"Admissions Revolution"

Parents Forum
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<p>Insidehighered article draws attention to a gathering slated for tomorrow to be held in NYC, that will bring together representatives from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Spencer Foundation and private colleges, to discuss the “failure” and “pathological situation” currently reigning in the competitive admissions process. According to this article, no formal manifesto is expected to be drawn up, but an effort will be made to establish a type of ethical road map to work out what colleges should do and how they should work together to “step back from the competition”.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/14/admit[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/14/admit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>“As the admissions process has become more focused on prestige, statistics, and money … students have lost faith, and education has taken a back seat.” Lloyed Thacker of the Education Conservancy : Is there another way in?</p>

<p>The conference, “College Admission in the Public Interest” will be held on June 15 and June 16 in NYC.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/30/another_way_in?pg=2[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/30/another_way_in?pg=2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091300618.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/13/AR2005091300618.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Yannow, one thing they could do is just quit taking multiple test scores. If they took the first sitting and just used that it would discourage all the gaming. There was a kid at the HS the last year of the old SAT with “perfect SATs”–they were perfect because he had sat for the test 11 times, and he never actually got a 1600 in one sitting. He got an 800 in one round and an 800 on the other test in another and got a lot of accolades for having a perfect score. </p>

<p>If I were an adcom, I’d consider 1400 on the first test far more impressive than a higher score that took 11 attempts!</p>

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<p>Mombot, if nothing else, the hs student you mention deserves some kind of prize for stubbornness! One would hope that any accolades or elite admissions he received were the result of his entire application package rather than SAT scores. I think most people, including ad coms, re not overly impressed by students who are totally stat driven and obsess too much in search of the holy grail “1600”/“2400” perfect score. Although there is no rule about just how many times a student should or ought to repeat the SAT, the general recommendation of two to three times doesn’t seem to be out of line. By the third or fourth try, most students get diminishing returns for their efforts in any case. I am not sure just how important this particular issue is in terms of the total admissions imbroglio.</p>

<p>It will be interesting to see if the colleges scheduled to participate in the gathering, such as Swarthmore, Williams, Reed, Grinnell, and Barnard come out with some kind of common statement or tacit agreement that will affect the application process in terms of the colleges’ approach to enrollment- in particular, early decision, financial aid leverage, and ranking boasting.</p>

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<p>There are many things colleges could do to bring some sense of sanity back into the admissions process. Re standardized testing simply to average the composite test scores of multiple SAT/ACT test takers ve picking and choosing the best component scores among multiple test sittings.</p>

<p>Re EC, to have students decide to list and elaborate about 3 or 4 of their most significant EC’s. This would prevent student from participating in an endless parade of clubs, teams, and competitions for the soul purpose of resume building. Students who relish oodles of activities could of course do so, they would just not show up on the admissions alpplications.</p>

<p>A more nuanced evaluation of the hs academic program. Why should it be expected that a promising math scholar should also feel the necessity of filling the hs schedule with countless numbers of AP/honors foreign language, literature and history courses. Shouldnt courses in electricity/electrical circuitry or comp sci be just as intriguing to an adcom? For a potential history major, shouldn’t classes in performing arts and media arts be just as intriguing as AP Chem or Calc BC? I doubt that an Einstein would be a viable candidate for admission to HYP in todays admissions environment.</p>

<p>There is much that college adcoms COULD do to ratchet down the pressure HS students feel in order to compete in the hyper admissions environment. The do lots of breast beating but are unwilling to do anything about it whatsoever.</p>

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<p>I don’t think you can solve any problems by changing the way that colleges evaluate test scores.</p>

<p>If you tell kids that they can only take the SAT once, there will be endless discussions of when the best time is to take it and huge profits for companies that offer opportunities for kids to take practice SATs.</p>

<p>If you insist on using the highest composite score only, you actually increase the stress for some kids. Consider, for example, a student who received scores in the high 700s on the SAT critical reading and writing but a score of 600 in math. With the current system, the student can review math for a few months and take the SAT a second time, knowing that he can only improve (his reading and writing scores are not at risk). With the highest-composite-only system, the student would have to agonize over whether to risk his high reading and writing scores in the hope of bringing up his math score.</p>

<p>Originaloog has a very good point about evaluation of high school curricula. It’s gotten to the point where some kids are afraid to take anything that isn’t AP.</p>

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<p>great post, originaloog! You are right that there is so much that can be done to help put the emphasis back on both sanity and education. I am intrigued by this gathering because maybe this time something will come out of all this “breast beating” as you so aptly put it - particularly because such prestigious and influential organizations - that don’t just talk the talk but walk the walk - like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation are involved.</p>

