City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 5-2018 The College Application Essay Mediating Inequality Along the Path to Higher Education Ralitsa S. Todorova The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit you? Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.edu/gc_etds/2593 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: AcademicWorks@cuny.edu THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY MEDIATING INEQUALITY ALONG THE PATH TO HIGHER EDUCATION by RALITSA TODOROVA A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY ii © 2018 RALITSA TODOROVA All Rights Reserved THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY iii The College Application Essay Mediating Inequality Along the Path to Higher Education by Ralitsa Todorova This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Colette Daiute______________________ __________________ ______________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee _Dr.
Richard Bodnar_____________________ __________________ ______________________________________ Date Executive Officer Dr. Juan Battle_____________________________________________ Dr. Cheryl Smith___________________________________________ Dr. Nancy Budwig__________________________________________ Dr.
Martin Ruck____________________________________________ Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY iv ABSTRACT The College Application Essay Mediating Inequality Along the Path to Higher Education by Ralitsa Todorova Advisor: Dr. Colette Daiute This dissertation examines inequality and access in the college admissions process and, in particular, via the college application essay. With a research design and analysis sampling documents from multiple stakeholders in the college admissions process, this research considers how students with diverse histories of preparation for higher education interact with actors relevant to the admissions process in their college admissions essays. This research project ultimately asks how the college essay process (its importance, the preparation, and ultimate writing) mediates inequality in admission to higher education.
Essays were collected from students at one large public university and one small private liberal arts university. These were analyzed alongside university admissions requirements and college preparatory agency information. Analyses showed that all student essays interacted with the institutional expectations and presented an awareness of the need to write for their audience. Students addressed their audience more and less directly, by conveying challenges they overcame and describing the personal growth that came from those challenges.
Differences in essays by students across public and private universities emerged in how the students approached challenges and development. For example, first-generation college students and those who did not participate in college preparatory activities devoted more words to describing the challenge itself, whereas their non-first-generation peers and those that were exposed to college preparatory work devoted more attention to exploring the development of their passions. This THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY v study sheds light on how students use the college essay process to negotiate their understanding of higher education and their potential place in it, in relation to numerous messages they have received. That said, barriers to higher education access remain.
The findings can help researchers consider innovative designs for studying inequality and for considering practices of educators, policy makers, and families to better understand the college process. THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY vi Acknowledgements It is with deep gratitude that I’d like to thank the following people, without whom this project and its completion would not have been possible: Colette Daiute, for her constant engagement, ideas, questions, navigation, encouragement, and dice rolling over the past six years. Cheryl Smith, for her amazing and thoughtful insights and Juan Battle for his deep and challenging questions and guidance. Martin Ruck and Nancy Budwig, for joining me on this journey and bringing their invaluable perspectives.
My GC cohort, who inspire me every day and make this work worth it. My friends outside of CUNY, who have shown me what it really means to be a friend. Brian, for his calmness, strength, and unwavering support. My parents and sister.
There are no words for how much I appreciate and adore you. THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY vii Table of Contents Chapter One: Background Introduction and Overview of the Project. 1 The Importance of a College Degree. 5 Available Resources for Applying to College and Navigating the Admissions Process.
9 The College Essay Requirements. 11 The College Essay Genre. 16 Standard Academic English. 18 Programs Attempting to Bridge the Gap.
21 Research Aims and Questions. 24 Chapter Two: The Research Design to Discover Stakeholders’ Diverse Expressions. 27 The Data from Multiple Stakeholders. 27 Data Collection Process.
33 Chapter Three: Institutions and Students in Interaction. 39 The Values Expressed through Institutional Documents. 40 Student College Essays. 44 Eight Major Value Expressions Evident among Stakeholders.
55 THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY viii Chapter Four: Students Mediate the Meaning of College through the College Essay. 58 Similarities and Differences in the Values Students Expressed. 67 Value Patterns Between the Essays from the Two Universities. 73 Value Expressions Along Demographic Groups.
76 A Closer Consideration of Students’ Expressions of Challenges and Development. 88 Chapter Five: The Significance of the College Audience in Students’ Expressions. 93 Evaluative Devices in the College Essays. 95 How Causal Connectors and Hedges are Used Between Universities.
99 Psychological States and Qualifiers as Evaluative Devices Used by All. 107 Chapter Six: Discussion and Implications. 110 Revisiting the Expressions in the Data. 112 Implications for Research and Practice.
119 Inequality in Access to College. 127 THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY ix List of Tables Table 1: Institutional documents used in the study. 28 Table 2: Participant demographics. 31 Table 3: Demographics by University (n).
