September 26, 2017

Dr. Michael Bastedo, Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (U-M School of Education)

Reflections offered by Erica Sanders, Director of Undergraduate Admissions (U-M)

It is a well established principle in social psychology that we are biased toward explanations of behavior that are embedded an individual personalities and dispositions rather than contexts or environments. Thus, we would expect an admissions officer to be inclined toward individual explanations for success or failure, particularly when information on high school or family contexts is ambiguous or incomplete. In this talk, Dr. Bastedo ​will ​discuss the results of three experiments with hundreds of practicing admissions officers that attempts to find mechanisms to better contextualize applicants and observe the effects on the probability of admitting underrepresented students.