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<p>Originaloog:</p>

<p>Good post. I believe most of the highly selective colleges do at least some of the things you mention, eg. look at the courses taken rather than the overall GPA.</p>

<p>The biggest problem is with the colleges that receive very large numbers of applications (state universities, for example) and thus cannot scrutinize individual applications as carefully in the short time they have. </p>

<p>I agree that there should be a limit to the number of times standardized tests are taken. It need not be one. It could be 2 or even 3, and take the single best sitting. This would dispose of issues surrounding the single test (student not at his or her best, test-taking situation not optimal, etc…).</p>

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<p>Extremely important point, Marite. There is a very real obligation on the part of parents and students to make careful and thoughtful choices throughout the application process in order to craft applications on their own and in their own best interests - not in terms of prestige but in terms of education and fit. In Thacker’s words: “Students need to understand they are doing precision guesswork…the end result should be that you are excited about where you land freshman year.”</p>

<p>The following article gives basic, common sense advice as well as a good overview of Lloyd Thacker’s views on how to survive and succeed in the college admissions process:</p>

<p><a href=“http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/26/pf/college/choice/index.htm[/url]”>http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/26/pf/college/choice/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Good question, although I am tempted to rephrase the title of this article to read what doesn’t drive parents crazy about the college application process – it is surprising to note that “Not a single parent said that he or she was angry at “the whole system”, complex, demanding and full or pressure as it is.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/04/03/franck[/url]”>http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/04/03/franck&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Of all Thacker’s advice for students, I most agree with the suggestion to take a year off before applying for college. If I could wave a wand, I would create a universal gap year, or a service year for pay, or something like that for all high school students before they launch themselves into the college search. It’s kind of ridiculous when you think of all that juniors have to do – the ECs, the fact that junior year grades are most important – that they also have to wade through reams of info about this or that college and try to balance their desires between the dream school-reach and the realistic match and the lovable safety. They have to try to cram in visits to numerous reach-match-safety possibilities in short periods of time between junior and senior year. Some kids may have fully formed ideas about what they want to study and where they want to go, but really, so many don’t; but that deadline looms and I think emotion-laden, ill-informed decisions are often made.</p>

<p>Wouldn’t it be great if Andison’s story (see the “no acceptances”) thread made its way into a cover story for the NYT Sunday magazine? Buoyed by the results of that gap year, more students would take them and take the pressure off themselves and many of their classmates for a year. Maybe soon, the adcoms will say in their decision meetings: Has either of them taken a gap year? Thereby fueling the trend. </p>

<p>Some of my feelings about this is that I have a “young” senior who won’t turn 18 until the end of September his freshman year of college. I would have liked to see him get another year of growth and maturity under his belt (particularly hearing about some of the alcohol-fueled excesses at some colleges.) But wouldn’t many students benefit from a year to wind down from the hypercompetitiveness of their high school years? They could work, see some of the world outside their own lives, and maybe have an inspiration about what they want to study and where they want to spend the next four years. Many would still choose to apply to the most selective schools, but certainly some would probably find that less important to them than it once was, and that would help to reduce the current frenzy in the competitive admissions process. </p>

<p>There are, as someone on another thread commented recently, “several dissertations” in the articles cited by the OP. </p>

<p>For the rest of Thacker’s agenda, I’m not sure I understand what he is truly trying to accomplish. Presumably, the craziness currently swirling around college applications will ease off in a few years as the demographic bulge moves through the python. So is he really only concerned about making the process more sane? It would appear that his goal is more to make the process more fair to the low and low-middle income family and student. Many of his other suggestions – to minimize the SAT scores, to do away with ED, to discourage private counseling and consulting, to rejigger merit aid – seemed aimed mainly at giving the low-income student a better shot in the “competitive college admissions” arena and boosting their chances of being admitted to colleges that have the money to provide full rides. Maybe I’m reading too much into his suggestions for change.</p>

<p>It’s interesting how the higher education article about the college convocation touches on this more, focusing on the “values” and “ethics” of college admissions. But the mainstream media pieces focus more on the craziness and “frenzy” of the competitive process, more of what affluent parents would identify with. I suspect that a lot of well-to-do parents may not be too enthusiastic about a “revolution” in college admission policies that essentially makes slots scarcer at the most selective colleges for their kids.</p>

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<p>Jazzymom, I enjoyed reading your post and I hope Andi read it!</p>

