Crazy U

Andrew Ferguson’s Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College might be our best hope for reframing the college admissions process.  Not changing it - that’s unlikely given the market forces and administrative intransigence Ferguson reveals.  But reframing is possible – examining the assumptions and overblown claims that cause hysteria and lead us to forget that the whole endeavor is really about kids – sweaty, distracted and lovable kids.  Ferguson accomplishes this thanks to his son, the applicant who graciously allows his father to write about him (such generosity alone should be rewarded with admission!).  The author’s endearing descriptions of his son are the most touching passages in the book.  

Crazy U was a refreshing read in a genre that is committed to repackaging information with minimal analysis.  I found myself questioning my opinions on college rankings and the SAT.  According to Ferguson, rankings like U.S News provide information that parents would otherwise lack.  He questions why colleges complain about U.S. News yet withhold information like the NESSE survey which attempts to assess what students actually learn in college.  Ferguson took the SAT on the same morning as his son – a feat of fatherly love that resulted in hilarity and enlightenment.  How many in the “college admissions” field would subject themselves to such humbling?  This is one of the guilty pleasures of reading Ferguson’s book – he makes us feel like it’s ok to be less than perfect, to come to the admissions process late and ill-prepared.  More importantly, it’s ok for kids to be kids, even when the admissions officers expect them to show a level of maturity few of us (thankfully) ever achieve.

Ferguson discovers that college admissions literature abides by the “law of constant contradictions.”  Advice is everywhere, but it is never consistent and rarely of any use.  Too often, it is detached from reality at the student’s expense.  When his family visits Harvard, they suffer through a video encouraging students to “give it a try” and apply to Harvard.  No wonder parents nearly revolt when the topic of legacies and low admissions rates comes up.  Coincidentally, or rather not, when I called Harvard to ask if it had any advice for rejected students, I got the same line Ferguson had to swallow during his visit – we are limited by the “number of beds” in Harvard Yard.  The script has not been altered - Tommy Lee Jones would be proud (Harvard seems very taken with this particular alum).

Ferguson knows his way around a keyboard.  Here is one of my favorite lines:  “We confuse a coveted degree with an excellent education –eat the menu instead of the dinner.”  His vocabulary had me finally using the dictionary feature on my Kindle, but the book never came off as pretentious. 

Unfortunately, Crazy U was written for parents, not students.  Applicants could surely benefit from the book, but I’m afraid they might not pick it up.  Also, coping with rejection isn’t addressed directly (spoiler alert!), but rejected students will gain perspective on the process, and have a few much-needed laughs.

The $$$ Value of an Elite College

People are starting to get the message that attending an elite school is not necessary for future success.  I just wish those “people” were students!

There is solid research out there dispelling the myth of the elite college, but it is often out of reach for the average student.  One example is a recent study by Mathematica Policy Research entitled: “Value of an Elite College.”  I found this study through an April 8 article in TIME claiming that students might be better off attending a safety school than their “dream” college (The Upside of College Rejection: Your Safety School Might be the Smarter Choice, Kayla Webley, TIME, April 8, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2063935,00.html).  

According to the article, “students rejected by highly selective schools go on to bank the same average earnings as Ivy League graduates.” 

Curious about this claim, I checked out the report.  It is very academic, full of statistical jargon like coefficients, regression models, variables, etc.  The purpose of the report was to measure “labor market return to college quality,” i.e., whether attendance at an elite college results in higher income.  The answer is no. 

There is more encouraging news for rejected students.  The study found that for students with “unobserved student characteristics” such as ambition and persistence, the elite factor had an insignificant relationship to future earnings.  Students who applied to elite schools displayed ambition, and students who applied to a long list of schools were considered persistent.  So simply applying to an elite school shows you’ve got the stuff to make it, regardless of the end result. 

According to Alan B. Krueger, Princeton economist and co-author of the study, "Even if students don't get in, the fact that they are confident enough to apply indicates they are ambitious and hardworking, which are qualities that will help them regardless of where they go to school.”

To be fair, it must be noted that there are three exceptions to the findings.  For black, Hispanic and students with parents who have little education, attending an elite college does impact their future earnings.  The authors suggest this could be because elite colleges offer these students access to connections and networks otherwise unavailable. 

The TIME article also makes the point that applying to graduate school from a safety school could be easier than from an elite school, where it is harder to stand out from the pack of overachievers. 

Getting back to my initial statement about students receiving this positive news.  The thing is, this is old news.  The researchers published another report with similar findings ten years ago, yet in the past ten years the pressure to attend an elite college has only intensified.

A New York Times blog posted the following quote from Krueger, and it is particularly applicable to students reading this blog. 

