“Turning the Tide” sagely reflects on what’s wrong with admissions and rightly calls for a revolution, including specific suggestions. It could make a real difference not just because it has widespread backing but also because it nails the way in which society in general — and children in particular — are badly served by the status quo"
“Colleges spend a huge sum each year sending signals that influence the behavior of millions of students,” the report notes. Why not rethink those signals to reshape that behavior?
The report recommends less emphasis on standardized test scores, which largely correlate with family income.
It asks colleges to send a clear message that admissions officers won’t be impressed by more than a few Advanced Placement courses. Poorer high schools aren’t as likely to offer A.P. courses, and a heavy load of them is often cited as a culprit in sleep deprivation, anxiety and depression among students at richer schools."
“They’re realizing that many kids admitted into top schools are emotional wrecks or slavish adherents to soulless scripts that forbid the exploration of genuine passions. And they’re acknowledging the extent to which the admissions process has contributed to this.”
Finally! TOP Colleges are recognizing the emotional damage that has been [overtly or covertly] caused by their admissions policies.
Lets hope that all colleges work to end this warped “rat race” mentality that has damaged so many young people. Students need to know that College is [and should be considered to be] ONLY a transition, a stage in one’s life, NOT their most important achievement.
NO one has the name of the college they attended carved on their tombstone.
The colleges that have the greatest number of applicants per admissions spot still need to figure out ways to distinguish between the masses of academically well qualified applicants that greatly outnumber the admissions spots. The applicants in such competition will still be looking for ways to stand out from such a crowd, and wealthy families will be able to give their kids more advantages in trying to make achievements that will stand out.
So the criteria might change a bit, but the rat race will continue.
It seems to me the Deans of admissions at the most selective universities like Harvard, Yale and MIT have been trying hard to convey the message that it’s not about racking up the most AP classes, the most clubs, the most community service hours and repetitive testing toward perfect standardized test scores. Part of he problem seems to be that applicants and their families just aren’t listening to the message. How do you change that?
I’m a fan of AP courses. It allows you to get college credit and frees up your schedule at college to take things you are interested in or allows you to graduate early and save some money. More importantly there is a huge difference in what you learn. My DDs have only taken nonAP if their schedule requires it and it is inefficient use of time. They only seem to scrape the surface, they do not critically think about the subject and they are going to see it again at the university. Also, they are not overly burdened or depressed. I think AP prepares them for the rigor of college.
I do like the fact that they are going to give work more importance in the process. I admire kids that work and previously it seemed to hurt their chances because it reduces time available for community service and ECs. It gives kids a taste of reality and responsibility.
As far as making test scores optional, I think that just makes the whole process even less transparent than today. GPAs cannot be compared as well as class ranking. Both are highly influenced by the school you go to. The only tests that compare you equally are SAT/ACT and AP tests. If those measures are removed, it is a totally subjective decision which will probably be based on athletic prowess, legacy, and potential future wealth to the university.
To get more representation from varied backgrounds maybe they should do the opposite. In Texas, if you are in the top 10% of your class, you have an automatic acceptance to the public universities. It is not an arbitrary decision, it is based on your effort within your school. It does achieve racial and economic diversity at the public universities.
Anyone want to wager how much these schools’ average SAT drops in the next few years? What percentage of students graduating outside of the top 10 percent of their high school class goes up? References to “Take the most rigorous curriculum available to you” stop being made?
By listening to your kid instead of a glossy brochure. That’s a start.
Also, the message now seems to be “create a strong, good person capable of succeeding and send them to us” (a very good message), but how people achieve that isn’t something you’ll find on a rubric, and some parents really stink at it!
As soon as anyone sees a link to the actual report, please share. I would like to see the report.
The WSJ seems to emphasize “meaningful community service” which I think is something that we don’t talk about much - the hours of free service the schools require in the name of community service which also disadvantages poor kids. Some of the hours I see in some threads are a bit over the top. How you judge meaningfulness?
The article refers to new suggestions that will be made on admittance criteria. I’ll need to see those to make any judgement. I’m not impressed by saying only what is wrong with today’s process. I need specifics on how it should work. In the end there will still be too many strong candidates (regardless of criteria) for too little slots at the most desired universities.