<p>Your point about agenda’s is right on the money - there are and always will be open or hidden agendas in any program. In this case, it is important to remember that the President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, William Bowen, former president of Princeton University, is quite outspoken about his dedication to bring “equity and excellence” (the title of his book) back into the American educational system by giving lower income and disadvantaged students a better shot at selective colleges. Basically, he views college admission not as a reward for past achievement but as a bet on future perfermance in the sense of “making an investment in human capital”. The Mellon Foundation is generous, even lavish, when it comes to backing promising “human capital”.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.mellon.org/Staff/Bowen/Content.htm[/url]”>http://www.mellon.org/Staff/Bowen/Content.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.mellon.org/publications/EquityandExcellence/Content.htm[/url”>http://www.mellon.org/publications/EquityandExcellence/Content.htm[/url</a></p>

<p><a href=“http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/bowen.html”>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/bowen.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>As I read all the linked articles with interest (I have not read Thacker’s book but would love to do so), I gather that one of his primary goals is to refocus the world of the high school aged kid. What resonated with me was the idea of trying to encourage an emphasis at that stage upon learning and experience for their own sake, and NOT with the single-minded, stress-filled goal of some how, some day getting into a specific college…</p>

<p>I wish my kid could have experienced more of her high school days with that mind-set! Actually, she was pretty fortunate in that regard compared to many I read about on these boards…</p>

<p>I hope this meeting generates some widely regarded discourse…</p>

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<p>The pbs interview with William G. Bowen on affirmative action, the SAT, and the information gap between students’ obsession with test scores and how the admission process works from the perspective of colleges is worth looking at in the context of any developments that might or might not come out of the NYC meeting of the minds. Since it didn’t come out as a link in my previous post I am re-posting it.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/bowen.html[/url]”>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/interviews/bowen.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>jazzymom, I also welcome your post. Several of us longer-time CC’ers have wholeheartedly endorsed gap years as a standard recommended choice for the h.s.graduate. (Andison’s experience reinforced our endorsement of that, but was not the only inspiration; his was, however, an archetypal model!) College admissions aside, such a yr. provides the reflection & “humanity” that is often too lacking in the previous frenzied 4 yrs.</p>

<p>churchmusicmom, I also do not disagree with your sentiments. I want to add, something, though, about how we got to where we are. In addition to the echo-boomers (numbers) factor, there were factors that I believe contributed to the competitive resumes of college applicants. They were (a) economics, and (b) crime. </p>

<p>(a)About the time that baby-boomers started having those babies, dual career couples (parents) with education in excess desired to provide enriching experiences (i.e., organized) for their children, that combined childcare with activity. Some of that activity provided long-term opportunities for achievement (performing arts, gifted/talented programs, science camps, computer camps) – more so than in their parents’ day. That provided a later “supply” which in turn fed (or became) a “demand.”
(b) off-the-street kidnapping became something approaching an epidemic (at least in the minds of concerned parents) at about the time boomers started having babies. That also severely limited the unstructured opportunities that were common in their parents’ day. So once again, more organized activity (safer), leading to more resume-building. “In my day,” kids just “hung out” more in summers, weekends, after school. We weren’t being lazy; it was enriching.</p>

<p>I’m not suggesting that (a) and (b) are wholly responsible. I just think they had a significant impact on eventual applicant quality (aside from grades). Like churchmusicmom, I value a return to sanity & experience for experience’s sake.</p>

<p>I don’t agree with everything that Education Conservancy seems to stand for, except for the “Education” part, when it comes to ranking. I.m.o. there is almost no need for the upper-tiers to market themselves. People in undeveloped countries have heard of HYP without receiving a single mailer. And for those colleges that seem to believe they need to market themselves (to compete with HYPSM), we parents, counselors, educators need to counter-campaign against rank as a reason to choose a college. It’s a phony standard. Today’s #6 can be tomorrow’s #7. Who cares? (Not most employers, & hopefully not your prospective spouse, either.)</p>

<p>I don’t know. This was not well written. I’m in a hurry this morning. I do not think, though, it’s realistic to assume that colleges can just do away with everything that Thacker wants to dismiss. He wishes they were less businesses, more academia. I don’t think colleges buy that as much as he does.</p>

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<p>epiphany, also along with the baby boomers came the concept of “quality time”, the frenzy to get on the proper wait-lists for prestige pre-kindergarten programs (some lists starting pre-birth), and the perennial image of the harried soccer mom having to be in twenty places at the same time to get their off-spring off to the “right start” . Signs of the times, that also took place at a time when the phrase “latch-key” kids came into its own, all of which make too many parents view unstructured activities less desirable or untenable. In many ways, this is just one more facet of the never-ending rat-race. Funny thing, outside of the U.S. people usually do not ask acquaintances “what do you do” or “what are you doing” by way of introduction - in contrast these are pervasive, image making or breaking questions in the States. </p>

