Final Examination-Assessment 1-(Theory)

Semester-Summer, 2019-20

  Name of the Student: _________________ 

  Register Number: _____________________

 

 

• Carefully read the given CASE STUDY and Answer the Questions given at the end of the Case Study.

 

University Admission Process-CASE Study

 

We consider the following  process  for  handling admission applications  from

international applicants at a University. In order to apply for admission,  candidates  fill  in  an  online  application  form by  a fixed deadline (the deadline  is  the  same  for  all  applicants).  Online applications  are recorded  in  an  information  system  to  which  all  staff  members  involved  in  the admissions  process  have  access.  Prior  to  submitting  the  online  form,  the applicant must upload electronic copies of the following documents: (i) a motivation letter; (ii) certified  copies  of  previous  degree  and  academic  transcripts; (iii)  copy  of  identity document; (iv) copy of English language test results. Applicants can view and track the status of their application via the online application system.

 

Once  an  applicant  has  submitted  the  online  application,  a  PDF  document  is automatically generated based on the application data. The applicant is requested to download this document, sign it, and send it by post together with the certified copies of previous degree and academic transcripts. Documents take on average 2 weeks to reach the University by post. The University waits at most 4 weeks for the hard copy of  a  given  application to  arrive  (together  with  accompanying  certified  copies).

Otherwise the application is disqualified.

A few days after an application is submitted online, an admissions officer checks it in

order to determine if the application is administratively correct and complete. If any

deficiency  is identified in  the  application, an email  is  sent  to  the applicant.  The

applicant has to resubmit their application after correcting the identified deficiencies.

Once  an  application  has passed  the  administrative  check,  the  admissions  office

performs two verifications (in any order):

1)  Academic verification. An admission officer sends the certified copies of the degrees to an academic recognition agency, which checks the degree and gives an  assessment  of  the  equivalence  of the  degree  in  terms  local  education standards.  The  academic  recognition  agency  requires  hard  copies  of  the certified degrees to perform its verification. Hence, the admission office must first receive the certified copies from the applicant and then send them to the academic  recognition  office by  post.  It  usually  takes two  weeks  to get a response from the academic recognition agency (including the time spent by the postal service to deliver the documents to the agency). The University pays

a  fee  of  EUR  20  for  each  document  is  sends  to  the  academic  recognition agency for verification and accreditation. 

The agency replies by e-mail.

2)  English  language  test  verification.  The  academic  officer  uses  a  Web-based interface to verify that the provided English language test result is valid.

If an application fails to pass any of these two verifications, it is rejected (notifications

of rejection are sent by e-mail).

Once all documents of an applicant have been verified, the admissions office marks the application as "Ready for assessment". The application is automatically forwarded to the admissions committee of the relevant study program (e.g. medicine, IT, etc.).

The mean cycle time between the moment an application is submitted online and the

moment it is “ready for assessment” is 6 weeks.

Committees  make  their  decisions  based  on  academic  transcripts  and  motivation letters. The committee meets once to examine the applications submitted to its study program, which have passed all verifications made at the admissions office.  Before the meeting, the head of the committee examines each application in order to:

 

1)  Extract the grade-point average (GPA) of the applicant in the previous degree

and convert it to a standard GPA score based on a GPA conversion table.

2)  Perform  a  plagiarism check  of  the  motivation  letter  using  a Web-based

plagiarism detection software.

3)  Read the motivation letter (if it is plagiarism-free) and assign a score to it.

The head of committee marks as "failed" those applications with very low GPA, with

plagiarized motivation letters, or with very poorly written motivation letters.

Based  on  the  collected  information,  the  head  of  committee  makes  a  preliminary ranking of applicants. This ranking is reviewed during a full-day (8-hours) committee meeting. At the end of the meeting, the head of committee sends back a ranked list of applicants to the admissions office, together with an indication of the applications that have "failed" due to low GPA or issues with the motivation letter.

It takes 4 weeks between the moment all applications assigned to a given committee are "ready for assessment", and the moment the committee sends back its ranking to the admissions office.

Each  year, the  University  receives  in  total  1500 online applications.  Applicants compete  for 150  study  places  distributed  across  10  study  programs. Each  study program (e.g. Masters program) has 15 study places. The top-3-ranked applicants in each study program are offered scholarships in addition to a study place. Applicants ranked  in  positions  4  to  15  in  their  study  program  are  offered  a  study  place but without a scholarship.

About  one  week  after  a  committee  has produced its ranking,  the  admission  office

sends the  corresponding  notifications.  An  applicant  may  be  notified  that  their application  is:  (i)  accepted  with  a  scholarship;  (ii)  accepted  without scholarship;  or

(iii) admissible but not accepted unless a study place is freed up by a higher-ranked  applicant; or (iv) rejected due to low scores or plagiarism.

Successful  applicants must accept  or  decline  the  offer  at  most  2  weeks  after notification. If an applicant declines the offer, their study place is allocated to the next admissible  non-admitted applicant  in  the  ranking  of  their  study  program.  If  an applicant  with  an  allocated  scholarship  rejects  their study  place,  the  scholarship  is allocated to the next applicant in the corresponding ranking, who does not yet have an allocated scholarship.

Applications are generally rejected or discarded for the following reasons:

• 20%  of  applications  are  rejected  initially  due  to  deficiencies  in  the  online

application form (e.g. missing documents). In half of the cases, the applicant

manages  to fix  the  identified  issues  and  the  application  passes  the

administrative check after the second try.

• 10% of applications are rejected because the hard copy is not received on time.

• 3% rejected due to a negative advice from the academic recognition agency.

• 2% rejected due to invalid English language test

• 5% rejected due to plagiarized motivation letter

• 5% rejected due to poorly written motivation letters

• 15% rejected due to low GPA

• 20% of applicants are offered a place but decline it. In 90% of these cases, the applicant declines because they expected to get a scholarship but their score was insufficient for a scholarship.

The  admissions  office  handles circa 4000  e-mails  from  applicants  concerning  the application process, including questions about the application form, the procedure and the required  documents;  questions  about  eligibility;  questions  about  the application status (e.g. have hard copies of documents reached the University?), etc.

The admissions office is staffed with four full-time admission officers, each one with a salary  cost of EUR  15  per  hour. An admission  committee  consists  of  3  members (including the head of committee), each member with an average salary cost of EUR 25 per hour. Each head of committee takes on average 5 working days to prepare the ranking  prior  to  the  admission  committee  meeting.  Two  days  are  spent  reading  the motivation  letters;  the  remaining  time  is  spent  extracting  data  and  checking  the applications e.g. for plagiarism.

The manager of this process is being pressed to simultaneously reduce the cycle time to the process, and reduce costs, while ensuring that no unqualified application gets admitted and applicants continue to receive good levels of attention and service.

 

 

Tasks. 

B) What steps can you identify in this process? Classify the steps into VA, BVA, 

and NVA.

C)  Identify 1-3 major issues in this process. Select one of them and document it 

in detail. Try to focus on an issue that relates to the ability of the university to 

compete for talent.

D)  Analyze the documented issue using a why-why diagram.