Krueger’s advice for students:  “Don’t believe that the only school worth attending is one that would not admit you. That you go to college is more important than where you go. Find a school whose academic strengths match your interests and that devotes resources to instruction in those fields. Recognize that your own motivation, ambition and talents will determine your success more than the college name on your diploma.”

Krueger’s advice for elite colleges:  “Recognize that the most disadvantaged students benefit most from your instruction. Set financial aid and admission policies accordingly.”

PDF of the report: http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/education/returntocollege.pdf

April 8, 2011 TIME article: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2063935,00.html

Feb. 21, 2011 New York Times blog post: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/

The Cost of Rejection

We’ve all heard about the rising cost of college tuition.  What about the cost of rejection?  It may not be measured in dollars, but it is still very real.

Students squeezed through the sausage grinder of the college admissions process often arrive on campus jaded and burned out.  In his March 16, 2001 piece for the New York Times, Andrew DelBanco quoted a Columbia professor complaining that, “Every year I read that our incoming students have better grades and better SAT scores than in the past.  But in the classroom, I do not find a commensurate increase in the number of students who are intellectually curious, adventurous or imbued with fruitful doubt.  Many students are chronically stressed, grade-obsessed and, for fear of jeopardizing their ambitions, reluctant to explore subjects in which they doubt their proficiency.”

Similarly, Barry Schwartz wrote in a 2007 LA Times article: “By making themselves so competitive, our selective institutions are subverting their aims.”  The article by Schwartz, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, was appropriately named:  “Why the Best Schools Can’t Pick the Best Kids - and Vice Versa” (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/mar/18/opinion/op-schwartz18). 

Perhaps the persistent branding sends the message that getting in is all that matters, not performance in college.  After all, even the worst Harvard graduate is still a Harvard graduate.  It is not surprising that students who view college as nothing more than a brand name will coast through their four years and probably not even realize what they are missing.

For rejected students, the cost is higher.  These students face the risk of not bouncing back.  I fell into this trap myself.  After pushing towards the singular goal of acceptance at Princeton, rejection left me questioning my efforts and hesitant to throw myself upon the unwelcoming world of academia.  I did not “attack” the college curriculum or outside activities with the same vigor I had in high school.  I shied away from risks like studying abroad, writing for the school newspaper or independent research.  I had a deep appreciation for learning, but couldn’t muster the energy for what seemed like jumping through even more hoops.  I looked at my fellow classmates with their eyes on graduate school, but refused to join them.  Why risk rejection again?  Why try when I was already told my best wasn’t good enough?

I doubt I’m the only student for whom the aftermath of rejection lingered throughout college.  I wish I could shake the rejection out of them and send them to college with a blank slate.  My wish for these students is that they give themselves a second chance.  Not doing so is a cost too high for any college. 

    

As Bill Mayher writes in The College Admissions Mystique, “In a generation or two, it will become clear how much we have invested in the madness surrounding selective admissions and how much we have lost.”

How can I be “genuine” when I don’t know who I am yet?

Admissions officers say they are looking for “authenticity” from college applicants.  This is one factor they use to sift through thousands of applications, but is it unfair to ask high school students to possess a quality that only comes with time? 

In order to be “authentic” or “genuine” (another catchphrase used by admissions officers) you have to know yourself on a level that most high school students do not.  The adults on the admissions committees may be too far removed from adolescence to remember how rare, and scary, true authenticity can be. 

I bet the Princeton admissions officers who read my application tossed it right into the “big phony” bucket.  The application asked me to describe my ideal roommate.  I answered a non-white roommate because my high school was so homogeneous.  I was writing from the heart, but looking back my stomach turns imagining how this was perceived.  My adult self knows such a statement stinks of insincerity.  The admissions officers had no way of knowing that one day I would marry outside of my race, raise bi-racial children and traverse racial boundaries in my friendships and work.  Ironically, these relationships taught me that all people are the same, but the girl filling out the Princeton application had not yet lived enough to learn that lesson. 

Students should not be penalized for submitting applications less than “genuine.”  Perhaps one reason so many applications look identical (another complaint of admissions officers) is because students are being deluged with the same advice.  Is it any surprise that these students are good at following instructions?  Must “find yourself” be added to the to-do list of overscheduled teenagers?  Isn’t that what college is for, anyway?

Rejection Advice from Yale

Some colleges recognize the limits and randomness of the admissions process.  Yale is one of them.

On the Yale Admissions website you can find a thoughtful, honest essay by the Dean of Admissions, Jeffrey Brenzel.  The essay is titled “Epilogue:  After Colleges Accept You,” but “Accept” could just as easily be replaced with “Reject.” 

