Washington University has joined over 80 elite public and private universities in designing a new application system, which should offer an alternative to the widely used Common Application in order to increase applications from underserved communities.

The partnership, dubbed the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, includes every member of the Ivy League, other elite universities and flagship public campuses in states ranging from Florida to Michigan. The coalition’s intent is especially relevant given national concern about the lack of socioeconomic diversity at elite universities, including WU in particular.  

Some questions have been raised regarding the intentions of the alternative application, given a lack of specifics regarding the application’s ability to reach underserved communities. Some critics of the coalition have even gone so far as to claim these elite universities have created the coalition to increase their total number of applications while freeing themselves from the Common Application after a controversial recent round of technical glitches.

According to WU Director of Admissions Julie Shimabukuro, the decision to join the coalition isn’t connected to the school’s push for increased socioeconomic diversity.

“Wash. U. was interested initially with the coalition application as an alternative to the Common App,” Shimabukuro said. “Most of the schools started that way as well, and then things started to develop with trying to reach underserved populations.”

WU’s low rate of students qualifying for Pell Grants has drawn national attention in the last year. Only six percent of students at Wash. U. qualify for the government-provided grants. Over the last year, students have voiced concerns about the student body’s economic background and supported calls for diversity from a variety of organizations, including Washington University for Undergraduate Socio-Economic Diversity (WU/FUSED).

Last year, the University pledged to double the share of undergraduate students with Pell Grants by 2020, setting 13 percent as an initial target.

“The commitment that Wash. U. made last year to double the percentage of Pell-eligible students by 2020 is a good one, and they’ve been making steps in that direction. Thirteen percent is very middle of the road. It’s a good start since we were doing so extremely poorly, but I hope that we can go farther than that,” junior Lauren Chase, a member of WU/FUSED, said.

Shimabukuro said that the University was focusing on other methods for increasing socioeconomic diversity.

“Our focus for the expansion of serving underserved populations isn’t reliant on the Coalition. The challenge for us to expand our enrollment with students who come from challenging financial backgrounds, including Pell Grant-eligible students, is really more on trying to raise our scholarship funds and reach more students, rather than through an application,” Shimabukuro said.

Improving socioeconomic diversity at the University may be reliant not on attracting new students, but on the allocation of University funds, Chase said.

“I don’t think that recruitment is a challenge Wash. U. faces when it comes to reaching low-income students. Right now we’re turning down top applicants from low-income backgrounds,, because we don’t feel we can meet their need. I don’t think the issue is getting more people to apply, though of course that wouldn’t hurt, but the issue is prioritization of funding,” Chase said.

According to Shimabukuro, though, the University isn’t ruling out the possibility that the new application will help increase Wash. U.’s socioeconomic diversity.

“We still don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, while the technology folks are working on it,” Shimabukuro said. “Hopefully we will be able to reach some underserved populations and help them through [the Coalition application] as things develop.”

“They’re still discussing when they’re going to release [the application]. We’ll probably hear more about it in the next few months,” Shimabukuro said.

The coalition has targeted January 2016 for the introduction of its planning resources and has not designated a date for the launch of its application platform.