Flag is raised on admissions_USA Today article
Flag is raised on admissions
Updated 10/25/2006 1:09 PM ET
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
Shortly after Harvard announced last month that it was ending its early-admission policy, admissions dean William Fitzsimmons got a thank-you e-mail from a woman with a story to tell.
She and her best friend had applied to the same school. The friend got in, she didn't. And that was the end of the friendship.
Now, as Fitzsimmons prepares to conduct Harvard's last review of early-admission applicants (the deadline is Nov. 1), he worries that the admissions "rat race" is destroying "the quality of the social fabric" in high schools.
"It creates a pressure cooker," he says. And it's one reason Harvard is ending its early deadline.
With each admissions season comes new stories of a process gone haywire. And this year is no different.
Except for this: For years, high school counselors — those on the front lines working with college-bound students — mostly were the ones who complained. Now, perhaps more than ever before, the problems associated with college admissions are being acknowledged by a wider array of influential voices.
It's not just that big-name schools such as Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia will drop early-application deadlines next year. This month alone, a pediatrics group sounded alarms about the stress of this rite of passage on teens. And Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who shepherded her daughter through the college search a few years ago, says she wants the process to be less confusing and frustrating.
These and other prominent voices have the potential to help calm the frenzy surrounding contemporary college admissions. It won't happen overnight or without turmoil. But momentum for change does appear to be building.
Redefining 'best'
Though the admissions process was not a central focus of a higher-education commission created by Spellings, its September report noted a lack of data on the educational performance of colleges and universities. It says students and parents who are comparison shopping for colleges are limited to information that focuses almost exclusively on a school's reputation, defined by such measures as average SAT or ACT scores, selectivity (the percentage of applicants offered admission) and yield (the percentage of admitted students who enroll).
The bid for prestige has helped stoke a billion-dollar-a-year industry with test-prep firms that promise to boost student scores, enrollment management firms that help colleges target desirable students and guidebooks and magazines that tout "best" colleges.
And the arms race has led to gamesmanship, both by students looking for an edge and colleges hoping to rise in the rankings.
Now, Spellings is looking for ways to evaluate colleges using other factors, such as how many students graduate and how much students learn.
Colleges don't relish the idea of federal oversight. But the commission in a way reinforces other recent efforts to steer the conversation away from what is the "best college" toward what college is best for a particular student.
For Ken Fox, a counselor at Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, that has been a struggle. "What I care about is helping students understand that the list of good schools out there is really big," he says. "That's an education process, helping families understand that a school they may not have heard of may be exactly the right place."
Now, more key players are joining the conversation. One of the most prominent is the Education Conservancy, a fledgling non-profit in Portland, Ore., that convened a closed-door meeting last summer aimed at reforming admissions.
It's too soon to say what the group will come up with, although its vision differs from the one Spellings outlined. She wants a database that tracks performance; conservancy founder Lloyd Thacker says the "benefits and predictors of a good education are ... virtually impossible to measure."
What's notable is that his meeting included presidents of 11 colleges (Swarthmore, Williams and Amherst, to name three) that all benefit from the prestige factor.
That's important because presidents have the most influence with their trustees, alumni and other constituents who have an interest in rankings. And collective goodwill is critical, Thacker says, because colleges generally have been reluctant to make big changes unless others do, too, for fear it would hurt their ability to compete.
"Higher education has not been good at looking at (admissions) as a systemic issue," says Christopher Allen, admissions dean at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., whose president participated in the summer session. "Part of this has to be educating the right people."
Thacker's premise has doubters. "The new truth about the college admission process is that decisions to admit students ... are business decisions that reflect institutional values," Peter Van Buskirk, former dean of admission at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., writes in an essay for online magazine insidehighered.com. He blames society's "neurotic obsessions with having or being the 'best' ... the best appliances, the best cars, the best vacations — and the best colleges, often at the expense of good values that would be more appropriate choices."
