Admissions offices don’t operate in the clouds, above the muck of competing motivations, beyond the reach of powerful hands. Although the deans and directors who select applicants wield great influence, each has something pretty much everyone else has: a boss. On colleges campuses, as anywhere else, bosses tend to get their way, as an independent report on admissions practices at the University of Texas at Austin released last week reminds us. William C. Powers Jr., the university’s president, intervened on behalf of well-connected applicants, sometimes overruling the admissions office to grant "must have" students a spot, the report found. Mr. Powers said in each instance he had acted in "the best interest of the university." He described the process as similar to those "at virtually every selective university in America."

February 16, 2015 ・ From Chronicle of Higher Education