First of all, I have to complement Blake for being so responsive so quickly. Since I’m an OUS/OSU employee, that’s very heartening. However, I too am concerned about the 10% who , for whatever reason, have not been comfortable applying online. Having worked extensively with technology at OSU and previously at Washington State University, and having experienced budget cuts every year that I’ve worked in higher education since 1993, I understand the need for efficiencies. Indeed, online admission applications will certainly be more efficient and help keep our costs down.

However, some of the non-traditional students that I’ve worked with and taught have had some very real issues with digital literacy. Recently I’ve worked with two students, both of them women in their forties, who had never learned how to word process documents. For both, just drafting documents was tedious–to the point of being counterproductive.

I wonder to what extent we provide this type of student with a subtle disincentive to apply to OSU when we stop offering traditional paper options.

Dennis Bennett

The questions you have raised are all ones that we in the Admissions office have discussed. We feel as if we are able to accomodate student needs while moving to efficiencies that are necessitated by the current climate of more and more limited resources.

The fee deferral form is seemingly well known by high school counselors in Oregon as evidenced by the questions and requests for them. That being said, the number of fee deferrals OSU annually processes equals less than 1% of our total number of applications. The fee deferral covers most TRIO-type programs, free/reduced lunch, federal/state assistance and also any student that qualifies for the College Board fee waiver to take the SAT.

The application fee of $50 is used to cover the expenses generated in the processing of an application: staff, paper, technology, postage, etc. Even at $50, the Admissions office ends up absorbing some of those costs to keep the fee somewhat reasonable at the current level.

The decision to not print paper applications was made after tracking the numbers of students who applied online. In the last few years, the numbers have gone from 65% to almost 90% which tells us that students are utilizing the online version. Also, when we made the move to exclusively online applications for our Degree Partnership Programs (DPP), there was no measureable negative result. We process 1-2 applications manually per year for extreme cases but othewise have not heard any complaints. Considering DPP serves community college students, many of whom choose community college due to financial constraints, we think the barrier is not as prominent as once thought.

Blake Vawter
Associate Director of Admissions
Oregon State University