Fair admissions
How to screen and interview applicants without implicit biases affecting our judgement?
Anonymous applications
To avoid discrimination or letting our unconscious implicit biases to affect student selection, the first applicant screening should take place anonymously. A name-blind application ensures that the selection is done on the basis of potential, not based on ethnicity, gender or other personal circumstances. Anonymous student screening can prevent discrimination caused by a student’s name or appearance (e.g. in a photo).
Motivation-based, fair interviews
Many HEIs interview their applicants. Sadly, interviews are often affected by implicit bias against minority groups and individuals from lower income families. To avoid discrimination or stereotyping to impact the student screening, there are some working practices and commercial services for reducing unconscious discrimination against non-traditional student groups.
One commercial example is SortSmart which offers a discrimination-free tool based on online testing. It enables selecting candidates fairly based on their intrinsic motivation, conscientiousness and coachability. These traits do not correlate with status, gender, ethnic or socio-economic backgrounds, thus enabling an inclusive admission procedure.
Learn more about SortSmart at: https://sortsmart.com/ultimate-sortsmart-advantage-for-admissions
Checklist for running fair admission interviews
This tool outlines ideas and suggestions as well as No-Go questions for holding fair admission interviews.
The list is based on: Aufnahmeverfahren – transparent und fair (2018, ERFA-Gruppe der Fachhochschul-Konferenz). The hyperlinked document is available only in German / auf Deutsch, whereas the pdf below is in English.
Sources: SortSmart and ERFA-Gruppe der Fachhochschul-Konferenz, 2018.