Although Penn sits squarely in the heart of University City, it manages to boast an increasingly cosmopolitan campus. Stroll down Locust Walk any given day and you’ll hear conversations in Korean, Portuguese, or Dutch.
Embracing global diversity has even become the dogma of official policy. President Amy Guttmann has advocated the goal of “engaging globally” in the Penn Compact . And in fact, more than 8.5% of the Class of 2010 hails from outside the borders of the United States.

And while the university prides itself in its internationalism, overseas admissions is still skewed toward the wealthier end of the spectrum. The situation is partly due to admissions policies that focus on channeling rich international kids who can boost Penn’s diversity stats while boosting university coffers.

But here’s the big whammy: Admission for students outside of the U.S., Canada, or Mexico is not need-blind . As a result, exceptionally bright candidates might sometimes lose out to exceptionally wealthy ones in the admissions game.
Remember when you applied to Penn? On that application, you had to check a box if you wanted to be considered for financial aid. And if you weren’t from the U.S., Canada, or Mexico, checking that box hurt your chances of admission.

In fact, of all our Ivy peers, Harvard is the only university to offer need-blind admissions to overseas students. This means that everyone has equal access to the financial aid pot — and applying for aid won’t compromise the success of your application.
Why does this matter if I’m part of the 92.5% of the student body that doesn’t hail from
overseas? Ostensibly, it seems like Penn should focus on getting aid to Americans (Canadians and Mexicans included) first. Yet why shoot someone down before they even have a chance to prove their merit? If a candidate applies, her admissions application should be solely judged on her qualifications. Likewise, her financial aid application should be judged separately based on whether she merits aid — and the student and her family can decide from there.Admissions is admissions. Financial aid is financial aid.

This measure would boost the caliber of the students who do apply, are admitted, and accept offers of admission to Penn. Moreover, everyone could benefit from a wider range of viewpoints — in classes and around campus. I’d like to hear the voices of both blacks and Afrikaners from South Africans — or the voices of both mulattoes and whites from Brazil. In creating a diverse campus, Penn shouldn’t settle for recruiting an elite potpourri of students from abroad but aim to create a representative sample of the world.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 3:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.