“They, not us parents, are responsible for the madness occurring across the country, at least among communities with a lot of professionals. These elite schools need to state unequivocally that they use eGPA and iEC to filter their applicants, and tell HS students that participating in the “arms race” reduces their chance at getting into the elite schools”
No. It’s the parents who idolize and idealize these schools who are the problem. The people who are dumb enough to believe there are no opportunities and you’ll be flipping burgers if you don’t attend an Ivy.
These schools make it abundantly clear they don’t reward the rat race of scores and the proof of this is the innumerable threads around March where all kinds of pouty-failure parents just “know” their kid’s rightful spot at a Elite U was “stolen” by the kid across town who had lower scores, grades, fewer ECs, etc. (Let’s even leave aside how nosy you have to be to know / memorize the accomplishments and scores of a kid not your own). The colleges aren’t the problem. The parents are. The colleges are much more likely to say “hey don’t worry kids, if you dont get in here you’ll go to some other great place and do great things and it’s all good.” It’s the parents who perpetuate the rat race because they are desperate and cling to a handful of schools.
Seems some want to try an end run to get schools who craft a class to use a formulaic process, which is the opposite of what those schools want. Now schools should weight these scores or EC’s? Not liking that idea.
Not thinking smaller private schools want to do the above, like the UCs. The UCs used to use a point system. Do they still? Thought I saw a recent link to it but I cant find it.
I’m a presenter and recruiter for one of these schools that admit holistically that you cite, OP. And I present in districts with lots of professionals and high concentrations of families who are chasing top schools. I simply differ from your opinion 180 degrees.
The eGPA wouldn’t discriminate against students like my daughter who have dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia? How is timing how long it takes her to learn something compared to neurotypical students not discriminatory?
How on earth are you going to quantify interest? How are you going to know who stays up late?
I absolutely believe students should do ECs they love and take courses they want to. I opted out of the rat race by my senior year and dramatically reduced the number of AP classes I took in favor of ones that interested me more (including an independent study in Mesoamerican art and culture under an English teacher- no idea how that one got approved!)
However, the system being proposed is ridiculous because there is no way to rate interest and why people are up studying late might differ (see austin’s post). I’ll add another- I was often up late studying because health issues made it hard to study for any length of time for a variety of reasons.
I started an animal rights club in high school. How am I going to prove my interest in that? The fact that I’ve been a vegetarian since I was in my early teens?
I blew out my knee and stopped playing sports by freshmen year and fell into theater (which I loved). How am I going to prove that I was passionate about that? Tout it as being genetic because I have several family members in the entertainment industry?
Right, because no one could possibly feign an interest in a topic.
Anyway, why does something have to be a passion? Can’t someone work on the school newspaper or audition for the school play or play varsity tennis because they find it fun / enjoyable, even if they aren’t passionately desiring with every fiber of their being to become the next Peter Jennings or Meryl Streep or Serena Williams? What difference does it make?
I think the OP’s idea is brilliant! And in a similar vein we can give the Olympic 100m dash gold to the fastest guy who never trained and the Nobel Prize in literature to the person whose work required no editing. And the 2400 on first sitting of SAT after staying out all night drinking is better than the 2400 that was prepared for or achieved on the second try. Yes, I agree OP. We should stop rewarding initiative, hard work and ambition.
To add to @doubtful 's point, the OP shows a definite fixed mindset. If you’re not familiar with fixed vs. growth mindset psychology, look up the work of Carol Dweck. Courtesy of Wikipedia:
I wish more CCers would embrace the growth mindset. There is a disturbing tendency on these fora towards the belief that because some kids are smarter than others, they deserve more than the ones who have worked hard to get better. This doesn’t usually hold up when the smart students get their first really tough prof and crash and burn because they don’t have great study habits.
“They, not us parents, are responsible for the madness occurring across the country…”
The elites don’t reach down into the high schools and tell kids they have to do this or that and be miserable. (Or that they have to apply.) What they do is state their standards. The choice to play the game is up to the individuals. Face it.
OP is asking for a lowering of those standards and then what? A lottery among all the happy little children who skipped the challenges because they were too hard, required some effort, or weren’t their passions? Who never learned to push themselves and develop resilience? What kind of education is that? And when life doesn’t reward them for pursuing fancy, then what?
It’s rather claiming the Olympics “made” your kid practice a sport for umpteen hours a day, “made” you hire trainers and coaches, “made” you schlep your kid all over the country for competition. Nope. Parents make those choices.
@doubtful, look at our kids or ourselves: those who do what they enjoy and love show initiative, hard work and ambition, to a higher degree, and happily.
@lookingforward, they need to do a better job, and don’t mislead the kids and their parents. It’s not the GPA, test scores, and fancy ECs that get a student into an elite school, it’s her eGPA, eTestScores, and iECs. On the e.i. scale, many otherwise top students at Palo Alto and WWP would fail to stand out.
How can the elite schools do better? On their elite “Common App”, CAAS (http://www.coalitionforcollegeaccess.org/), ask applicants to document their average hours of sleep a night and average minutes of exercise a day. This could be done 3 times a year starting 9th grade, document in details their day yesterday, at a 30-minute increments, with the date picked by CAAS at random. There would be no more pressure in the fall of senior year.
So what’s the ambitious student/helicopter parent/college admissions coach to do? Figure out what’s rewarded in your analysis and list them or become them.
Not
one
bit
of
difference
than the “broken” system you’re trying to patch. Like I said before – do colleges bemoan the fact that they’re bringing in poor students? You have an answer but nobody is asking questions.
Even if people could/would do that, and do it truthfully, what useful information does that give colleges? Some people need 6 hours of sleep a night while others need 10 or more. Adcoms have no way of knowing which is which, so they’d never know if a kid isn’t sleeping much because they’re up cramming, because they just don’t need that much sleep, or because they’re up late working to help support their family.
Having students document their day in 30 minute increments, even if they remembered (and would admit) everything they did, isn’t realistic. Do you imagine that hyper competitive people are going to put down the “previous” day or their “best” day? And what does how much they exercise have to do with college readiness? Who would handle all this paperwork and keep files on every high school student for all of high school, and who would pay for it?
"This could be done 3 times a year starting 9th grade, document in details their day yesterday, at a 30-minute increments, with the date picked by CAAS at random. There would be no more pressure in the fall of senior year. "
=))
Oh for God’s sake!! And who is going to check to see that what is reported is actually accurate?
Or do you suggest that all college applicants be required to install video cameras in their bedrooms and wear a go pro like camera all day like the cops? and then transmit the videos to some nebulous Big Brother College Admissions Verification Agency??
Oh oh oh I have major depression and was an athlete. Exercise and sleep I did in spades in high school. Do I win the iEC or eGPA prize if the days are picked when I was having a depressive episode and was engaged in a sport? 8-|
You are out of your mind if you think that this is viable or means jack.
Honestly, these suggestions are bordering on creepy. You’re making it way more formulaic than the current system.