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Welcome to the "AdmitMe" Project Home
AdmitMe is the first project launched under the InCommon
/PESC Strategic Partnership. First proposed at the PESC Electronic Authentication and Authorization (EA2) Task Force meeting at the PESC Spring 2011 Data Summit, AdmitMe intends to:
- Ease the process for high school students preparing their college applications
- Assist higher education IT departments, Admissions Officers, and Registrars in accepting applications from and provisioning resources to prospects
- Improve the offerings of the participating vendors
- Improve the quality of prospect credentials
These improvements will be provided by establishing a 3rd party federated Identity Provider that works in conjunction with existing identity management systems at participating vendor sites, provides a globally unique identifier to every student that participates, and hold data about identity vetting done by participating vendors.
What AdmitMe Offers
Students:
AdmitMe will offer the opportunity for students to use a single set of credentials across every participating vendor to access test scores, financial aid information, letters of reference, high school transcripts, and any other product offered by participating vendors. Behind the scenes, students benefit from the globally unique student identifier that will be issued to each student, which will allow immediate and secure transfer of all application related materials from the vendor that holds this data to the institutions of higher education the student wants to apply to.
Vendors:
By offering a unique identifier and high quality identity proofed credentials to every student who touches the system, AdmitMe allows vendors to offer a higher quality product to higher education. Vendors will be able to offer fee based transactions to students who want to customize the selection of data that is immediately, securely, and electronically transmitted to schools. Confidence that a vendor's product exactly matches the student will increase the value of the product.
Higher Education:
AdmitMe resolves three major problems encountered by higher education. Schools will be able to accurately and automatically match the flood of scores, grades, letters of recommendation, and financial aid packages to the correct student, instantly creating a picture of each applicant that now must be created through manual matching. Institutions will have the option to automatically provision credentials and access for prospects to leverage branded email addresses, access to customized prospect-only content, and other communications and recruiting tools. The credentials that arrive at institutions will have been identity proofed by one or more vendors, increasing the confidence that the student arriving is the student who applied and were accepted.
Communication
Communications are done via this page, teleconferences, and face to face meetings. At a minimum, face to face meetings are held every 6 months at the PESC Data Summits.
- The AdmitMe working group meets every other Friday by teleconference at 2:00 eastern time.
- We will be having a face-to-face meeting for everyone who can come at the Fall PESC Data Summit in San Francisco in October. See the PESC 2011 Fall Data Summit for registration details. The F2F will be from 9 to noon on October 12, 2011.
- Announcements are made on the mailing list. To sign up for the mailing list, send an email to sympa@incommon.org. In the subject of the message, include: sub admission-project FirstName LastName
Use Case: Suzy Student
Suzy Student, a high school student prospect to higher education, decides to take a SAT test as a senior in high school. She finds the College Board site and clicks on a button labeled “Get an AdmitMe Id” after reading how it can enables her to use one user id and password for all her interactions with potential campuses, test services, FASFA and the like during the admissions process. What a convenience!
After clicking on the AdmitMe icon, she’s redirected to a site that’s branded with the AdmitMe Id as well as the College Board logo. She reads the instructions and learns that she just has to provide a small set of her information here to get an AdmitMe credential set. Once she goes through the process, she’s redirected back to the CollegeBoard site and uses her AdmitMe to log in and sign up for the SAT. Next, she goes to the ACT site and clicks on “Login in with AdmitMe” and because she’s leveraging single sign-on technology doesn’t have to re-login. She then surfs to Georgetown’s admissions page and signs up to get information, again without logging in.
Ms. Student appears at her SAT test time with her ticket to get in along with her picture id that verifies her address on record. The test proctor reviews her information, documents the identity-proofing event and enters it into the CollegeBoard database. CollegeBoard then runs a script to update the AdmitMe database with information about the identity-proofing event. This could elevate her credential to a federally approved high quality credential.
When she brings her ACT exam ticket to the exam site, the process is similar to when she took the SAT. When the proctor exams her admissions ticket and photo ID, an entry documenting this process is made in the databases, which is automatically promulgated to the AdmitMe identity store. This extra vetting of her identity strengthens her credential even further.
Several months later, Suzy decides to apply to schools. She goes back to Georgetown and clicks “login in with AdmitMe” which she does. In the background, AdmitMe sends information to Georgetown about her credential strength, so the institution now has a higher level of trust that her identity online matches the physical person. She then applies to Georgetown. In the background, Georgetown is able to automatically provision access to applicant-specific web pages and an official Georgetown email address for her. Later that day, the prospect collects the information necessary to apply for financial aid and uses AdmitMe to log into the Department of Education FAFSA site. FAFSA’s exhaustive identity verification process is helped by a high quality introduction using the AdmitMe credential, and the AdmitMe credential is then further enhanced by FAFSA’s verification process, again improving the quality of the prospect’s credentials.
After the application is done and considered, Georgetown sends the final information about the financial aid award and invitation to attend the school to the prospect. She uses her AdmitMe account to log into Georgetown and view her SSN and related information, as well as her award package. Georgetown’s financial aid director is pleased to know that the prospects are vetted and proofed---it reduces their risk of fraud and identity theft substantially. And Georgetown’s admissions officer is relieved since AdmitMe service providers all use the same unique identifier for the individuals with accounts, the prospects SAT and ACT reports are identified with their AdmitMe identifier and can be matched up to her record with no headache. What a timesaver!
