The buzz this past week has been about a
report issued by the Harvard School of Education and a consortium of other
selective colleges and universities called "Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern
It’s a vital topic and a
thoughtful report, but reading through it, I didn’t find any indication that
the tide is turning—applying to selective colleges will still be grueling and
fraught no matter how much the schools change the emphasis in their
admissions. An article in The Washington Post summarizes the
report’s highlights and then offers “tips” to parents for helping to “turn the
tide.”
I agree with the report
that the quality and duration of community service is more important than the
amount of time spent, and I applaud these schools for carefully defining what
kind of community involvement they value.
For instance, a group of people or students working together to solve a
problem may be a better way of engaging in outreach than simply serving once at
a soup kitchen, but I think this emphasis is not a new factor in college
admissions.
A stronger recommendation
in the report might be the call to de-emphasize standardized tests as a big
factor in admissions decisions, though many colleges might go even further and
make the tests optional as some schools have already done.
Another important
recommendation is to make course loads more reasonable and limit the number of
AP courses. This will be harder to
achieve unless school districts, teachers, counselors and parents work together
to communicate a consistent message to students about balancing workloads.
Overall, the report makes
valid observations about the current stressful,
competitive, and unhealthy admissions process—at least for selective
schools—but I’m waiting to see more substantive changes by admissions offices
such as reversing the trend toward accepting more students Early Decision and
reducing the frenzied marketing to influence admissions statistics by
increasing the number of applications each year.
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