Let Them Eat Sheepskin
Having recently celebrated my 70th birthday and 43rd year of professional practice, it occurred to me that there may be more years of counseling behind me than there are ahead. I therefore feel entitled to pose a question to the admissions departments at highly selective colleges and universities: did your parents take drugs in college?
Because what other conceivable explanation could there be for Please Apply So That We Can Reject You University to expend treasure desperately trying to recruit even more applicants?
I attended a counselor meeting last week with a representative of one of these single-digit institutions. In this instance the single digit was five. A five percent admissions ratio means just what you think it does. Five percent of students are admitted. Ninety-five out of a hundred applicants are rejected. Sit on that number for a paragraph if you will. Nineteen out of 20 applicants receive the “we are sorry to inform you” email for every one kid who receives a congratulatory communication with links to the roommate selection form. And don’t think there’s anything “wrong” with those 19 “rejects”. The “we are sorry to inform you” kids are likely valedictorians, student counsel presidents, first-chair violinists, field hockey captains, kids who speak five languages, or some combination. There’s nothing wrong with any of those students. But there may be something wrong with schools that keep recruiting. There may be something wrong with an institution that already receives tens of thousands of applications for 2500 first-year beds looking to lower that five percent ratio to three percent. Why are representatives of the most highly selective colleges reaching out to counselors, trolling for even more applicants?
They want the best of the best? Oh, please. Their classroom are already overflowing with kids who are better than best. What is the justification for all the recruiting? This kid seems nice enough but his ability on the violin is unimpressive and he only has one Nobel Prize in physics, sorry Albert.
Why is You’re Not Good Enough University giving my colleagues and me fresh squeezed orange juice and a bespoke omelet? Why are they investing in newer and more sophisticated websites and marketing materials? (And why do I keep getting up at oh dark hundred to attend these gathering of counselors?) Maybe the purpose of the counselor meetings is to help my colleagues and me lessen anxiety, dispel misinformation, take some of the mystery out of a process beset by rumor, spin, and half-truths. Maybe the agenda is helping students with the transition process. Nah. If helping students rather than helping Highly Rejective University were the agenda, then why did the representative repeat, “yes, we are test optional, but if your students submit scores make sure their SAT is above a 1510 or their ACT is above a 34. Anything less will harm their chances.”
Anything under a 1510 will hurt the applicant’s chances. Woo. A 1500 for example, a 99th percentile score should NOT be submitted. Because a 1500 is below the average of students’ scores at Give Us Your $75 Application Fee Now Go Away U.
“I got a 1500, I suck” is not “everybody gets a trophy for showing up.” “I got a 1500 and that’s not good enough” is nuts.
Sure, it’s a steep pyramid and not everybody gets to be an NFL starting quarterback, but again, why is Brutally Competitive University soliciting more applicants.
Marie Antoinette didn’t actually say, “let them eat cake” when told that the people of France had no bread. But the insensitivity of the remark survives two and a half centuries later just because it is so outrageously tactless. I wrote recently about some of my favorite schools closing for lack of students and concomitant financial distress—Hampshire, Birmingham Southern, Goddard, Wells, Mills. Is the analogy of a small handful of obese folks at a banquet while hundreds of emaciated folks look on seem farfetched?
Not that there’s anything wrong with the education at You’re Rejected And The Horse You Rode In On University. I have visited all these institutions over the decades and have been favorably impressed with the landscaping. I just wonder if it’s a case of “the rich get richer and the poor matriculate at Hugga Mugga Community College.
As a profession we must do a better job of helping students understand that it’s not where you go but who you are. The list of highly successful, self-actualized, amazing folks who didn’t attend Five Percent U is as long as the line for omelets at the counselor meetings where we are enjoined to encourage students to apply there.