A boost from doctors
Van Buskirk's comments are echoed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Noting an increased campus demand for mental health services, it declared in a report this month that adolescents "may have learned that the endpoint goal — the best school or the best job — must be reached at all costs."
Now, more college admissions officials also appear to recognize their role in causing stress. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example, is mailing admission notices on only two dates this year rather than notifying each student as soon as a decision is made. That "caused a lot of anxiety in other students," says assistant admissions director Gregg Perry. "They would (try) to figure out why (they had not) heard yet. They would discuss the issue with their counselors, call admissions, talk to their friends. ... Just when the anxiety would die down, another friend would get a notice and start the angst all over again."
Colleges don't always change their ways by choice. The National Association for College Admission Counseling, a non-profit membership group, this month put the kibosh on "deadline creep," as some call it, because it was concerned that some colleges were pressuring students to apply even before their senior year, and in some cases waiving application fees or promising priority housing.
High school counselors have long been concerned that binding early deadlines were rushing teens. Though early deadlines can simplify the process for students who are certain where they want to go, many students aren't sure but think they should apply anyway.
"Middle adolescence is characterized by exploring, changing and rethinking likes, dislikes, interests, values — their identity — and then imagining in what milieu this morphing identity will best belong," says Patty Kovacs, a college counselor at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. "For an early-decision applicant, it means locking into that future identity."
Even in high schools where few students apply early, the autumn deadlines can cast a long shadow. No more than a handful of the hundreds of seniors at North Hollywood High School in California are applying early this year, yet "there's an energy there (that) makes other kids nervous, too," counselor Eileen Doctorow says. "They say, 'Maybe I'm too late.' "
The fairness factor
The often-daunting admissions process is especially confusing for families who have never navigated it before. A push by the Spellings commission, along with lawmakers and policymakers, to improve access to college promises to remove some of the barriers — and the complexity.
Already, a number of mostly wealthier selective colleges have removed loans from financial aid packages. That's important because income disparities are especially striking at the nation's 146 most selective universities, says the Century Foundation, a New York think tank. Its analysis found that 3% of students at those schools came from the lowest socioeconomic quarter of the population; 74% come from the top quarter.
But the savviest applicants tend to be the most affluent. So, as colleges seek to enroll more low-income students, some also are revising admission practices that, as it turns out, contribute to the angst.
In announcing last month that Princeton would end its early-decision policy, for example, president Shirley Tilghman said the "ultimate test of any admission process for Princeton is whether it is fair and equitable." But she also said the policy change would "reduce some of the frenzy."
Similarly, testing critics have long argued that standardized admission tests are unreliable and discriminate against poor students, who have lower average scores. Since the new SAT began in March 2005, about 20 schools, mostly small liberal arts colleges, have dropped or de-emphasized the SAT or ACT college entrance exams.
The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, Cambridge, Mass., now lists 732 such schools.
There's no indication tests are on the way out. A survey by the admission-counseling group finds that 59% of colleges say test scores are of "considerable importance" in admissions; 6.2% say they are of no importance.
And, there has been no stampede to drop early-admission deadlines. In fact, some admissions professionals suggest it may backfire.
Here's why: Students who might otherwise have applied early to one of those schools will apply to more colleges to hedge their bets. More colleges will then see an uptick in applications, which makes them appear more selective but also makes it harder to predict their yield. Then, to maintain high yields, colleges will rely more on wait lists — putting more students in limbo later in the season.
"There may be nice opportunity to calm counselors and claim a moral high ground, but in the end, I think more of a mess may lie ahead," says Bruce Poch, admissions dean of Pomona College in California.
Other have argued that dropping early-admission programs won't increase overall access so much as it will shuffle around a few high-achieving low-income students.
That may be, says Brad MacGowan, a college counselor at Newton North High School in Newtonville, Mass. But he was one of the many college counselors to applaud Harvard's announcement.
