Report on Admissions Practices at U.Va.
April 18, 2017
Commissioned by Sarah Kenny, Student Council President
Overseen by David Birkenthal, Student Council Representative Body Chair
Compiled and Written by Ian Ware, College of Arts & Sciences Representative
Contents
2.
Introduction
3.
Background
4.
Information Collected
7.
Findings
The views expressed in this report are solely those of Representative Ware and do
not reflect the views of the University of Virginia Student Council as a whole
Introduction
On April 3, 2017, after a series of news articles claiming to detail unfair admissions
practices at the University of Virginia, Student Council President Sarah Kenny (CLAS,
2018) instructed the Chair of the Student Council Representative Body David
Birkenthal (CLAS, 2018) to appoint a student representative to investigate the issue
of possible inequitable admissions and report back to Student Council and the
student body as a whole. Birkenthal appointed Ian Ware (CLAS, 2019) to lead the
investigation.
As Kenny underscored in her original statement in response to news reports on this
subject, possible inequitable admissions practices are a highly salient issue with the
student body. The University of Virginia was founded to be an institution of higher
education that would train the citizens of the Commonwealth, country, and world to
become tomorrow’s leaders. While the institution failed in this mission for over 150
years by being a space exclusive of all except wealthy white men, recent decades
have seen a concerted effort on the part of the entire university to become a more
inclusive space that lives up to its mission of educating anyone with the ability to
succeed here. An admissions system that gives concrete deference to applicants
whose families or friends donate significantly to the university’s various
advancement programs is therefore fundamentally antithetical to the charge of this
institution, and reports of this sort of system being used at U.Va., whether fully
substantiated or not, require concerted inquiry for the sake of the student body,
alumni, and all prospective applicants.
Student Council, being one of the largest arms of institutionalized student selfgovernance at the university, has taken on the task of investigating these reports in
our role as the representative body of the wider student community. We feel we
have an obligation to investigate and report on these claims, and have used our
resources and relationships with administrators, student leaders, and other vested
parties to compile the following report.
2
Background
On April 1, 2017 T. Rees Shapiro published an article in the Washington Post that
detailed what he termed a “Watch list” designed to flag “VIP applicants” applying to
the University of Virginia. The outlet had received a suite of documents obtained
through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Jeff Thomas, a
Richmond-based author who had recently published a book entitled, “Virginia
Politics & Government in a New Century: The Price of Power” on the subject of
political power and corruption in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
These documents appeared to implicate the Office of Admission and the Office of
Advancement as having worked in tandem to provide extra support and
inappropriate advocacy in the admissions process for applicants related or
connected to wealthy alumni and significant donors to the university. Further,
Shapiro’s article in the Post claimed that the documents showed that the Office of
Advancement had attempted to “assist [VIP students] in jeopardy of rejection.”
University spokesperson Anthony de Bruyn originally responded to the article with
a statement that succinctly denied any direct communication between the two
implicated offices regarding admissions cases, saying, “[the Office of Admission]
does not coordinate with the advancement office about applicants during the
application process.”
After the publication of the Washington Post article, several other national and
regional news organizations covered the issue, including The Cavalier Daily, The
Daily Progress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Teen Vogue, The Roanoke Times, The
Virginian-Pilot, Inside Higher Ed, and WAMU.
Since the publication of these articles and several editorial pieces both in The
Cavalier Daily and The Richmond-Times Dispatch, the two most high profile
responses have come from Student Council itself and Jeff Thomas, the author who
originally obtained the documents published in the Post. Student Council called for
this investigation, and Jeff Thomas has petitioned the United States Attorney for the
Western District of Virginia to investigate admissions policies at the university.
3
Information Collected
Document Analysis
The original documents obtained through a FOIA request by Jeff Thomas were the
launching point for this report. The Cavalier Daily kindly provided Student Council
with copies of the full suite of documents, and we read through the 164-page set of
papers to further understand the nature of the allegations.
