The Clock is Ticking: Does the Timing of Recruitment Visits Exacerbate the Racial, Socioeconomic, and Geographic Disparities in Public University Recruiting?

Abstract

The timing of when students receiving information and make decisions about college is an important factor explaining racial and socioeconomic inequality and institutional stratification in college-going patterns. Drawing on data from the Enrollment Management, Recruiting, and Access Project, this quantitative study uses descriptive statistics to better understand how the timing of recruitment visits differs based on a school’s racial, socioeconomic, and geographic characteristics. This study is grounded as a bridge between a growing literature on recruiting to larger, more established literatures that speak to the importance of timing within the college going process. Utilizing Academic Capitalism and Critical Race Theory as the conceptual lens of this study, this thesis aims to explore whether, and to what extent are the racial, socioeconomic, and geographical disparities found in recruitment visits exacerbated by when visits occur. This thesis confirms prior literature finding race-based and class-based inequities in the recruiting patterns of universities (Salazar et al., 2021; Salazar, 2022). Further, this study suggests that timing plays a factor in the inequities seen in university recruitment due to the commodification and emphasis of timing that is most beneficial for institutions and not students.