"I'll settle for the little victories," he says.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-10-24-tuition-dcover_x.htm
Updated 10/25/2006 1:09 PM ET
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
Shortly after Harvard announced last month that it was ending its early-admission policy, admissions dean William Fitzsimmons got a thank-you e-mail from a woman with a story to tell.
She and her best friend had applied to the same school. The friend got in, she didn't. And that was the end of the friendship.
Now, as Fitzsimmons prepares to conduct Harvard's last review of early-admission applicants (the deadline is Nov. 1), he worries that the admissions "rat race" is destroying "the quality of the social fabric" in high schools.
"It creates a pressure cooker," he says. And it's one reason Harvard is ending its early deadline.
With each admissions season comes new stories of a process gone haywire. And this year is no different.
Except for this: For years, high school counselors — those on the front lines working with college-bound students — mostly were the ones who complained. Now, perhaps more than ever before, the problems associated with college admissions are being acknowledged by a wider array of influential voices.
It's not just that big-name schools such as Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia will drop early-application deadlines next year. This month alone, a pediatrics group sounded alarms about the stress of this rite of passage on teens. And Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who shepherded her daughter through the college search a few years ago, says she wants the process to be less confusing and frustrating.
These and other prominent voices have the potential to help calm the frenzy surrounding contemporary college admissions. It won't happen overnight or without turmoil. But momentum for change does appear to be building.
Redefining 'best'
Though the admissions process was not a central focus of a higher-education commission created by Spellings, its September report noted a lack of data on the educational performance of colleges and universities. It says students and parents who are comparison shopping for colleges are limited to information that focuses almost exclusively on a school's reputation, defined by such measures as average SAT or ACT scores, selectivity (the percentage of applicants offered admission) and yield (the percentage of admitted students who enroll).
The bid for prestige has helped stoke a billion-dollar-a-year industry with test-prep firms that promise to boost student scores, enrollment management firms that help colleges target desirable students and guidebooks and magazines that tout "best" colleges.
And the arms race has led to gamesmanship, both by students looking for an edge and colleges hoping to rise in the rankings.
Now, Spellings is looking for ways to evaluate colleges using other factors, such as how many students graduate and how much students learn.
Colleges don't relish the idea of federal oversight. But the commission in a way reinforces other recent efforts to steer the conversation away from what is the "best college" toward what college is best for a particular student.
For Ken Fox, a counselor at Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis, that has been a struggle. "What I care about is helping students understand that the list of good schools out there is really big," he says. "That's an education process, helping families understand that a school they may not have heard of may be exactly the right place."
Now, more key players are joining the conversation. One of the most prominent is the Education Conservancy, a fledgling non-profit in Portland, Ore., that convened a closed-door meeting last summer aimed at reforming admissions.
It's too soon to say what the group will come up with, although its vision differs from the one Spellings outlined. She wants a database that tracks performance; conservancy founder Lloyd Thacker says the "benefits and predictors of a good education are ... virtually impossible to measure."
What's notable is that his meeting included presidents of 11 colleges (Swarthmore, Williams and Amherst, to name three) that all benefit from the prestige factor.
That's important because presidents have the most influence with their trustees, alumni and other constituents who have an interest in rankings. And collective goodwill is critical, Thacker says, because colleges generally have been reluctant to make big changes unless others do, too, for fear it would hurt their ability to compete.
"Higher education has not been good at looking at (admissions) as a systemic issue," says Christopher Allen, admissions dean at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., whose president participated in the summer session. "Part of this has to be educating the right people."
Thacker's premise has doubters. "The new truth about the college admission process is that decisions to admit students ... are business decisions that reflect institutional values," Peter Van Buskirk, former dean of admission at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., writes in an essay for online magazine insidehighered.com. He blames society's "neurotic obsessions with having or being the 'best' ... the best appliances, the best cars, the best vacations — and the best colleges, often at the expense of good values that would be more appropriate choices."
