DeanWuBlog

What a Dean Does: Admissions

In this second installment of “What a Dean Does,” I’ll address the admissions process. Perhaps the most important point to make about this subject is “What a Dean Does Not Do,” which is make decisions as to which applicants are accepted and which applicants are rejected. As is customary, I try to maintain a strict separation between our many activities and our choices about the entering class. Almost all law school deans follow this best practice, because otherwise this high-stakes decision-making would be, or would appear to be, unfair. Furthermore, because of the number of interested parties with whom we come into contact, we might well be subjected to inappropriate lobbying. The President of Wayne State University, Dr. Irvin D. Reid, also respects the autonomy of the law school as to these matters. He does not intervene in these matters.

Of course, I do receive references for specific individuals from time to time. Typically, I pass along these recommendations, with limited additional commentary, to the individuals who actually do the make decisions. That would be the Admissions Office, which is supervised by Assistant Dean for Recruitment and Admissions Linda Fowler Sims (linda.sims@wayne.edu) and Director of Admissions Marcia McDonald (marcia.mcdonald@wayne.edu). Both of them are full-time professionals with extensive experience in the area. They make the initial decisions, and they have terminal authority with respect to both the most highly-credentialed applicants and the least well-credentialed applicants.

Yet the authority of the Admissions Office is only delegated to them pursuant to our admissions policy. The actual source of authority is the faculty as a whole. It is the faculty by and large that sets our admissions policy. I am involved in those deliberations at the more general level.

There is an important concept of shared governance – similar to the system of checks and balances established by the Constitution for our federal government – that guides our policy-making. Like almost all institutions of higher education, we try our best to live up to an ideal of democracy in which it is the voting members of the full-time faculty who make the most important decisions about our policies. As Dean, it is my responsibility to execute those decisions. (I’ll discuss shared governance in greater detail in another posting.) So I also am involved in the ongoing effort to improve our admissions procedures, whether it is implementing on-line applications, reducing processing time, generating behind-the-scenes efficiencies, increasing the size of the pool and the level of yield, and so on.

Turning back to decisions as to the individual applicants in our pool, that is actually done by an Admissions Committee of five persons. During the summer, I appoint many committees, consisting primarily of faculty members, and under our by-laws with student representatives in many cases, along with administrators who serve ex officio (i.e., without a vote). This year, the Admisions Committee is chaired by Professor Janet Findlater. The members are Professors Jocelyn Benson, Tony Dillof, David Moss, Diana Pratt. They have a heavy workload. The discretion exercised by us as an institution is at an operational level exercised by the Admissions Committee as they review the files of individual applicants.

Alumni and students, and all of our supporters, can play a valuable role in the admissions process. They can encourage students to consider legal education, promote Wayne State University as a choice, write letters of recommendation, explain the process, conduct informal tours, make introductions to the Admissions personnel, and persuade people who have been offered a seat in the incoming class to take it.

Once anyone has been admitted, I would be pleased to meet him/her. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have been accepted, or know someone who has been accepted, and we can discuss the many reasons to come here.