After scandal, U of I implements new policies
URBANA, Ill. (AP) — New policies at the University of Illinois designed to prevent prospective students with friends in high places from gaining an advantage over those without clout are about to be put to the test.
Monday marks the first application deadline since the policies were implemented in the wake of revelations last spring that some applicants with political connections had been admitted to the school despite relatively poor academic credentials. Prospective students who apply by Monday will know by Dec. 11 if they've been admitted.
The policies don't prevent third parties from getting involved with the admissions process, but they do make it easier to find out if they do because such involvement by anyone other than the applicants, their parents or guidance counselors will be noted in a publicly accessible database.
Furthermore, under the new policies, university employees who interfere with the admissions process may be fired. And if members of the board of trustees do so, they may be kicked off the board by the governor.
The rules were put in place by the Urbana-Champaign campus's Admission Task Force after President B. Joseph White — who subsequently resigned in the wake of the scandal — ordered major changes at the university's three campuses.
"One nice thing ... is that it empowers admissions officers and people like myself to say 'no,'" said Keith Marshall, associate provost for enrollment management. "We not only have the power to say 'no' to someone trying to exert influence, we have a responsibility to."
Under the new policies, no letters of recommendation or other communications from sponsors will be placed in the applicants' files. Nor will there be any information about students receiving so-called General Assembly scholarships, which in the past were used by some lawmakers to help applicants gain admission.
The policies also include an appeal process for would-be students who are denied admission — a process that applicants with political connections were encouraged to employ but most others didn't know existed.
"It's very good that all of this be upfront and out in the open, so that you can't have this underhanded, behind-closed-doors way of getting people in," said Mary Lynn Krauss, whose oldest daughter was denied admission to the university this fall.