31 Table 4: How each research question will be addressed through the data. 38 Table 5: Percent (%) of t-units per major value emphasized across all stakeholders. 46 Table 6: Percent (%) of t-units per major value within each institutional stakeholders. 48 Table 7: Percent (%) of t-units per major values emphasized across all stakeholders.
52 Table 8: Percent (%) of t-units of major values emphasized in student essays by university. 68 Table 9: Values enacted by students at each university, in order of prominence. 74 Table 10: Percent (%) of t-units of major values emphasized in student essays by demographics. 77 Table 11: Percent (%) of related values by t-unit as expressed in college essays SLAU and LPU students.
81 Table 12: Descriptive table of the uses of evaluative devices in the student essays. 95 Table 13: Frequency and percentages of evaluative devices by students at each university. 99 THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY x List of Figures Figure 1: Conceptual map depicting major values emphasized by the stakeholders in the college essay process…………………………………………………………………………………. 90 THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY 1 Chapter One Background Introduction and Overview of the Project A college education is becoming increasingly important for upward mobility in contemporary US society, but access to college is also becoming increasingly more difficult, especially for low-income and underserved youth (Abelev, 2009; Stephens, Hamedani, & Destin, 2014).
In this dissertation research project, I examine the college essay as a mediator of the college access and admissions process. I focus on how students with different histories of preparation for higher education use their college essays to connect their goals with those of the institutional resources available to them. This theory-based methodological approach offers a different way of examining academic institutional structures and barriers for low-income and minority youth who do not grow up fully informed about the academic process (Bahl, 2015; Cabrera & Padilla, 2004; Daiute, 2014; Stephens et al. The framework for this research centers around the college essay process – how the requirements and expectations are communicated, how students prepare, and ultimately, the produced final essay.
The implemented methodology considers the complex interactions between various stakeholders that each have a role in the college essay process. An analysis of institutional documents captures the messages that institutions convey to students who are approaching the college application process. I examined the norms and expectations that higher education institutions, college preparatory agencies (such as Kaplan), and college application forms (such as the Common Application (Common App), an application system widely used by many colleges and universities in the US) set for potential candidates. I also analyzed a sample of student application essays from two different universities.
This integrative approach considers the institutional process in the pathway to college, revealing difference in access, a promising THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY 2 intervention approach, and the students’ own engagement with the task based on varying degrees of preparation. The stakeholder documents show diverse expressions, which are captured in a design accounting for the college preparation system and with two kinds of narrative analysis. Comparisons across the student essays consider the diverse backgrounds that students come from, focusing on the universities they are attending, their access to college preparatory help, and their parents’ educational attainment. The essays students write speak to the varying norms and values presented by the institutions, whether directly or indirectly.
Norms that are addressed range from the importance of college as a space for growth and development to the ability of students to create an essay with a conscious awareness of their college admissions audience. Each of these stakeholders interact with one another in the meanings and performances they present. This study examines the role the college essay may play as a gatekeeper (Early & DeCosta-Smith, 2011; Paley, 1996) from multiple lenses, including developmental psychology, analysis of social inequalities, narrative analysis, educational research, and compositional research. I explore the college essay as a high-stakes genre that plays out in an unequal playing field, where access to college is unequal for different groups.
I expect to see that youth with a better understanding of the “culture of college” (Cabrera & Padilla, 2004), who have had support and resources in navigating the requirements of the college process, will be better prepared to speak to institutional expectations in their essays. Previous research shows that underserved youth are less prepared to complete their college applications (Early & DeCosta-Smith, 2011; Kirkland & Hansen, 2011; Warren, 2013) but I still expect to find that those students are writing essays that engage with the institutional discourses and expectations of the college essay and THE COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY 3 address the admissions audience. This analysis considers the college essay as students use it to interpret the college admissions culture in relation to their own goals to attend college. This study explores how students are or are not addressing the institutional expectations as stated or implied in the application process and acknowledges that all students are agentive and active in the choices they make and the stories they tell.
The main research question guiding this dissertation asks how the college essay process (its importance, the preparation, and ultimate writing) mediates inequality in admission to higher education. My project considers how institutions convey their requirements, expectations, and values and how students engage with, respond to, and challenge those institutional discourses. How do students make sense of and follow the rules of the college essay? This first chapter gives an overview of the importance of a college degree before outlining the theoretical foundations that ground this dissertation research. The chapter then zooms out to consider the role of college broadly and discusses challenges to equity and access along the path to college.
Next, the role of the college essay itself is discussed, considering the role it may play in admission and the implicit and explicit expectations it carries. Finally, the aims and research questions guiding this project are reinforced at the conclusion of the chapter.