The University’s student fees advisory subcommittee did students a service Friday, unanimously voting down a proposed $50 application fee for the Kenan-Flagler Business School. If passed, the fee would have come as one more burden on students and families already struggling with a sputtering economy and tuition increases. Despite the failure of this fee, the school shouldn’t lose sight of the goal it had in mind: increasing the quality and size of the incoming class, along with the fairness of the admissions process.
The application fee would have provided pay raises to the school’s application readers and an hourly wage for interviewers who currently volunteer.
By paying these interviewers, the business school argued that it would have been able to ask more of them and retain their services longer, leading to a more consistent and thorough review of applications.
Under the current system, the school said the more than 40 reviewers left too much up to chance, as some were overly lenient, others too harsh.
The school had also hoped the fee would lead students with little chance of acceptance to simply not apply, easing the load on the admissions team.
The business school should not have had to charge students to make these necessary changes. The reviewers should learn to quickly weed out the students who don’t qualify and allocate more time to the borderline candidates who might have fallen through the cracks before.
In doing so, the business school would be able to increase the number of students as it had hoped, without depleting the overall quality of its students. This will help the school attract more recruiters to campus while giving students a better selection of employers and a better chance of being hired.
The school should consider its policy of interviewing everyone. Some applicants will show in their paper applications alone that they are not suited for admission. If they don’t have a chance, they shouldn’t take consideration time from more qualified students.
With this approach, students will know that their time isn’t wasted and have the time to pursue other tracks, like the business minor. For now, students can take solace in the defeat of the fee and hope the process will improve.
