Join Devin LaSane, Director of Admissions, Enrollment and Financial Aid, Allen-Stevenson School and Simon Thomas-Train, Assistant Director of Admissions and Enrollment, Middle School, Grace Church School, for this four-part Learning Lab on Interrupting Bias in Admissions.
Session 1: Creating Welcoming First Impressions
Bias Interruption in Admissions Events
Date: Monday, April 6, 2026
In-person and virtual events are often families’ first experience of a school—and fertile ground for unexamined bias. This workshop invites teams to critically examine how access, representation, language, scheduling, sensory needs, and cultural norms shape who feels welcomed and who feels excluded. Participants will conduct bias audits of existing events, explore common event-based biases, and consider how intentional roles, structures, and planning can transform events into authentic expressions of a school’s mission. The session centers the idea that events are not neutral logistics, but powerful tools for belonging, trust-building, and access.
Session 2: Interviewing with Intention
Bias Interruption in Admissions Interviews
Date: Monday, April 13, 2026
Interviews are often the most personal—and most subjective—part of the admissions process. This workshop focuses on identifying and interrupting bias in both interview questions and interviewer practices. Participants will engage in interview purpose-mapping, audit existing questions, and explore how biases such as affinity bias, parental performance bias, halo effect, and linguistic bias can shape perceptions of applicants and families. The session also addresses interviewer fatigue, note-taking disparities, and inconsistent reporting practices, helping teams develop shared norms and sustainable systems that support presence, fairness, and clarity across interviews.
Session 3: Reading Files with Awareness
Bias Interruption in File Review
Date: Monday, April 20, 2026
This session focuses on the unique challenges of bias in file reading—work that is often done alone, without immediate accountability. Participants will examine how implicit bias, confirmation bias, stereotype bias, and conservatism can shape individual evaluations of applicants. Through reflection, anonymized case studies, and review-criteria audits, teams will build shared understanding of what they are truly assessing and why. The workshop emphasizes personal process audits, time and energy management, and alignment between scoring rubrics, institutional mission, and core competencies—ensuring that decisions made in solitude reflect collective values and equity commitments.
Session 4: Making Equitable Decisions Together
Bias Interruption in Admissions Committees
Date: Monday, April 27, 2026
Admissions committees are where individual biases converge, power dynamics intensify, and final decisions are made. This workshop focuses on building shared language, norms, and structures to interrupt bias in high-stakes, high-pressure group settings. Participants will explore committee-based biases such as groupthink, status quo bias, and recency bias; engage in power- and identity-mapping; and practice tools like review-criteria audits and the designated dissenter role. The session emphasizes slowing decision-making, creating psychological safety for dissent, and ensuring that committee processes reflect institutional values, not just urgency or tradition.
Thank you to VenturEd Solutions for their support of AISAP Learning Labs.
