<p>The Plain Dealer, Cleveland Ohio
“Awaiting a letter from admissions”
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Jennifer Delahunty
The Class of 2008 is holding its collective breath, awaiting college admissions decisions.
While the billion-dollar colleges have been posturing all winter over affordability and access - slashing prices through loan elimination - admissions officers elsewhere have been slumped over application folders, the din of discounting barely audible in the distance.
Yes, admissions officers care deeply about the price restructuring going on in American higher education, but in March, when we were winnowing our pools to ensure the correct number of students enroll, we were focused entirely on kids and their stories
As the mountains of manila folders crossed our desks, we wrote “admit,” and “deny” on the obvious. Those students whose fates were somewhere in between went to “committee.”
Committee at Kenyon includes 10 officers sitting around a conference table 10 hours a day, for weeks on end. Each candidate is portrayed in a kind of box score - test scores, GPAs, rank, years of language, math and science, and so forth. But those are just the facts.
It’s the stories we live for.
The most heated committee discussion this year erupted over a first-generation student from Chicago. Dan was endorsed by a college-preparation agency that claimed he was among the top 10 kids with whom they’d worked. His GPA tanked when his father, his only living parent, left Dan to fend for himself. Job, groceries, rent, the whole ball of adult responsibilities became Dan’s alone. His essay - well-written and passionate - wove together life lessons instilled by his uncle and his dream to run that uncle’s environmental organization. What he lacked in test scores and GPA, he made up for in drive and resiliency.
During these discussions, life experiences and political predilections rise to the surface. That, in part, is why we hold committee: to bring a shared wisdom to a single candidate’s case. One officer felt Dan hadn’t fully rebounded from his father’s abandonment. “He has a current C in English,” she said. “He’s not doing his work.”
“But now he’s caring for his sick grandmother and commuting an hour each way to school,” said Dan’s second reader. “He’s perfectly capable - look at his transcript before his father left.”
Out came his interview write-up, for which he garnered the highest score from a tough interviewer. “Dan wants to come to Kenyon,” he wrote, “because he wants to major in environmental studies and live like a normal young adult in a caring learning community where he doesn’t have to worry about making rent in addition to his school work.”
A veteran of these debates posited: “What can Kenyon throw at him that life hasn’t?”
“How about quantitative reasoning, critical thinking and research?” another snarked.
A painful silence bloomed.
The young officer who had spent time with Dan on campus cleared her throat. “I know this is going to sound odd, but I believe I came to Kenyon, in part, to admit students like Dan.”
She can’t see what a seasoned admissions officer can - that first-generation kids from the lowest socio-economic rung often have no place to go when school isn’t in session. That he’ll pay little, if anything, for tuition, room and board, but he’ll struggle mightily to cover the cost of books. He’ll be sitting in classes next to students whose parents have vacation homes. Academics will be a small struggle in comparison.
And that’s what the no-loan movement hasn’t fully addressed: Economically disadvantaged students have an abundance of challenges that are more complex than the barrier of loans. And while not every college can afford to eliminate loans, the lesser endowed schools like Kenyon can still give poor kids a shot at a better future.
I asked for a vote but the officer who had spent time with Dan stopped me: “I know how you all feel - there’s no need to vote.”
I suddenly remembered an e-mail Dan sent me after his visit to Kenyon, a message composed on a rented computer at the Columbus airport. “Please, just listen,” I asked the committee. “No one helped him compose this e-mail.”
“Dear Dean Delahunty: I loved my visit to your college. . . . Believe me when I say I am a unique student and have all the potential in the world. The only thing I ask from you is to act on my potential. I went to visit Kenyon College with an open mind, and I left with a vision, a vision to blaze a new path so that others can follow.”
Although his test scores and GPA won’t boost our averages and his family’s resources won’t boost our endowment, we raised our hands for Dan. </p>
<p>Delahunty has been the dean of admissions and financial at Kenyon College since 2003.</p>