Don't Hide All Your Failures on Apps

TheGFG
Sat, 04 Feb 2012 12:07:30 +0000

Angel Perez of VP and Dean of Admission and FA at Pitzer wrote an interesting editorial:

[Education Week: Want to Get Into College? Learn to Fail](Want to Get Into College? Learn to Fail (Opinion))

My favorite quote from the article: "I was stunned and delighted recently when a student sat across from me at a Starbucks in New York City and replied, “I look forward to the possibility of failure.” Of course, this is not how most students respond to the question when sitting before the person who can make decisions about their academic futures, but this young man took a risk.

“You see, my parents have never let me fail,” he said. “When I want to take a chance at something, they remind me it’s not a safe route to take. Taking a more rigorous course or trying an activity I may not succeed in, they tell me, will ruin my chances at college admission. Even the sacrifice of staying up late to do something unrelated to school, they see as a risk to my academic work and college success.”

This dilemma is not a new insight for all of us old-timers on CC, but it’s good to recycle topics now and then as a reminder to ourselves and for new parents. There seems to be a delicate balance between being the high-achieving sort of student who can gain admission to a top school and presenting that successfully on an application, and yet not sacrificing potentially broadening but risky educational and extra-curricular challenges in the process. No doubt all of our kids have had to weigh the merits of investing in an activity they knew would lead to success of some kind, versus doing something they simply want to do for fun or something they realize they probably won’t ever be good at. While it’s great what he says, I’m not sure a resume full of things like “I tried playing tennis for a couple of years and realized I was still almost as inept at the game as when I started, so I quit.” is going to impress any one. Also, are the college application essays about a failure and what the student learned from it old hat now too?