Discrimination in the Application
Location
Room A151
Document Type
Presentation
Type
EnACT
Start Date
1-5-2019 11:00 AM
End Date
1-5-2019 11:20 AM
Abstract
Prospective students across Illinois work excessively towards the achievement of getting accepted to the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. Though the selection process of applicants is meant to be fair and only admit the most qualified students, it has been found that this process has its flaws. While GPA and SAT scores are factored into these decisions, additional factors such as geographic, gender, and ethnic criteria are involved. Measures such as Affirmative Action are put into place to ensure each student has a fair opportunity to education. However, one result of IMSA’s attempt to comply with its statutory requirement to admit a class with adequate demographic representation is that applicants with lower total composite scores are admitted to IMSA over applicants with higher scores but whose demographics are adequately represented. In order to make sure the applicants are admitted both based on academic qualities and demographic representation, our policy proposes that questions more focused on socio-economic status should be asked on the application as well as removing the applicant’s name during the admissions process to eliminate as much bias as possible. The removing of the prospective student’s name from the application will reduce bias due to some names having a direct connotation to a specific ethnicity and this will completely undermine our shift in focus in demographics to socioeconomic status.
Discrimination in the Application
Room A151
Prospective students across Illinois work excessively towards the achievement of getting accepted to the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. Though the selection process of applicants is meant to be fair and only admit the most qualified students, it has been found that this process has its flaws. While GPA and SAT scores are factored into these decisions, additional factors such as geographic, gender, and ethnic criteria are involved. Measures such as Affirmative Action are put into place to ensure each student has a fair opportunity to education. However, one result of IMSA’s attempt to comply with its statutory requirement to admit a class with adequate demographic representation is that applicants with lower total composite scores are admitted to IMSA over applicants with higher scores but whose demographics are adequately represented. In order to make sure the applicants are admitted both based on academic qualities and demographic representation, our policy proposes that questions more focused on socio-economic status should be asked on the application as well as removing the applicant’s name during the admissions process to eliminate as much bias as possible. The removing of the prospective student’s name from the application will reduce bias due to some names having a direct connotation to a specific ethnicity and this will completely undermine our shift in focus in demographics to socioeconomic status.