A new study found evidence that weight bias can be a determining factor when it comes to college admissions.
You just may need to hit the gym if you are due for a college interview any time soon. A new study from the Bowling Green State University has found that the body weight of an applicant is a determining factor in getting admission in a university after an in-person interview.
Dr. Dara Musher-Eizenman, a professor of developmental psychology, Dr. Robert Carels, an associate professor of clinical psychology and Ph.D. candidates in the Bowling Green State University, Jacob Burmeister and Allison Kiefner, have now found that applicants with high body mass index (BMI) were less likely to be offered admission in a graduate school after an in-person interview.
For this study, researchers looked at 97 applicants who applied for psychology graduate programs in over 950 universities across United States. Researchers also noted the quality of the letters of recommendation for positive and negative statements based on students' body weight.
During the study it was found that the quality of the letters of recommendation from the applicants' mentors was not associated with their body weight, which was initially suspected, said Burmeister. He said that the bondage between the students and mentors over the years of school may have disregarded the body weight as a negative factor in writing the students' recommendation letter.
Students shared their application experience with the researchers, if they were interviewed in person or over the phone before the admission offer. Researchers also noted if students did not receive any admission offers.
"When we looked at that we could see a clear relation between their weight and offers of admission for those applicants who had had an in-person interview," Burmeister said in a press statement. "The success rate for people who had had no interview or a phone interview was pretty much equal, but when in-person interviews were involved, there was quite a bit of difference, even when applicants started out on equal footing with their grades, test scores and letters of recommendation."
The findings of the study were limited to the admissions in psychology programs, whereas further research in other fields will provide stronger evidence if BMI is a determining factor for college admissions.
The findings of the study are published in the journal Obesity.