As long as the top 30 unis and top 30 LACs are seen by 150,000 or more seniors as their best higher-ed option “for success” (which persuasive inputs will continue to suggest), the competition for the far less numerous available seats will drive this process. Managing the admissions process for sanity is more the province of the student families and their high schools, imho, though collegiate messaging about numbers of APs and extra curriculars is important. And I think that the overall messaging is mixed, both in its sincerity and its reliability. Do these highly selective schools truly think they are “broken”? No, they are comfortable with their institutional objectives and reputations, meaning that athletes, full-pays and legacies are always going to be “balanced” in the hidden agenda with various diversities and academic merit. The process for admissions may get tweaked, but the competition is here to stay, grossly intensified in recent decades by the new technologies utilized by every constituent member.
While I can definitely agree that the growing obsession with prestige/rankings vs. fit/value in higher education has been harmful, I’m not so sure we’re going to see the landscape change too quickly. It’s kind of sad to see the ways college is branded and marketed like beer or blue jeans and has been turned into just another status marker for a lot of people. It winds up putting a lot of kids under a lot of needless stress and pressure.
What is clear is we have a supply/demand problem…with demand for slots at the most prestigious schools far outstripping supply. When that happens you need to either a) increase supply, b) decrease demand, c) both a & b or d) effectively live with what we have now.
Increasing supply is difficult. It can be done but getting large institutions to do this without sacrificing what it is they or outsiders think is special about their school tends to make this a slow process if it is tried at all.
There are a few things that have increased the applicant demand that the college admissions staffs are choking on that could be rather easily changed by schools to curb demand. Raise tuition (oh wait, they are already doing that @-) ) Get rid of the common application, which makes it easy to apply to multiple schools (make kids type each application and essay like I did and I’ll guarantee you the number of applications will go down). Eliminate/greatly reduce the number of application fee waivers or no cost admissions applications.
One thing my college and B-School job placement offices did to control demand in an environment of fixed supply (fixed number of on campus interviews) was to give everyone a fixed budget of points that you used to bid on interview slots. Could groups of schools band together and use some sort of online clearing house to manage a finite number of application slots thereby taking care of the over subscription problem AND provide the signaling the admissions offices are looking for?
I am totally on board with getting rid of the common application-it should really be a chore to apply to a college-you have to really, really want it and be able to jump through all the hoops vs. “aw why not add that college it’s just a button to click”.
I wonder how long it’ll take before we see “meaningful community service advisors” offer to curate a portfolio that conveys meaning like no other. No matter what your metric, there’ll be students and parents who make gaming the system to gain a top 20 acceptance their goal in life.
I posit that no single measure could reduce stress more than an end to the various promotional efforts that seek to put downwards pressure on acceptance rates. Given the self-interested mindset of admissions offices, this would almost certainly require US News, the Princeton Review, etc. to stop using acceptance % in determining a college’s ranking.*
*And why not? I doubt UC Berkeley’s acceptance rate is 18% and Alice Lloyd College’s is 7% because ALC is superior to Berkeley. Likewise, the College of the Ozarks may have an 8% rate, but most students wouldn’t choose it over Berkeley or Cornell (14%).
It would help immensely if these colleges stopped encouraging patently unqualified students to apply - and, better yet, emulated UK universities in stating publicly “we typically look for students with a GPA above (GPA) and SAT/ACT scores in excess of (scores).” That transparency allows students to know at a glance whether a school is a safety, match, reach, or pipe dream. Right now, it’s in a university’s interest to invite kids with a 1400 on the SAT to apply even if the 25th percentile for admitted students is 2100, because lower acceptance rates lead to higher rankings.
I estimate the “true” acceptance rate (acceptance % with all patently unqualified applicants excluded) at elite universities is somewhere between 1.5x and 3x the overall rate. If rates rose to, say, 20% at your average top 20 school, students wouldn’t need to send out 15 applications to ensure they get in somewhere “good enough” (which many people take to mean top 10, or top 20 if you’re a lesser human being). That would reduce the overall number of applications, which in turn would increase acceptance rates further and eliminate a lot of the stress surrounding college admissions.
I would say, Hunt, that just as many non-Asian students that get into super elites fit that profile. But I also think it is quite an exaggeration to say that “many” of the kids admitted to these schools are emotional wrecks.
You make very good points - I think colleges would need to take some concrete, transparent steps to provide evidence of changes in approach - beyond not accepting some students with perfect scores, huge numbers of ECs and APs. I will try to get the Harvard report & we can learn what the Admissions Directors “commit to” if anything. Of course more cottage industries will pop up to try to maximize potential to show how students perfectly match the “balance” colleges are looking for.
