Colleges must adapt to changing look of new students

The average college applicant in the next few years won't be so average.

In the West especially, colleges should expect to see more Hispanics, more graduates of home schooling and charter schools, and more potential freshmen who have already taken college-level courses over the Internet.

Those coming changes were among the several topics of discussion at the 1999 Western Regional Meeting of the College Board, held Sunday through Tuesday at the Alexis Park Resort.

The College Board, founded in 1900, is a not-for-profit educational association that focuses on issues of academic preparation and transition to higher education. It also administers the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the nation's primary college-admissions test.

Even the way the students receive their college education is changing, educators were told. Not only are students taking advantage of courses offered over the Internet, many are enrolling in classes on a university campus and a community college campus at the same time.

"Swirling" is a new word coming into vogue to describe the way today's students pick and choose a variety of methods to fulfill their educational needs.

But the focus in sessions Monday and Tuesday was on the changing face of high school graduates applying for college.

With the rise in the Hispanic population, at least in the West, the ethnic makeup of future college students may change accordingly.

But the affirmative action backlash going on in the West -- Proposition 209 in California and Initiative 200 in Washington state nullify preference for minority students -- could thwart that expectation.

Affirmative action, the national law that assures an equitable ethnic mix on college campuses and in government jobs, is an issue every state may face in the future as foes of the law organize to abolish it, educators were told.

In addition, more applicants are home schooled. Colene Lewis, president of Arizona Families for Home Education, said 1.5 million children nationwide are now home schooled. In Arizona, 21,000 students are.

"And 57 percent of them are going on to college," she said during a session called "The Road Less Traveled: How Colleges are Responding to Students from Home and Charter Schools."

Arizona is a leader in the charter-school movement, having more than any other state with 271.

Cassandra Larsen, executive director of the State Board for Charter Schools, said 31 states have charter-school laws, but only 26 have such schools.

Nevada, which passed its charter-school law in 1997, has one.

Larsen, noting that the system is relatively new, said there haven't been a lot of applications from those students to college yet. But those who do go aren't eligible for some state-supported scholarships, "even though they may be extremely intelligent," because many of the schools lack accreditation.

Lewis said colleges and universities need to make many changes, such as their negative attitude toward nontraditional students.

"We are not dropouts. We have not failed to graduate," she said.

Tim Desch, director of undergraduate admissions at Arizona State University, said his institution has made a number of changes to accommodate nontraditional students.

"It is our responsibility in higher education to address and accommodate students from a variety of backgrounds," Desch said. "With the proliferation of less traditional students, the university system has had to re-examine the system."

He noted such problems of how to evaluate nontraditional students who haven't taken standardized tests or how to rate a student who has attended an unaccredited school.

While many nontraditional students may not have taken standardized tests before entering college, many minority students who have may not do well enough on those tests to get into a competitive college or university.

In a session that covered the issue of affirmative action, Jenny Woo, recruiter for the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, noted that in 1998 44 percent of the 9 million people in Los Angeles County were Hispanic, but only 12 percent of the college applicants were.

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