Related article: Top Colleges Should Select Randomly From a Pool of ‘Good Enough’
Related article: Admissions Offices Already Take Risks
Related article: Students Are Individuals, So Admit Them That Way
Related article: Barry Schwartz responds to the deans
Related articles: View all of the articles and commentary from this special supplement on admissions and student aid
Supplement in print: Order print copies of admissions and student aid supplements from April 2004 and February 2005
This opinion article responds to Barry Schwartz’s proposal for college admissions.
Barry Schwartz asserts that admission to the most selective colleges has become a long, sleepless slog that rewards the dutiful over those who take risks. No one, not even a long-time admissions dean, can deny that there is some truth in that. All diligence and no risk do not a student make. True intellectual drive is, in fact, what we seek -- and what faculty members at institutions where I have worked often tell me that we have succeeded in finding.
I agree that there is no substitute for experimentation when seeking to understand the world, and that young people now often feel that they can’t afford to take the risks involved. But that has less to do with the way college admissions is run than with the reward system -- the way grades are handed out and testing dominates -- in most high schools. Schools should be laboratories. But our society has a love of the clear and unambiguous: Do this and you will get an A; collect enough A’s and you will gain admission to a top college. That’s exactly why society is so anxious about the admissions process -- it’s not clear-cut, because it seeks to reward the very qualities that Mr. Schwartz extols.
Many colleges do want the experimenters, but Mr. Schwartz’s proposal is not the best way to get them. In the lottery system he proposes, the majority of students will settle for “good enough,” and only a few will strive for more. Indeed, Mr. Schwartz’s proposal would impede our ability to find those who set out eagerly for the hinterlands. High grades, exceptional scores, and impressive extracurricular activities do not necessarily mean that intellect was left on the sidelines. Often, exceptional credentials do reveal the intellectual engagement we seek. That’s when we cheer and say, “Come this way.”
There will always be “system gamers,” who buy essays, pay others to take their SAT’s, cheat on their finals, file fraudulent applications, and take steps to package their self-presentations so that they will look like the young people they think colleges want them to be. But we shouldn’t structure a system merely to foil those who would manipulate it. Instead we must talk with young people about the ethics of applying to college, of figuring out who they are and who they want to become. Lowering expectations is not the answer.
I’ve been a dean at several selective colleges, and I’ve repeatedly met people who ask me why Johnny or Molly did not get in. Often there is no obvious reason other than the reality of space constraints. Does that prove Mr. Schwartz’s point? I don’t think so. There is always a good reason why Nick or Sarah did get in.
College admissions officers look for a good match. That’s why, at Sarah Lawrence College, we sought students who desired to work closely with professorial mentors in one-to-one tutorials and who were creative and independently motivated; why at Swarthmore College we looked for students who were intellectually driven and would thrive in an academically intense environment; and why at Stanford University we seek bright, engaged students who possess high energy, drive, and a desire to affect the world in positive ways. We shouldn’t send the message to students that any college will do.
Community building also matters. We look to fill the various roles that students need to play in order to keep our community vital: as members of an orchestra or an athletics team, participants in a classics program, math geniuses, and more. Diversity is critical -- from within the United States and, now more than ever, from around the world. Randomness cannot assure all of that. Selection can.
The national preoccupation with admissions at selective colleges and the ubiquitous “advice” proffered nearly daily is enough to drive even the most sane and sanguine parents crazy. I talk with them about that all the time. How can they guide their children to strive and to incorporate an appropriate amount of challenge into their lives, while still leaving necessary room for downtime, play, spontaneity, daydreaming, and plain reflection? And how can they show their children that, when the time comes to apply to college, there is a long and deep list of wonderful institutions, some of which will be eager to have them and are absolutely the right fit? How can they help their children gain a sense -- and an acceptance -- of their own strengths and weaknesses, proclivities and limitations?
The students we select now are worth having. They are bright, fierce, iconoclastic, and sometimes quirky. Reform is needed, but while college admissions may be perceived by many to be a crapshoot, no one gains if we actually turn it into one.
Robin G. Mamlet has just announced her resignation from Stanford University, where she has served as dean of admissions and financial aid.
http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 51, Issue 25, Page B24