A boost from doctors
Van Buskirk's comments are echoed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Noting an increased campus demand for mental health services, it declared in a report this month that adolescents "may have learned that the endpoint goal — the best school or the best job — must be reached at all costs."
Now, more college admissions officials also appear to recognize their role in causing stress. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, for example, is mailing admission notices on only two dates this year rather than notifying each student as soon as a decision is made. That "caused a lot of anxiety in other students," says assistant admissions director Gregg Perry. "They would (try) to figure out why (they had not) heard yet. They would discuss the issue with their counselors, call admissions, talk to their friends. ... Just when the anxiety would die down, another friend would get a notice and start the angst all over again."
Colleges don't always change their ways by choice. The National Association for College Admission Counseling, a non-profit membership group, this month put the kibosh on "deadline creep," as some call it, because it was concerned that some colleges were pressuring students to apply even before their senior year, and in some cases waiving application fees or promising priority housing.
High school counselors have long been concerned that binding early deadlines were rushing teens. Though early deadlines can simplify the process for students who are certain where they want to go, many students aren't sure but think they should apply anyway.
"Middle adolescence is characterized by exploring, changing and rethinking likes, dislikes, interests, values — their identity — and then imagining in what milieu this morphing identity will best belong," says Patty Kovacs, a college counselor at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. "For an early-decision applicant, it means locking into that future identity."
Even in high schools where few students apply early, the autumn deadlines can cast a long shadow. No more than a handful of the hundreds of seniors at North Hollywood High School in California are applying early this year, yet "there's an energy there (that) makes other kids nervous, too," counselor Eileen Doctorow says. "They say, 'Maybe I'm too late.' "
The fairness factor
The often-daunting admissions process is especially confusing for families who have never navigated it before. A push by the Spellings commission, along with lawmakers and policymakers, to improve access to college promises to remove some of the barriers — and the complexity.
Already, a number of mostly wealthier selective colleges have removed loans from financial aid packages. That's important because income disparities are especially striking at the nation's 146 most selective universities, says the Century Foundation, a New York think tank. Its analysis found that 3% of students at those schools came from the lowest socioeconomic quarter of the population; 74% come from the top quarter.
But the savviest applicants tend to be the most affluent. So, as colleges seek to enroll more low-income students, some also are revising admission practices that, as it turns out, contribute to the angst.
In announcing last month that Princeton would end its early-decision policy, for example, president Shirley Tilghman said the "ultimate test of any admission process for Princeton is whether it is fair and equitable." But she also said the policy change would "reduce some of the frenzy."
Similarly, testing critics have long argued that standardized admission tests are unreliable and discriminate against poor students, who have lower average scores. Since the new SAT began in March 2005, about 20 schools, mostly small liberal arts colleges, have dropped or de-emphasized the SAT or ACT college entrance exams.
The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, Cambridge, Mass., now lists 732 such schools.
There's no indication tests are on the way out. A survey by the admission-counseling group finds that 59% of colleges say test scores are of "considerable importance" in admissions; 6.2% say they are of no importance.
And, there has been no stampede to drop early-admission deadlines. In fact, some admissions professionals suggest it may backfire.
Here's why: Students who might otherwise have applied early to one of those schools will apply to more colleges to hedge their bets. More colleges will then see an uptick in applications, which makes them appear more selective but also makes it harder to predict their yield. Then, to maintain high yields, colleges will rely more on wait lists — putting more students in limbo later in the season.
"There may be nice opportunity to calm counselors and claim a moral high ground, but in the end, I think more of a mess may lie ahead," says Bruce Poch, admissions dean of Pomona College in California.
Other have argued that dropping early-admission programs won't increase overall access so much as it will shuffle around a few high-achieving low-income students.
That may be, says Brad MacGowan, a college counselor at Newton North High School in Newtonville, Mass. But he was one of the many college counselors to applaud Harvard's announcement.
"I'll settle for the little victories," he says.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-10-24-tuition-dcover_x.htm
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