Language, culture, and systems of evaluation : computational analyses of college admissions essays
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Each year, high school students from all social strata apply to selective colleges and universities. One well known element to the application process for these schools is the solicitation of personal statements where applicants describe themselves, their interests, their communities, and other information they deem relevant to their college application. Other features of the same applications, specifically standardized test scores, have been consistent sources of controversy for decades given their strong correlations with social class (approximated by household income). This dissertation expands the literature on evaluation, culture, language, and college admissions by shifting the analytical lens onto admissions essays and leveraging tools from computational text analysis. Chapter two does this bluntly: using computationally derived features of admissions essays as predictors, we find that admissions essays are stronger predictors of income than SAT scores but also that the features are very strong predictors of SAT scores. Chapter three considers how students might see applying to college as a time to demonstrate multilingual competence, specifically Spanish, despite long histories of prejudice in K-12 education. And finally, chapter four shows how admissions essays written by transfer applicants are patterned by specific academic pathways (community college students vs. applicants enrolled in four year schools) but also how essay prompts might reduce or exacerbate these differences. Combined, this dissertation provides important clarifications for data science in education as well as the growing interest of computational methods in social science.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Alvero, Aaron Jordan |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Stevens, Mitchell |
| Thesis advisor | Stevens, Mitchell |
| Thesis advisor | Antonio, Anthony Lising, 1966- |
| Thesis advisor | Domingue, Ben |
| Thesis advisor | Pearman, Francis A |
| Degree committee member | Antonio, Anthony Lising, 1966- |
| Degree committee member | Domingue, Ben |
| Degree committee member | Pearman, Francis A |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Aaron Jordan Alvero. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Education. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/pm494sf8092 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by Aaron Jordan Alvero
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
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