Brenzel is writing to Yale applicants, whom he admits most likely applied to other “strong colleges.”  He understands that these students “may feel as if everything depends on which colleges admit you, or whether a certain one does.”  His response to this concern:

“After years of experience, however, here is what I know, virtually to the point of certainty: almost nothing depends on exactly which strong college admits you. Everything depends on what you decide to do once you get to a strong college, and how well prepared you are to take advantage of the infinite opportunities you will find there.

As responses come back to you from colleges, you will tend to dwell on the rejections, should you get some. It’s only natural – what you didn’t get and can’t have feels suddenly infinitely more valuable than what you did get and can have. You will be tempted to waste valuable time pondering what you could have done differently to be accepted by this or that school. You may be tempted to appeal the decision, if you had a “dream” school that didn’t come through. But there is only one good answer to make to any thin envelope you may receive: ‘Your loss, baby.’”

There’s not much I can add except to thank Yale for getting it.  Even though we may have disagreed in the past (they rejected my application), we do agree on this.  To view the full essay, visit: http://admissions.yale.edu/after-colleges-accept-you.  

J.K. Rowling on the Benefits of Failure

     Who needs four years at Harvard when you can get the commencement address for free? (Thank you, Youtube!)  In the case of JK Rowling’s 2008 Harvard commencement speech, her advice on failure is apt for high school seniors denied the opportunity to sit in the seats she was addressing.

Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, had notoriously “failed” by society’s standards.  Before introducing us to the boy wizard, she was a poor, divorced single mother with no job prospects but a very active imagination. 

Rowling’s message is this: “…personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.” [Check out the speech at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkREt4ZB-ck]

Not all Harvard students got Rowling’s message.  One student complained, “You know, we're Harvard. We're like the most prominent national institution. And I think we should be entitled to ... we should be able to get anyone. And in my opinion, we're settling here.” 

Who knows what I would have thought if I had heard Rowling’s words on graduation day.  I certainly had confused my CV with my life, and sought shelter from my insecurities in my academic achievements.  After being rejected from Princeton (my dream school) the shelter was in ruins, as was my self esteem.  I didn’t have the confidence to take risks in college or believe in my ability despite the rejection.  I was bitter and jaded just when I should have been viewing the world with fresh eyes.

Rowling is grateful for her failures.  As she said, “Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.”  That inner security is priceless.  If college rejection is the cost for inner security, I’d say you got a bargain.

Don’t be a College Hater

They are on every campus - students who act like they are too good for their own school.  I call them college haters.  Don’t be one.

College haters arrive on campus with unhealed wounds of rejection.  Most were stunned to receive rejection letters, and take out their bitterness on the colleges that actually accept them.  Deeply insecure, haters look upon their fellow classmates as intellectual lightweights, even though most of these students are as qualified, if not more so, than the haters themselves.  Haters can never admit this because their identity is so wrapped up in being “the smart ones” that they will do anything, even sabotage their college experience, to defend it. 

I should know.  I came across many haters in college, and might have sipped from the keg of condescension once or twice myself.  Fortunately, I saw the light sophomore year when I met my future husband.  His crowd taught me that intelligence and having fun are not mutually exclusive.  Most students don’t wear their resumes on their sleeve.  The smartest student might be the one with the painted face streaking the football field.  You just never know. 

So even if you are angry, don’t become a hater.  It is a losing battle.  Your dream school isn’t going to change its mind, and hating your school will really piss off the people who want to be there. 

My advice for non-haters:  Don’t hate back.  The college haters are really self-haters who haven’t forgiven themselves for being rejected.  Take pity on them. Not only are they ruining their college experience, but the humbling waiting for them in the post-college world will not be gentle.    

My advice for haters:  I understand it’s hard.  Your self image has been shattered.  Maybe it is time just to be you, or at least try to figure out who that is.  

The Story Behind the Blog

The idea for this blog came about after I received an email from my dearest high school friend, who now works as a psychologist.    She asked me to offer advice for an overachieving high-school senior who had been rejected from her top choice colleges.  My friend reached out to me because I had been in the same position years ago.  Here is what I wrote:

“I don't know you, but I may know how you are feeling.  I was crushed when I wasn't accepted to my first choice college.  I felt like a failure, and was angry that all of my hard work hadn't been enough for admission.  It didn't seem fair.  I actually began to think I wasn't good enough or smart enough for the school.  Needless to say, this did quite a job on my self esteem.

I went to college kicking and screaming (on the inside).  Looking back, I was a horrible snob.  I thought I was better than my classmates.  This was no way to begin that chapter in my life.  But slowly I gave my school and my classmates a chance, and gave myself a break.  I realized my insistence on going to a "top" school was much more about my insecurities and need to define myself as "smart" than about education.  I learned that learning can happen anywhere, and often our most valuable learning experiences happen outside the classroom.  I came out of college with a better sense of myself, a true appreciation for learning, good friendships, happy memories, and even my future husband!  

