Blog post 9.... my rant about admissions :)

 As the semester wraps up and I start to look at my capstone project, I feel like I have a much better idea of how I want to approach things. When reviewing all the capstones, it's clear to see that these projects are based on passion and a genuine love and desire to change important parts of education and youth work.

I feel like I need to tell you a little story about my time at RIC Admissions. I recruit basically 85% of the state of Rhode Island, and I've read for almost every single high school in the state. Over the past few years, the number of applications we've gotten from the state of Rhode Island has increased, and therefore we've had to split the state among two or three counselors for reading. Last year, one of my high schools that I had a wonderful relationship with was taken and given to another counselor to read. However, after this counselor had been reading the high school for about a month and a half, we got a very angry phone call from one of the guidance counselors asking why Rhode Island College was becoming more selective, and why Rhode Island College wasn't accepting as many of their students.

Both of us had followed the same reading guidelines. Nothing had changed year to year, but the advocating is what changed for the specific high school in question. I went the extra mile to call guidance counselors, request midyear grades, and advocate for why we should be making exceptions for certain students. 

How was this fair? How was this equal? How is it that a borderline student who ends up in my queue and a borderline student who ends up in someone else's queue could potentially get different decisions based on who actually feels like advocating and fighting for a student? And that’s at the same institution these situations are happening.

As much as I’ve complained about my job this semester and hit breaking points with it, I genuinely do love the work that I do. When I think about going to work every day, reading each and every application, hearing a person’s story, their dreams, and learning about all these different students I take that as such an honor. That’s how I view the process, and that’s how I feel. But I've also seen other colleagues of mine not like the work, not care about the students, and feel disengaged when working with families.

This leads me to ask, do all people value the application process as much as I do? Do all people understand the fact that we get to decide if a student has access to college? Do people really mean it when they say “holistic review”? I mean, all colleges say it, but is it true? Is it even true within my own office, as recruiters for the institution, making promises that we actually don't keep or can’t keep?

My approach to this capstone is to sit down with every person in my office who reads and reviews applications and ask them how they do it. How do they make these decisions, and more importantly, how do they make the hard ones? When they’re faced with tough choices, how do they advocate for students? In a perfect world, I would love to find an application from a borderline student, one that could go either way, admit or deny, and see how split my office is. Based on those results, I want to explore how we can come together as an office to streamline our process and ensure that when we say we practice holistic review and are an equal opportunity institution, we truly mean it.

When it comes to how this ties into the Youth Development program and the anchors of this program, I think it's very obvious that it connects most with care as well as social justice and advocacy. At the core of my research, I just want to see how much people actually care about holding someone’s educational opportunity in their hands and if they even care. I also want to know how hard people are willing to fight for students. Are the counselors in this office willing to go the extra mile, advocate, talk to counselors, talk to the student? Are they willing to fight?

BLOG POST #8: What does this TUCK article raise for you? How does it help you think about yourself and others?

 Reading Eve Tuck’s Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities really made me rethink how often, even with good intentions, we define people, especially those in marginalized groups, through their pain. Tuck argues that damage-centered research traps communities in an image of brokenness, and that idea really hit me. In higher education, I often see how institutions unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) exploit trauma for institutional gain.

What stood out to me most was Tuck’s call to move from a damage-centered approach to a desire-based framework. I love this shift because it doesn’t ignore harm or act as if everything is okay, it instead creates space for possibility. It reminds us that trauma and pain are complex, and that people are so much more than their struggles. This framework encourages us to look at communities as whole.

In my work in college admissions, this really resonates. There’s often a narrative around students from first-generation or low-income backgrounds that centers their trauma, colleges love the story of “overcoming the odds.” But that can turn students into tokens. I see it especially in college essays, where students sometimes feel like their only option is to write about their pain because that’s what will stand out. 

I wish all admission could use Tuck’s article to think differently. Using a desire-based framework means making space for students to tell their full stories,to talk about their challenges, yes, but also their joy, growth, creativity, and hope. It’s about shifting the narrative from.

What Do You Do That Can’t Be Measured

 This chapter really made me stop and think about the unseen parts of our work, the things that matter most but never show up on a checklist or evaluation form. Her question, “What do you do that can’t be measured?” hit me right away. It reminded me that so much of what we do in youth development, teaching, or any kind of care work is the kind of stuff that doesn’t fit into data boxes or rubrics.

What stood out to me most was Restler’s idea of radical care! Care that’s not just being nice or helpful, but so much more. She shows that care can be a way of pushing back against systems that try to measure people’s worth through grades or rankings. This part hit hard, seeing as a huge part of my work is analyzing grades and test scores to make admissions decisions. In my line of work, I can tell you that SAT/ACT scores are nothing more than proof your family had money or you went to a rich school. But to some people, that test shows if a student will be successful in college,  it’s a joke.

This chapter made me reflect on how I connect with people and how small things can mean everything. How connecting over little things can make such a huge difference. When I think about what I do that can’t be measured, I think about the energy I bring to space, how I try to make people feel seen. I think back to all the times I let my guard down and allowed a space built on transparency and vulnerability to be the foundation for so many students. 