Coming from the Office of Advancement, these documents include several lists of
applicants from multiple admissions cycles, along with each applicant’s academic
information, connection to the university, and information regarding the applicant’s
family. Along with this, several pages of documents have notes written by staff in the
advancement office, and information regarding applicants’ admissions statuses. For
obvious reasons, any information that would reveal an applicant’s identity
(academic information, address, family names, etc.) has been redacted from the
documents, along with any information that would reveal specific instances of
fundraising or fundraising tactics. Unfortunately this redaction has meant that any
handwritten information written physically near to confidential information on
these documents has been redacted as well.
Most of the documents are fairly innocuous, and simply reveal that the university
was keeping track of high profile applicants, a practice that can be justified fairly
easily. For the vast majority of applicants included in these documents, there is
nothing to suggest that the university did anything more with their information than
simply compile it and share it internally among staff in the advancement office.
There are, however, some instances where notes written by staff imply that the
information was being used for more than just tracking.
Several pages include admissions information for students; typed information
shows what appears to be the predicted or confirmed admissions outcomes for
individual students, which is then overlaid with handwritten information that
replaces or confirms those outcomes. For example, on page 6 of the document suite,
one student was shown as having been placed on the waitlist (“WL”), but that
information was then crossed out by hand and replaced with an “A,” denoting that
the student had been admitted. Again, it is not possible to tell if this information was
speculation, whether the advancement staff was updating their information with
actual outcomes received from the Office of Admission, or whether these entries
served an entirely different purpose.
Another questionable practice observed in these documents was the ranking of VIP
applicants. In several instances, prospective students are given a ranking of A, B, or
C. While there is no explanation for the system of ranking, one can assume that the
advancement office was ranking applicants on either the importance of admitting
them to the university based on the donations that their families or friends had
contributed to the school, or on the quality and strength of that applicant’s
4
application package. This ranking system was categorized in the documents as
“Priority,” which leads a reader to assume that the situation had more to do with the
importance of allowing that prospective student to enter the university as opposed
to the quality of their application.
While the information included in these documents varied from year to year, a few
things remained consistent throughout nearly all of the documents. One was the
mention of Sean Jenkins, a senior assistant to President Teresa Sullivan, and several
other administrators, staff, and faculty members. Sean Jenkins is listed several times
over several years as having met with prospective applicants, having introduced
them to faculty members or athletic department staff, or having “recommended”
them. Conversations with administrators, as detailed later in this report, revealed
the nature of Jenkins’ relationship to these applicants and the two offices.
Conversations With Administrators
As part of this investigation, we requested to meet with several administrators that
would have pertinent information or experience related to this matter. The
university allowed us to speak only with Dean of Admissions Gregory Roberts and
Dean of Students Allen Groves in a joint meeting; Student Council President Sarah
Kenny attended the meeting and relayed the information provided to her. Over the
course of this conversation, Kenny asked several direct questions to both
administrators, and was presented with a host of information surrounding
admissions, advancement, and the relationship between the two.
Dean Roberts stated with confidence that during his time in the Admissions Office
no student has ever been admitted to the university that he and his staff did not feel
would fit and succeed at the school. He responded directly to the question of
whether substantial donations – or the threat of withholding donations – have
directly influenced any applicant’s admission status with a firm no. Further, he told
Kenny that there is no direct communication between his office and the Office of
Advancement.
Dean Roberts clarified the role that Sean Jenkins plays in the admissions process,
and helped us better understand why Jenkins was named in the documents.
According to Roberts, Jenkins is the intermediary between the offices of
advancement and admissions, acting as a go-between in the situations where
collaboration or communication would be helpful. Jenkins gives Dean Roberts and
the admissions staff a “heads-up” when there are high profile applicants seeking
admission, many of whom are included on the so-called “VIP List.” Additionally,
Jenkins can submit additional materials to an applicant’s application package,
including letters of recommendation and notes on relationships the applicant might
have with members of the U.Va. community.
5
Dean Roberts and Dean Groves also provided Kenny with information and statistics
on other aspects of admissions at the university, including data on minority
enrollment and socioeconomic diversity among incoming classes.
Kenny, along with Ian Ware, requested meetings with several other administrators.