Now, a practical note.  In high school it seems like the only route to success is through a "top" school.  In the real world, nothing could be more untrue.  What matters is what you do in college,  including your grades, work experiences, life experiences, etc.  Nobody gets a free pass because of the school they attend.  Maybe a certain diploma will open doors, but you have to prove yourself once that door is open.  I have worked in several law firms, and my husband has worked in corporate America, and quite honestly, we have found the college a person attends to be irrelevant.  This question is more relevant to graduate school than undergrad. 

So my advice is to try not to place too much emphasis on the decision of the admissions officials - it has nothing to do with you or your abilities.  Don't take it personally, and don't take it to mean you are not intelligent or capable of success.  Pick a school where you can thrive, take interesting and challenging classes, learn about the world outside the classroom, make good friends, get to know yourself - all of these things can happen anywhere.  I worked with two lawyers who attended Ohio State, and they both had wonderful experiences and went on to very successful legal careers.  So give yourself a break- you have achieved a lot, don't forget that.  Don't measure yourself by the standards of an admissions official - define success on your own terms and believe in yourself.  That will get you much further in life than a degree from a "top" school! :)”

April 7, 2010 

Dear Rejected College Applicant

You hold the envelope in your hand.

The envelope you believe controls your future.

It is thin. 

You don’t even have to open it.

You know what it says.

You have been rejected from your first-choice college.

You might think the scene ends there, but it doesn’t.  There is another letter in the mailbox, the one I am writing to you now.  Consider this blog your reality check, a guide to help you figure out what college rejection really means, and if it even matters.  I hope that reading this blog will empower you to toss the thin envelope into the trash where it belongs.

But first, you’ll have to allow yourself to think differently about the thin envelope.  It might be addressed to you, but who did the admissions officers really meet?  Did the application version of you reflect the person you truly are, or who they wanted you to be?  How much time did they spend with your application?  Did they make snap judgments based on factors that have nothing to do with you? 

The admissions officers don’t know you at all, and if they don’t know you, they can’t reject you.  They can reject a test score, a grade point average, a geographic/racial/ethnic statistic, but not you.  The admission decision is not personal, and certainly not a statement on your self worth or your qualifications. 

This may take time to sink in.  If you are anything like I was in high school, your college logic goes like this:  Smart people go to college X.  If college X accepts me, that means I am smart.  If college X rejects me, then I am not smart/worthy/going to be successful in life.  This logic is so powerful it cancels out what remains of your self confidence after surviving four years of high school.  You don’t think twice about placing your self image in the hands of people you have never met.  Their decision, often random and based on factors beyond your control, suddenly means everything.   

The unspoken truth is that those of you striving the hardest for admission at top universities will face rejection.  It is the cruelest twist in what becomes the hottest reality show of the spring.  The college admissions “machine” sets the standards higher and higher, and the more you push yourself to meet them, the greater the likelihood that you will be rejected.  When the rejection letter arrives, you are left alone when you most need advice from the so-called college “experts.”  Rejection is a taboo topic, too often untouched by the countless books, information sessions, and counselors claiming expertise.  How to get into college sells, coping with rejection doesn’t. 

The college admissions process is a human system, complete with human flaws and motivations.  College administrators and admissions officers mean well, but are often driven by agendas at odds with accepting the most qualified applicants.  Although it is hard to swallow, factors beyond your control may carry more weight than your SAT score or extra-curricular activities.  Former admissions officers and current administrators have written candidly about the system and offered suggestions for change.  Whether it changes or not, the admissions process will still be a human system, not a science, and should be treated as such.

Not only is the system flawed, but we are also seeing cracks in the foundation upon which it rests, namely, the mistaken belief that school status ensures future success.   Granted, years ago attendance at an elite college was the secret handshake welcoming students into the “old boy’s club” of the ruling class, but those days are long gone.  Students clinging to the past and expecting school status to carry them place themselves at a serious disadvantage in today’s global marketplace. 

            This is not to say that school status has no value, it just does not have as much value as we are led to believe.  You will be entering a workforce in which the answer to the question “What can you do?” is much more important than “Where did you go?”  Most graduates from elite colleges will freely admit that completing a four year degree doesn’t guarantee you can do anything.  That part is up to you.

Hopefully, that thin envelope is starting to feel less heavy in your hand.  You might even be considering the notion that the college admissions process, like high school in general, has distorted your view of the real world, and your true self.   

We all receive thin envelopes at some point in our lives.  Yours came from a college, others receive rejections from dream employers, banks, editors, or coaches.  Whether it arrives when you are eighteen or twenty-four or forty, dealing with rejection calls upon the same coping skills.  Look at your thin envelope as an opportunity to learn how to rise up when the world makes a mistake, take back your power from the admissions officers and define success, and yourself, by your own standards.