Ethics and College Counseling

Ethics are a part of the college admissions process that few individuals outside of the industry have any direct exposure to. Considering the fact that college admissions counselors are essentially marketers they should abide by the American Marketing Association’s Statement of Ethics. According to the organization's statement, marketers should embody particular ethical values. These values are:

Honesty- to be forthright in dealings with customers and stakeholders.

Responsibility- to accept the consequences of our marketing decisions and strategies

Fairness- to balance justly the needs of the buyer with the interests of the seller.

Respect-to acknowledge the basic human dignity of all stakeholders.

Transparency-to create a spirit of openness in marketing operations.

Citizenship-to fulfill the economic, legal, philanthropic and societal responsibilities that serve stakeholders.

Although these are fantastic ethical values to abide by, admission counselors have adopted their own core values. These core values are decided and voted on by the Assembly of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) each year. These values are found under the NACAC Statement of Principles of Good Practice. The values are:

Education-We believe in and are committed to educating students, their families, the public, fellow education professionals, and ourselves about the transition to and within postsecondary education.

Fairness and Equity-We believe our members have a responsibility to treat one another and students in a fundamentally fair and equitable manner. Our institutional and individual members strive to eliminate from the education system bias based on race, ethnicity, creed, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, political affiliation, national origin, or disability. We view this as fundamental to our responsibility as educators.

Professionalism-We believe that ethical behavior is the foundation of the counseling, admission, and enrollment management profession. We are responsible for the integrity of our actions and, insofar as we can affect them, the actions of our member institutions, organizations, and individuals.

Civility-We believe members should conduct dialogue with respect and openness to differences, listening to various perspectives from a place of support and understanding. Members should strive to disagree without being disrespectful, abusive, or demeaning.

Collaboration-We believe the effectiveness of our profession—college counseling, admission, and enrollment management—is enhanced when we work together to advocate for students and their best interests.

Trust-We believe our profession is based upon trust, mutual respect, and honesty with one another and with students

Social Responsibility-We believe we have a duty to serve students responsibly by safeguarding their rights and their access to and within postsecondary education.

One thing that is interesting is that the AMA and NACAC statements of ethics contain quite a bit of overlap. Each statement contains a section on social responsibility and civility which shows that each organization is dedicated to serving for the good of the community. Variations of trust and honesty are also highly noticeable between the organizations as well. The amount of overlap is interesting, because it shows that even though these two organizations do not work together in any way, they are still marketing institutions that at least loosely follow the same code.

Even though many of the values are shared between these organizations, I would like to take a moment to highlight some unique features of NACAC’s core values. NACAC stresses the importance of education. This is unique to NACAC since counselors are working with students and families who are making the transition to college. Thus, the AMA would have no use for this provision in their values. Another value that is exclusive to college counseling is collaboration. Under this provision, all professional counselors are told that they should work together to advocate for students and their best interest. This value is also exclusive to NACAC since it is specific to, higher education, the product they are selling.

In conclusion it is very important that marketing organizations make specific ethics available to the public. Sometimes, marketers are seen as untrustworthy and sleazy due to stereotypes. The presence of these statements of ethics gives consumers confidence in the firms that are affiliated with these larger organizations. It is also important that marketing organizations in different sectors of the economy have unique and differing values. This is due to the fact that consumers in the college counseling industry have different concerns, than those looking to purchase new furniture for their living room. Marketing ethics are important for marketers and consumers and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Sources:

https://www.ama.org/AboutAMA/Pages/Statement-of-Ethics.aspx

https://www.nacacnet.org/globalassets/documents/advocacy-and-ethics/statement-of-principles-of-good-practice/spgpfinal_approvedsept2017.pdf