Coral is a PhD candidate in the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations at Peabody College. Coral was awarded the 2024 Bonsal Award for her dissertation research application essays and the holistic admissions process. The Bonsal Applied Education Research Award is designed to advance the development and completion of doctoral dissertations on educational solutions that have the potential to result in large-scale implementation in educational settings. Coral’s research will use natural language processing to identify the characteristics of application essays submitted to an honors college at a large public university. Bonsal funding allows Coral to greatly expand the scope of her quantitative analysis, to travel to her partner institution to conduct observations and interviews, and to present findings from this research more widely to practitioner audiences. Results from this study can inform ongoing efforts to expand access to elite postsecondary programs for historically underrepresented students.
Congratulations Coral!