Stetson Departure | How can I get in? With dean gone, answer may change

Under former Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson, the Penn admissions office gained a reputation for its emphasis on early decision and its outreach to minorities.

Now, it's unclear how, or if, those priorities will change with Stetson's departure.

An admissions dean can have a major impact on a college's policies, high-school college counselors and college consultants say, and many are curious to see if a new dean will result in changes in Penn's admissions practices.

Stetson - who resigned suddenly and without explanation at the end of August - was "always so stalwart on his insistence that early decision is what built the spirit at Penn," said Eileen Doctorow, a college counselor at North Hollywood High School in California.

Other admissions experts echoed those thoughts and also pointed to increases in the number of minority and international students at Penn as indicators of Stetson's priorities in admissions.

Within the admissions office, Stetson instructed his staff to reach out to find a group of students who would contribute to Penn in a variety of ways.

"It seemed like we were everywhere," said Canh Oxelson, a former Penn admissions officer who is now a dean at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles. The goal, Oxelson said, was to "cast as wide a net as far as possible" to attract different kinds of students at a range of schools.

Oxelson added that policies emphasized during Stetson's tenure such as early decision are likely "to continue to work well for Penn" even under a new admissions dean.

After stating in July that he would remain at Penn through this academic year, Stetson suddenly moved up his departure date in late August. Penn President Amy Gutmann has only said that the move was in the "best interests" of Stetson and the University.

And as Penn officials begin their search for a new admissions head, experts say the new dean will put his or her own stamp on the University.

"Anytime there's a change in leadership at an admissions office, emphasis changes," said college consultant David Petersam.

Jane McClure, another college consultant, said she has seen "dramatic changes" when a new dean comes to a college, pointing to the transition at Stanford University when Richard Shaw became the dean of admissions there in 2005.

In that case, she said, Stanford's internal admissions practices began to put greater emphasis on committee-based presentations of applications rather than individual readers.

Andrew McNeil, co-director of college counseling at The Taft School in Connecticut, agreed that a new dean can make a "radical difference," and that counselors are "wondering what steps Penn will take."

In many cases, McNeil said, "it's the dean's discretion to aim for a certain kind of student body," and when a new dean arrives at a school, counselors must adapt if the new official takes steps such as altering the emphasis on standardized testing or diversity.

University officials, including those in the admissions office, were not available to comment on Penn's admissions philosophy under Stetson or how its practices might change under a new dean.

Eric Kaplan, the interim dean of admissions, and Gutmann have said that one key policy - early decision - will remain unchanged.

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