College Admissions: Misunderstood, Unbalanced, and Unpredictable
A Los Angeles Times article came out this week detailing the stress and anxiety students and families, particularly of Asian descent, are going through. This isn’t something new but a continually growing movement, and the stress and anxiety by no means is limited to Asian students.
I wanted to write a letter as a) a response to the article (included below) and b) as a response to college admissions in general. In doing so, I hope to illuminate some key points and provide insight into this messy business.
In his article, Jeong Park describes the competitive advantage students and families are looking for, hiring private consultants as early as middle school to map out and plan a student’s college admission strategy. Though anecdotes of stress, confusion, and anxiety are poignantly presented, little is said about the actual work these consultants do. It seems, from the article and my knowledge of the industry, that most go along playing the game, looking mostly at beefing up resumes, and pushing up scores and grades as much as possible. What value then, are these consultants actually providing?
In my view, they simply create more stress and anxiety. They, like many tutoring and test prep companies, take advantage of the emotional state students and parents are in and purposely keep the fuel on the fire. They create urgency so they take action now and sell the nightmare that is college admissions. I think this is wrong and I will explain why and what the reality of the situation is.
First, college admissions is a severely overrated idea. I call it an idea because for most people, that’s where it starts— as an idea, fantasy or dream. It has been romanticized and fictionalized. School rankings and reputations have made some schools seem saint-like, a place of a divine nature. In turn, students and parents often believe that attending one of those schools is a life-changer. For foreign-born parents, you can see why that is an easy trap to fall into.
As a consultant, my responsibility is not to uphold that fantasy or dream, but to turn it into a reality by pulling the curtain away, advising not only on the best strategy (as I no doubt want my students to get in to the colleges they wish to attend) but as a plan that is comprehensive, grounded, and suitable for the student.
Too many are advising students to build their entire life around college admissions, focusing heavily on their scholastic ability, grades and test scores, activities, titles, and accolades. We are not looking at the student as an individual: developing them as human beings (emotionally, psychologically, and intellectually), guiding their principles, advocating their intellectual curiosity, or emphasizing their character.
The reality is that attending college, although important for many, is not at all what it seems. University rankings hold some truth but those rankings are derived from rather simple objective qualifications: faculty, research, breadth of offerings (majors, graduate schools) etc. Rankings do not mean life is guaranteed to be better if you attend a school ranked 14 instead of 34. The reality shows this: an overwhelming percentage of students at Ivy League schools aren’t doing well (just look it up).
Rather than concentrate on college admissions as some sort of game, we should look at it as more of a project, recognizing college as the beginning of one’s life, not the final frontier. Instead of looking great on paper, our emphasis should be on equipping students to be able to perform academically and emotionally with both college and life (as last I checked they occur at the same time). Students that are equipped to do so will thrive anywhere they go, compete at the highest level, and will succeed in college and beyond. Success does not come from have a great resume but from having a great toolbox.
What great colleges offer is not a ticket to a wonderful life or career but simply put: more resources. A better student body, accomplished alumni network, impressive faculty, swankier facilities, and more research opportunities are no doubt important features, but if a student isn’t prepared, not only academically but social-emotionally and psychologically, they often will find themselves struggling and those wonderful resources mean far less.
When I put a college admissions plan together, do I emphasize the same things that the consultants referenced in Park’s article do? Yes. I discuss four-year high school plans, AP courses, SAT success, extracurricular activities, leadership involvement, summer programs and much more. But I do so only if there is a partnership and understanding with the student and family that the growth of them as people matters more than any plan we could put together— that “college readiness” is about much more than scholastic achievement and impressive credentials.
To close, I urge students and parents to take away my main message: find the balance. If a student is planning on attending college, they should aim at continuing to develop themselves academically during their middle school and high school years— this is the period of life that should have the most growth after all. Finding the balance does not mean chronically underachieving by being overly worried about pushing too hard, purposely not taking more rigorous courses, or taking every summer off because they “need the break.” On the other hand, students should not be cultivated to be ultra-competitive, think about nothing else except achievement, or aspire to solve the world’s problems by the age of 16.
Finding the balance can be difficult, but can be achieved when all things are considered and we place the individual first.
Jeong Park’s LA Times Article: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-26/post- affirmative-action-asian-american-students-stress-college-admissions
