Thanks, Victoria. I hope no one in the grad office assumes that this is a big step forward. There are many other actions that can reduce unconscious bias, and most effective actions are hard, take time and require significant resources. Changing the order is easy, but most likely not impactful.
Azita > On Oct 15, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Kostina, Victoria <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear EE faculty, > > The proposal below modifies the order in which faculty will see graduate > application materials in the pdf file that is generated by the CollegeNET > system. 6 options have already supported the change. Please let me know if > you have concerns. > > Best, > Victoria > > > > >> Begin forwarded message: >> >> From: Andrew Thompson <[email protected]> >> Subject: Graduate application format >> Date: October 13, 2021 at 9:53:35 PM PDT >> To: Graduate Office <[email protected]>, "Gilmore, Natalie" >> <[email protected]>, "Dalton, Jacob R." <[email protected]>, "Chan, >> David C." <[email protected]>, "Peterson, Darrell" <[email protected]>, >> "Koehne, Tobias" <[email protected]>, "Li, Melissa" <[email protected]>, >> "Austin, Joanna M." <[email protected]>, "Schroeder, Peter" >> <[email protected]>, "Lapusta, Nadia" <[email protected]>, "Faraon, Andrei" >> <[email protected]>, "Clemons, William M." <[email protected]>, "Cai, >> Long" <[email protected]>, "Prober, David" <[email protected]>, "Giapis, >> Konstantinos P." <[email protected]>, "Stoltz, Brian M." >> <[email protected]>, "Siapas, Athanassios G. (Thanos)" >> <[email protected]>, "Vidick, Thomas G." <[email protected]>, "Yue, >> Yisong" <[email protected]>, "Ames, Aaron D." <[email protected]>, "Kostina, >> Victoria" <[email protected]>, "Schneider, Tapio" <[email protected]>, >> "Faber, Katherine T." <[email protected]>, "Graber, Thomas B." >> <[email protected]>, "Wang, Lihong" <[email protected]>, "Lester, Henry >> A." <[email protected]>, "Patterson, Ryan B." <[email protected]>, >> "O'Doherty, John P." <[email protected]>, "Hirsch, Alexander V. (Alex)" >> <[email protected]>, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> >> >> Hi GSC'ers, >> >> At the end of our meeting today, I raised a question about whether it is >> possible to modify the order in which application material is presented in >> our online system (CollegeNET) and/or in a downloaded .pdf package. >> Following literature on admissions best practices, it has been suggested >> that reading personal statements and letters of recommendation prior to >> receiving information about test scores, nationality, gender, race, >> undergraduate institution, etc. can reduce unconscious bias. >> >> It appears that this change, if desired, would need to be implemented by all >> options at Caltech. I propose the following order (but happy to have >> suggestions for modifications): >> >> • Personal statement >> • CV >> • Letters of recommendation >> • Personal Information >> • GPA / Test scores / Fellowship applications >> • Transcripts >> >> Natalie and Nadia, please advise how/if we can move this proposal forward. >> >> Thanks for your time, >> Andy >> >> -- >> -- >> Andrew Thompson (he/him/his) >> Environmental Science and Engineering >> California Institute of Technology >> MC 131-24 >> Pasadena, CA 91125 >> >> e: [email protected] >> p: +1 626-395-8345 >> w: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~andrewt >> > > _______________________________________________ > eefaculty mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