Growing up I had a basketball coach that used to say “The little things matter” as a youth I thought that this was just talking about basketball but as I got older I realized that little acts we do can change someone's life. This chapter reminded me of that.

Blog post 6

 After reading “11 Common Questions About Qualitative Research,” I started to really grasp what qualitative research feels like. The authors talk about qualitative research as a way of understanding people, rather than trying to prove a point or find numbers. I found this to be fascinating. There's such a big stigma that research is only about numbers, but there are some things that numbers just can’t explain.

I started to feel really connected to qualitative research when the article quoted, “A researcher’s goal is to better understand human behavior and experiences.” Part of the article talked about  interviews, focus groups, and observations really caught my attention because it showed how personal and human this kind of research can be. I loved feeling as though there is a place for emotions in research. 

Something that really stood out to me was the quote, “Acknowledge that no matter how much you try, you cannot divorce your research and writing from your past experiences.” I think this does a great job of explaining how biases happen and are simply a part of our lives, and how they can affect our research. Because I want to do my research in a field that I currently work in, I already have a lot of biases about how admissions and hiring function. This was a great reminder that those biases are going to show up in my research and will naturally affect how I view and interpret certain things.

I feel like a big takeaway from this reading is that there’s an empathetic component to research. Funny enough, what I want to do is prove that there’s an empathetic part of the college admissions process. Part of what I want to show is that people reviewing applications have hearts and take a holistic approach, considering the experiences of students. That’s why interviewing and qualitative research are sparking such an interest in me.

Qualitative vs Quantitative

 When I first started my research on qualitative and quantitative research, I immediately hit Google, ChatGPT, and started reading and looking into what these two things are and how they can help me towards my capstone.

During my research, I found that both of them actually have a lot in common and also have their own strengths and weaknesses. I took note that both have a simple goal in mind and that is  to find the answer to a complicated question. It just depends on the question and how they get there. Quantitative research is about things that can be measured, how many or how much, the numbers game. Qualitative research, on the other hand, is more focused on the meaning behind things.

When researching the two, I found myself leaning towards qualitative research. I consider myself a feeler and an emotionally driven person, and that is the type of research I want to pursue something with feeling.

Now, with each having their negative factors, I realize that with qualitative research it’s hard to put stories and emotions into research. How do you make a number, chart, or graph out of someone’s personal and lived experiences? Whereas with quantitative, the whole point is to put things into numbers and graphs. But we know that people and stories are so much more. Because of that, with these two types of research, there’s never really a happy medium.

When I think about my own goals and what I’m leaning towards doing for my capstone, I really do think I’m doing a qualitative research project. My goal is to interview and talk to people about how they review applications and why they review them in a certain way. Do I know exactly how to put these things into the perfect qualitative approach? No. But I think I can figure it out throughout the rest of the semester.

ChatGPT gave me a really helpful overview and definitions chart when I asked about the similarities and differences between the two. What really drew me to qualitative research was the part about flexibility. The chart listed qualitative research as more flexible and evolving open to changing and emerging with findings. Quantitative was described as way more rigid and set up in a specific way. To me, that was the biggest sign that I want to lean towards qualitative. I think there has to be flexibility, especially when we’re talking about educational topics, because the world is changing every single day. We need to have the flexibility to understand and analyze the things that are happening.

Both qualitative and quantitative research are important and have many benefits to the research world, depending on the questions that need to be answered. There is definitely a research method that will work out, but for me, I feel qualitative is the best fit

 (Im obsessed with Barbie and the Barbie movie) 

blog post 4

 WOW! That was the first thought that came to my mind as I read through all of the different capstone projects. Each project had its own unique perspective and passion behind it.But one really stood out to me. It was a project based on SSS here at RIC, and I found myself very drawn to it. The focus was on care looks like in her office. That immediately stuck out to me because of the lingering question I often wrestle with in my own work in admissions: Do college admissions officers even care?

On an emotional level, I feel both excited and stressed. Stressed because a capstone comes with big expectations and feels so big. But part of the reason I chose YDEV for my master’s program was because of the opportunity to dig deep whether through research or through a teach-out project, and I feel like I am finally stepping into that. The more readings we do and the more I see other people’s visions for their capstones come to life, the more I can imagine what my own will look like.

I always knew where I kinda wanted to be for my capstone. I knew that I wanted to explore the world of college admissions. Mostly how do admissions officers actually review applications? What influences their decisions? I wanna know what makes people admit or deny a student…Outside of the generic gpa and sat score. But Also after reviewing some projects I can also see myself creating a plan to teach others how to read and review apps with empathy. Or maybe be able to do both. Maybe collect data about how people review applications and use that to highlight where empathy is lacking in higher education admissions.

Research Pizza: ”Journey to Praxis: Supporting Youth Activism”

 

Crust: type of research

• Qualitative

Sauce: ideology/underlying beliefs

• Critical Theory
  

Toppings: methods and tools

• Interviews 
• Observations 
• Artifact analysis 

Utensils: how is it cut up and served AKA: analyzed?

• Data and cross cased analysis 

Box: how is was delivered?

• A formal write up evaluation with data and resources

Notes

Highlights different approaches to Social Justice Youth Development (SJYD)