<p>I recently attended a graduation ceremony at which one of the keynote speakers drew extensively upon the “world is flat” metaphor to prompt the members of the graduating class to ask different questions into order to seek different answers in response to the world’s complex challenges. I have always found this to be true - the answers we receive largely depend on the questions we ask in almost all disciplines aa well as in daily life. When I applied to college way back when, the basic question was addressed to the college by the student in terms of “why should I pick you” while now the underlying assumption and question is made by the colleges “why should we pick you”. The prickly nature of the admissions process certainly reflects this turn around in the economics of higher education. Education is a business and good education is good business - William G. Bowen’s position on this point is clear and investment in education (human capital) is good business. The fascinating part of what ever changes take place in the admissions process -whether it can or should called a “revolution” or not notwithstanding - if nothing else, certainly will keep an emphasis on the colleges control over whom they chose and why - to build a class, to invest in the future, to enhance diversity (in all its nuanced meanings); all of these factors come into play.</p>

<p>All the same, education on all levels is good business because, after all, these days the “world is flat”.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060608/OPINION01/606080772/1202/NEWS12[/url]”>http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060608/OPINION01/606080772/1202/NEWS12&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>It’s interesting to watch one man try to change the world, or at least one aspect of it, which is what Thacker is attempting. </p>

<p>You might have called this thread “affirmative action for the lower-income” and it would have prompted endless debate, no doubt. Take race out of the picture and you can push for policies that will help URM without being called a racist; you can help poor whites climb out of the underclass as well. It’s also smart of Thacker to carefully distinguish his goals for the audience he’s addressing. To the college deans and admissions officers, it’s clear that he is pushing for a revolution – a radical change in how colleges evaluate, select, and reward the applicants. To the magazines that write for well-educated, generally affluent readers, he stresses the need to ease the pressure on high-achieving, ambitious students and bring sanity back to the admissions process. </p>

<pre><code>What I find fascinating is the fact that to further Thacker’s agenda, you would have to change the whole psychology of the college search process for the upper-middle class and wealthy student. How do you get them to basically NOT want what they currently want — prestige and the highest quality education one can find on the planet today. You can try to persuade people that the prize of admission to a particular college isn’t worth the frenzy and stress, but that hasn’t worked for years. There’s not much you can do to close the Pandora’s box and take away the power of the rankings. You can’t alter the impact of the siren call to the world of the HYP, etc.

Since you can’t do much to change the desire of American parents – or parents worldwide for that matter – to strive for the very best for their kids, about the only thing you can do is reduce the advantage of those who have the money and smarts to put themselves at the front of the line for admission. Now, you’re not going to be able to just persuade those who can afford it to stop giving their children every advantage from private schools to personal counseling to one-on-one SAT prep. So how do you neutralize those advantages? Take away the SAT and you eliminate the costly prep advantage. Take away weighted grades and you eliminate the advantage of schools with lots of APs. Take away ED and you eliminate the advantage of those with savvy and lack of need. Make it seem unseemly or vaguely unethical to hire private college counselors and you will reduce that advantage. Now, you can’t stop people from sending their kids to the best private schools if they can afford it, but you can soften that advantage by basically making the colleges themselves desire those students in lesser numbers. Well, not just the private prep school students, but affluent students in general, private or publicly schooled. The goal of admitting significantly more low- and middle- income students into highly selective colleges – as laudable as that may be in the abstract – obviously means fewer slots for those at the upper income level and so Thacker’s agenda actually is not going to reduce stress and panic among most of the students and families who haunt the boards of CC asking about “chances.” It’s going to make it even more of a crapshoot, except for the “clear admit” genius types.

Maybe this is a fair debate for our society to have.

