October 25, 2002: Volume 56, Number 7

Dan Lundquist urges reconsideration of early decision, rankings, reliance on test scores

An essay by Admissions VP Dan Lundquist that calls for a re-evaluation of the admissions process has struck a chord with prospective students, their families and high school counselors.

"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," Lundquist writes in an essay prepared for The Best of Our Knowledge, a show that airs on public radio stations nationwide.

"Environmental pressures have been mounting over the past few years that show signs the college admissions 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 most important way 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."

To read the full text (and comments from guidance counselors) visit: http://www.union.edu/Admissions

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