In hope to better understand his role and hear from him personally, we requested to
meet with Sean Jenkins. Additionally, we requested to meet with Mark Luellen, the
Vice President for Advancement whose office the documents originated from. In
response, university spokesperson Anthony De Bruyn denied our requests, and
specifically told us that we had enough information to write this report.
6
Findings
Based on the information collected over the course of this investigation, we have
concluded that there is no direct evidence that applicants to the University of
Virginia have had their admissions decisions changed because of donations to the
university. Administrators have corroborated this, and the documents released by
Jeff Thomas do not prove any direct relationship between donations and
admissions.
However, several key administrators were not permitted to speak with anyone
involved in this investigation, and we were not able to obtain more detailed
information on their relationship to the admissions process. As the person
described as the intermediary between admissions and advancement, Sean Jenkins
undoubtedly has a wealth of knowledge on the ways the two offices interact, and
could have provided us with more detailed information on his role in the admissions
process for high profile applicants. Additionally, Mark Luellen would be able to
speak more accurately about the purpose of the “VIP List,” as it originated in his
office and was presumably created and cultivated with his consent. While we
understand that the university has a vested interest in avoiding high profile negative
media coverage around situations such as this one, the denial of our requests to
interview these administrators has created a distinct lack of transparency that
directly hinders student self-governance, a tenet of the university that is
consistently touted by the leaders of U.Va. as one our school’s most unique and
compelling traits.
While we have found no direct connection between admissions and donations, it is
troubling that high profile students with significant financial resources and
connections are being given access to high-level administrators. Further, if Sean
Jenkins does in fact have the ability to submit additional items to a student’s
application package – which, of course, we were not able to confirm with him as we
were denied a meeting – then we are incredibly concerned that simply by being a
“VIP Applicant,” some students are given a ludicrously unfair advantage in the
admissions process.
It is deeply worrying that our university spends time and money to track high
profile applicants. It is an unnecessary practice that allows for applicants with
already-significant systemic privileges to compete for admissions with more
support and internal advocacy than the average high school senior. This creates an
internal dichotomy that privileges those with wealth over those without.
This system is not the only troubling aspect of admissions at the university. A
holistic examination – to borrow a term used often by Dean Roberts and his staff –
of the admissions process at our university reveals several practices that clearly
advantage certain applicants over others. Priority admissions for legacy students,
for example, allow for applicants to receive preferential treatment if a close family
member attended the university. While this practice is rationalized with the
7
argument that applicants whose family members attended U.Va. are more likely to
fit at the university, it unfairly privileges a group of applicants that is predominantly
white and upper middle class. Statistically speaking, until the 1990s it was nearly
impossible for applicants to have legacy status unless they were born to a wealthy
white father; non-white and female students were not fully integrated into the
school until the 1960s and 1970s, respectively. The school continues to be
predominantly white, and a plurality of students comes from privileged
backgrounds, economically speaking. It is not difficult to conclude then that a
system of admissions that privileges legacy applicants in fact simply furthers the
privilege afforded to economically advantaged white applicants.
While it is reasonable to conclude that wealthy applicants do not have the ability to
simply buy their way into the university, it is also important that we recognize our
admissions system’s flaws and general inherent disadvantages. As stated earlier,
this university was founded to educate anyone with the ability to succeed. As it
stands currently, admissions practices and policies at the University of Virginia do
not reflect this charge.
8
Statement from the Student Council President and Chair of the Representative Body:
First, we would like to reiterate that the presented report reflects the views of
Representative Ware as a Representative of the College of Arts and Sciences to the
Student Council, not the views of the Student Council as a whole. That being said, we
would like to thank Representative Ware for his work on this report on behalf of the
University community. We have full confidence that Representative Ware prepared
this report in good faith and with the proper due diligence to ensure the accurate
representation of the facts regarding the matter. We are proud to have tasked
Representative Ware with preparing this report.
Additionally, we would like to thank those administrators who worked with and
spoke with Representative Ware and I in the completion of this report. Constant and
open communication between the student body and the University administration is
imperative for us in our efforts to ensure effective student self-governance.
9