Affluent, bright, well-prepared, well educated young people will thrive at many colleges, even the so-called “lesser” ones, not just the Ivy, the top 25, the top LACs that are the main goal and cause of so much insane pressure. Open up more spots at the best universities and colleges for the poor and lower middle class student and give them money to finish their degrees and go back and be models in their communities. Affirmative action for the poor on a much larger scale. It’s an interesting idea. You just have to persuade an awful lot of other people not to want what they currently want.
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<p>“Open up more spots at the best universities and colleges for the poor and lower middle class student and give them money to finish their degrees and go back and be models in their communities.”</p>

<p>Jazzymom, I hate to be beating the same drum over & over (particularly on another thread I’m on), but your above statement has been the operative belief for quite some time (a good 35 years). Unfortunately, the expectations have not played out. (1) Students educated beyond their former environments overall lack the desire to “go back,” even as occasional role models (often). Some do, but not in sufficient numbers to make a difference. You will find the occasional Latino or A-Am’n who will do so, often trying to make a difference on the educational and/or employment scenes, taking the leadership in new mentoring projects, college bridge efforts, etc. in their former communities. They have produced small ripples among those communities lucky to have them, & for families ambitious enough to seize those opportunities. </p>

<p>(2) For those minority leaders who have “returned” in some form of commitment, the home situation has nevertheless too often overridden those laudable efforts. Example, quite close to me: only a few months ago I lost a student (actually him and his younger brother) that I yearned to help. The Mom, single A-Am’n parent, divorced, in poverty, but with all the right priorities in her sights, was struggling to make ends meet holding down a part-time job & part-time schooling. Boys poorly educated, previously, but with goals. Beautiful boys, not slackers. Older boy wanted to become a lawyer, & in fact to go to law school at a very prestigious private law school. Though father absent, he had a mentor – a young man who had himself finished at that same law school. Said mentor was a leader in some Big Brother type of community program that caring mother had put son in.</p>

<p>Mom had put sons in our charter school, but her own lack of education, combined with lack of time (due to finances), and the lack of educational resources in the home environment (books, computer), lack of basics like a car which will allow more mobility to educ. resources & more stimulation – these all resulted in the family leaving our program precipitously. I was heartbroken, but it’s out of my control, & out of the mentor’s control. Our school cannot even locate this family right now (to follow up). The Mom was educationally & financially overwhelmed.</p>

<p>I had another family - even worse situation. Mother wanted to reverse her own educ. history (14-yr-old pregnant dropout), but at the moment she is on a path to repeat it. Again, lovely young daughters about 3 yrs below grade level already. Older one on the edge of middle school and on a path to failure without heavy intervention. Mother couldn’t even read our simple contract well enough to understand it. (No legalese.) </p>

<p>I.m.o., situations like the two above will continue to self-perpetuate from generation to generation unless the crisis of adult education/literacy is addressed simultaneously with early (& middle) intervention, in addition to adult minority mentoring. I’d like to see a public service campaign to that effect, not dissimilar to the STD one of yrs ago: “Stop the gift that keeps on giving.” Literacy is functional literacy, not basic reading. The young woman in the latter example had a severe reading <em>comprehension</em> deficit; the document might as well have been Greek or Russian to her.</p>

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<p>Not to mention universal comprehensive sex education starting before puberty, complete with confidential birth control counseling. But I’m not expecting to see that in this lifetime.</p>

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<p>The social engineering aspect of what Thacker is advocating is not something I’m embracing myself; I just think it’s an interesting debate and I’d like to hear more pros and cons and mull it all over. I doubt the minds behind the convocation mentioned by the OP are interested in merely giving a leg up to individual students – a few here, a few there – without trying to encourage some kind of long-term ripple effect through the high schools and communities where those new admittees would be coming from. The “if he/she could do it, maybe I could do it too” kind of impact. </p>

<p>Your experience is certainly a key point in the debate. </p>

<p>The difficulty of outreach programs and charter schools to make much dent in boosting education levels and preparing large numbers of poor kids for college may well be something the convocation of college deans should be considering as they ponder making competitive admissions more “ethical” and fair. It wasn’t my impression reading the articles that they were too concerned with how low-to middle-class students managed to move up through the educational system to arrive at the point where they are applying to colleges like Amherst or Williams, etc. The point of the meeting seemed to be solely to discuss ways to mitigate the advantage of the greater wealth of some students so that the less affluent students who did make it as far as applying would have a better shot at getting in. And also to pose a question to the officials attending about whether it is ethical, right, and just to extend merit aid to students who can afford to attend college without it while there are less affluent students who, without the full- or near-full ride, will not be able to attend. Perhaps that also was a topic discussed at length on a previous CC thread but well, sometimes these discussions do start repeating the same arguments (ie. any SAT topic thread.)</p>

<pre><code>Also, why do Thacker and the deans who were at that meeting (the first of the OP’s articles) feel that the mission needs to be targeted at the most competitive, most selective colleges? If the goal is simply to get more indigent students to be able to attend college despite inability to pay, why does that necessarily mean creating an admissions “revolution” at some of the most highly sought after universities in the world?
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