Among the things overshadowed this spring by the coronavirus pandemic was the announcement by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) that it is replacing its Code of Ethics and Professional Practices (CEPP) with a new document that lists ethical best practices rather than the mandatory practices contained in the previous document.
That announcement was not unexpected. The leadership of NACAC was put in a tough position once the United States Department of Justice launched an antitrust investigation on the grounds that three of the prohibitions in the CEPP unfairly restricted colleges from competing for students.
What will the new document look like? We now have a glimpse, as the NACAC Admission Practices Committee has circulated a draft to the NACAC membership for review and comments (the comment period ended on Wednesday). For those of you who have better ways to spend your summer, are waiting for the SparkNotes version, or wish you had your own college admissions ethics nerd to give you the kind of intelligence briefing President Trump receives on matters of national security, Ethical College Admissions is here to provide summary and commentary.
The Title
New: Guide to Ethical Practice in College Admission
Old: Code of Ethics and Professional Practices
Older: Statement of Principles of Good Practice
The new document has a new name, which is probably fitting and necessary to distinguish it from its predecessors, but it means that NACAC has a new title for its ethics document for the third time in five years. For many years the Statement of Principles of Good Practice was iconic and perennial, even as it went through annual revisions and several iterations. That title was misleading, because it wasn’t really a statement of principles but rather a set of rules. The biggest challenge in naming the new document is coming up with a new acronym to replace SPGP and CEPP. GEPCA, anyone?
How Does the New Document Compare With the Old?
By and large, the Guide to Ethical Practice in College Admission remains true to the previous document, with the obvious exception that the ethical practices named are now recommended rather than required (more on that later). I didn’t see any major omissions in substance.
The new document is more concise and less wordy than its predecessor. That is both a potential strength and a potential weakness. It has been edited to be easier to read, and hopefully that means that more professionals will read and be familiar with the document. What have been lost in the attempt for simplicity are examples that Lou Hirsh, former chair of the Admissions Practices Committee and primary author of the CEPP, included to illustrate the kinds of issues that the Admission Practices Committee might deal with. Those examples provided a kind of “case law” for interpreting the ethical code.
For example, the new document states in the Recommended Practices for Implementation under the Truthfulness and Transparency heading that “colleges should make publicly available accurate, complete, and current information,” with one category being “factors considered in making admission, financial, and scholarship decisions.” That follows closely I. A. 2. b. from the previous document (without the codification), but eliminates some of the language from that section, “including, but not limited to, students’ demonstrated interest, social media presence, personal conduct, legacy status, and financial need.” That specific language is certainly not essential to asserting the importance of truthfulness and transparency, but those examples represent the kinds of gray areas where colleges may not be fully forthcoming and transparent about their practices.
The definitions of application plans (Early Decision, Regular Decision, Rolling Admission, Restrictive/Single Choice Early Action) have been moved to the glossary (one of the significant new features in the previous document), and that makes sense. That glossary has been simplified considerably.
There is one omission from the previous glossary that made me wonder. The definition of “colleges” removes the words “accredited and not-for-profit” from the previous definition. Is that a sign that NACAC intends to open up membership to institutions that are unaccredited and/or for-profit? Or is it an indication that, along the lines of my argument in the “Membership vs. Profession” section below, NACAC aspires for this document to lay out ethical guidelines for all colleges, including those in the for-profit sector? I hope it’s the latter, but fear it’s the former.
A fourth section, dealing with procedures for education, monitoring, and compliance, has been dropped due to the fact that NACAC will no longer be enforcing the provisions of the document. The new document puts the Admission Practices Committee in an educational rather than a policing role, but Lou Hirsh suggested to ECA that there might still be a need for a process allowing members to contact the AP committee about practices that seem ethically questionable.
Word Choices—Preamble
One of the innovations in the previous document was the addition of a Preamble, a broad statement of what the college admission counseling profession stands for. I was a member of the Steering Committee (chaired by Todd Rinehart, soon to become NACAC’s next President) and was one of the voices arguing for the inclusion of such a statement. I’m glad the new document keeps the Preamble, adding a paragraph referring to the DOJ issues that led to the new document and changing the order of two other paragraphs.
Because I drafted a good part of the previous Preamble, I am probably hypersensitive to a couple of word changes in the new draft. Whereas the CEPP “protects the interests of both students and institutions by upholding a college admission process free from coercion and discrimination,” the new document replaces that language with “supports both students and institutions by promoting best practices in college admission.” I see that as a weaker commitment or aspiration, and I don’t see why the inability to enforce requires stepping back from the previous commitment. Similarly, whereas the old document claimed to be an affirmation of what we “stand for,” the new document is an affirmation of what we “believe.” I don’t find that to be an improvement.
Word Choices—Membership vs. Profession
There is a similar word change in the introduction to the section on Professional Conduct. The CEPP stated that “Advocating for the best interests of students in the admissions process is the primary ethical concern of our profession.” The draft changes “profession” to “members.”
That choice of words raises an important question about both the document and about NACAC. Is NACAC a membership organization or a professional organization? I have always argued that it is the latter, that NACAC serves the college admission counseling profession and not only those within the profession who join NACAC as members. Obviously membership should have benefits and privileges, but NACAC shouldn’t be satisfied to represent only its members. Similarly, the ethical standards in the Guide to Ethical Practice in College Admission should not apply only to NACAC members. They should be an articulation of the ethical principles that underlie the profession. Speaking for the profession may be seen as presumptuous, but speaking only for members puts NACAC’s moral authority and influence at risk.
Word Choices—Must vs. Will vs. Should
The ultimate question, of course, is what the impact of NACAC’s move from a mandatory practices document to a best practices document will be. Will the change to a best practices document be earth-shattering? Will NACAC’s inability or unwillingness to enforce its ethical code render those principles ineffective? To what degree is NACAC’s identity as a professional organization tied to its commitment to promoting ethical admission practices?
Although the CEPP contained only mandatory practices, that has not always been true of NACAC’s ethics documents. Back in the mid-1990’s there was a major revision of the Statement of Principles of Good Practice under the leadership of my friend and predecessor as NACAC President, Bill McClintick. That revision involved a document that included some practices deemed mandatory and others best practices.
I’m an optimist, perhaps even a dreamer, but I don’t accept that the lack of enforcement means the end of ethical behavior. It certainly could, but doesn’t have to.
While NACAC was the rare professional association that monitored and enforced its code of ethics, it has never been the case that most ethics complaints had to be resolved with sanctions. In the vast majority of cases brought before the Admission Practices Committee, institutions came into compliance voluntarily once made aware of questionable behavior. Most college admissions offices have historically tried to do the right thing, and they’ve done it out of belief in the values of the profession and concern for students rather than fear of NACAC sanctions.
Acting ethically may be harder in a climate where many institutions are in danger of not surviving, but the essence of ethical behavior is acting in the public interest rather than pure self-interest, with the assumption being that when all of us act ethically, it helps each of us. That’s true today whether it comes to following traffic laws or wearing a mask to limit spread of the coronavirus.
The new Guide to Ethical Practice in College Admission is a good document. Each of us in the profession needs to take this opportunity to re-commit to the values that led us to this work, and we should hold each other accountable in our shared commitment to students. If we allow college admission to become its own Wild West, we risk losing public trust and confidence that is already fragile, and that will hurt all of us. As Benjamin Franklin said after the signing of the Declaration, “We must all hang together, or we will certainly hang separately.” We should pay attention.