not yet in the game: Tucson Unified School District, which serves about 40,000 students.
O’Reilly said that the center is very interested in having TUSD involved in the program but hasn’t received a response from the district.
We reached out to TUSD, with spokeswoman Karla Escamilla telling us the district’s counseling department is “very interested in the possibility of participating on the Helios project” and would reach out to start a conversation.
Unless that conversation happens fast, it’s unlikely TUSD will be participating this fall. But, maybe by next year, acceptance letters will arrive in the mailboxes of TUSD students, too.
Same problem everywhere: Oro Valley is dealing with the same problem every other local government is dealing with: less money coming from the state due to the 2.5% flat income tax, along with the cost of inflation. Town Manager Jeff Wilkins submitted his recommended budget of $156 million for the council’s consideration last week, which is down a bit from last year, Tucson Local Media staff report. Next stop for the budget is a public hearing on June 5.
Every vote counts: One Republican state senator doesn’t like that the proposed border ballot measure HCR2060 goes after Dreamers, which made the measure stall in the state Legislature, KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez reports. Sen. Ken Bennett says he doesn’t want a law that would retroactively punish people who received a form of legal status under the federal program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, even if the program were to end. No Democrats support the bill, which they refer to as the second coming of SB1070.
Not this one: As Pima County officials deal with the loss of pandemic-era federal funds, they’re looking at making funding cuts to balance the books. JobPath, one of the programs that may see a big chunk of its budget disappear, deserves to stick around, Tucson Sentinel columnist Blake Morlock writes. The program helps people who weren’t born on third base find a job. They get trained for jobs the Tucson economy needs and nearly all of them graduate the program.
A safe place: Fatal drug overdoses in Pima County hit record levels last year and one local organization is trying to remedy that. The Church of Safe Injection Tucson offers a place to use drugs safely, as well as be treated with empathy, KGUN’s Joel Foster reports. They hand out Narcan, clean needles, and other supplies to ward off health issues like abscessed skin and HIV. In some cases, the Church is a path to get people into treatment for drug addiction.
Gardens springing up: Two abandoned houses next to Mansfield Middle School are going to be converted to an education center for the School Garden Workshop Program, KVOA’s Conor McGill reports. The Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation donated $1 million to get the ball rolling and next spring hundreds of middle school students will get to learn about eating healthy, growing food, and biodiversity. (It’s a cool program. We wrote about it in March)
Sticks and stones: The Pima County Sheriff’s Department investigated a sergeant after he made remarks about a deputy union “being completely in the pocket of Sheriff Nanos.” Now Sergeant Aaron Cross is suing Sheriff Chris Nanos for violating his First Amendment rights, KGUN’s Kenny Darr reports.
65: The percentage of all jobs in Arizona that require some sort of postsecondary education and training beyond high school, according to ASU.
Ken Bennett should hire a bodyguard. Come say "Hi" to Anne Carl at the Douglas Days Parade on Saturday. She is running for Cochise County Recorder...definitely a focus of need down here in the S.E. corner.