Reevaluating the Admissions Process
Why is college admissions getting in the news so much?
In addition to recent revelations about the Princeton-Yale web site incursion, there was an out-sized response to word that Harvard was considering ignoring binding Early Decision commitments at other colleges, and last spring Yale´s president garnered a great deal of attention when he publicly questioned the value of constraining admission plans. And then there was the seismic reaction when the SATs biggest customer, the University of California, publicly questioned the core value of that test, considered by many to be the master key to college admission.
Selective college admission has always been a hot topic for many because the stakes seem so high and the process so mysterious. Competitive admissions´ elusiveness - its lack of predictability and apparent lack of fairness - seems only to fuel public frustration and fascination, and set up a results-oriented approach to college admissions that threatens to displace thoughtful self-analysis and the search for the most appropriate college environment for the student.
Now, it seems, it is not how you play the game but whether you win or lose, and the sweetness of "victory" can be measured by how many competitors one beats for a spot in the class.
Some would argue that the current fixation on results is not only jaded but ultimately alienating, as teenagers endure this protracted out-of-body experience. If they are lucky they can like, be proud of, and recognize the person being presented in the application. The sad truth, according to many college counselors, is that many students feel a sense of deflation at having "let their parents down" and a sense of anti-climax that follows many all the way through college. Our "search-and-admit" process apparently does create invisible casualties, many, counterintuitively, in Ivy dormitories.
Environmental pressures have been mounting over the past few years that show signs the college process is becoming a transaction - an episode to get through quickly - and that expediency is trumping honesty and authenticity. Fueled by the frantic inertia of high aspirations in an increasingly-competitive college market, the proliferation of services that help package an application are cause-and-effect evidence that the "package" is more important than its contents - with the cynical implication that admissions committees reward style over substance.
The college search process is not a transaction. The process is just as important as the outcome. Many counselors believe that a student´s college education actually begins with the search process itself, a process of critical self-evaluation and test-matching comfort, style, aspirations to a variety of environments. Just as many of the most valuable lessons one learns in college occur outside the formal curriculum, some of the most important aspects of character- and intellect-forming occur during the college search and admission process. Students learn to share emotional highs and lows, and to support each other. In the transition from late adolescence to young adulthood, they also discover new ways of testing assumptions, analyzing, and making their own decisions. Candidates are asked to write their own applications and submit honest and accurate supporting information. And in today´s environment the perennial temptations to burnish the truth to one´s advantage ("well, everyone´s doing it" and "who´s going to look out for me better than me?") have never been greater.
Against that backdrop - with so much energy focused on this confluence of aspiration, opportunity, and thwarted savvy - it is no wonder that the strategy-conscious, the status-conscious, and the just plain curious are attuned to the augurings from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (home of the University and of the SATs).
Ambitious families are not the bad guys, and neither are the colleges and universities. In fact, just about everyone involved is a good guy. What has happened here is that a mass of good intentions have grown unchecked and too far. So how can we begin to improve the situation?
It seems to me that the one significant stakeholder that can realistically do anything is the college/university group. We are the participant/observers with both the long view and the stated commitment to the high ideal of education, broadly defined. And look who gets the media attention: not the student caught cheating on an exam, it´s the admissions director hacking on the web. Not the student who can´t break 1000 on the boards, but the president of the University of California who questions the role of the SAT.
The most important coin-of-realm colleges could ante up to show their desire to see values reign over expediency, would be to abolish what appear to be complicated sets of admissions options and an over-reliance on standardized tests.
The debate of so-called Early Decision is a case in point: Many high school counselors and teachers feel that students, as impressionable and malleable as teenagers are, need the extra few months to make a right decision. From a qualitative point of view, protracting the search process, "playing the field" - and all that it can entail - only produces benefits: more options, greater maturity and self-awareness, and improved focus on senior year studies. And from a symbolic point of view colleges´ willingness to give up an institutional advantage could, in one stroke, both set a good example and help level the playing field.
So let´s eliminate constraining application plans and give students - all students - equal time to experience and consider the college search process. At the same time, admissions committees might pledge to let scores inform, rather than drive, the selection process.
And in return, could we turn the clock back on college rankings? With metrics that imply an impossible precision, let´s do away with college rankings just as students would have us do away with high school class ranking. This might compel students to examine potential colleges as carefully as they, themselves, would wish to be evaluated by admissions committees.
Comments from college counselors...
"THANK YOU, THANK YOU! This is the message that so many of us try to communicate to our students and parents." (California)
"I truly enjoyed your piece. It is so rare that I read something substantive about our profession that is actually uplifting!" (Connecticut)
"I hope every op-ed page in the US has the opportunity to repeat your words." (California)
"The more students hear the voice of sanity from colleges the less they feel the anxiety of admissions and can enjoy the journey. I applaud your proposals and Union´s approach to the admissions process." (Colorado)
"I really enjoyed your piece: It says what all of us are feeling right now." (Pennsylvania)
"I hope I can distribute it to current parents, especially at our Junior Parents´ Night. As always, your remarks are cogent and heartfelt." (Massachusetts)
"I appreciated your thoughtful assessment of admissions issues." (New York)
"I found it an extremely thoughtful essay and I will entertain the arguably naive hope that your peers and my colleagues might heed your wise counsel on these important matters." (Connecticut)
"I just finished reading your "Two Modest Proposals." Can you hear the sound of my hands clapping?" (Ohio)