College admissions can play a huge role in shaping a student’s life. A new report from researchers at Harvard makes some recommendations for reshaping the college admissions process. Their goal is to put greater emphasis on a student’s commitment to others and the common good rather than personal success and academic performance. It is their belief that citizens, including students, need to be concerned about others and the common good—and that today’s culture sends messages that emphasize personal success rather than investing time in others for our collective future.
Although none of the report’s suggestions have been implemented yet, some changes could be on the horizon. The report’s specific suggestions for changing the college admissions process include:
Promoting More Meaningful Contributions to Others, Community Service, and Engagement with the Public Good.
The authors believe that the admissions process should convey the importance of creating high quality meaningful service experiences, rather than pure quantity of “more = better.” The report urges students to commit for at least one year to one activity because sustained service is more likely to generate deeper reflection and have a greater impact on others. Importantly, colleges should not focus on the location of service (local or unique distant land), but assess the students’ willingness to immerse themselves in the experience.
Proposed Changes to College Applications
The report says that applications should ask students about their longest period of service, why they chose this service/activity, what they learned from their experience, and how they may have changed as a result. To supplement the student’s personal experience, recommendations from community members should be highly encouraged.
Assessing Students’ Ethical Engagement and Contributions to Others in Ways that Reflect Varying Types of Family and Community Contributions Across Race, Culture, and Class.
Dedicating your time to the service of others is not simply formal acts of service, but rather should be ingrained in a students’ daily way of life, allowing them to build a greater ethical character. A student who exemplifies great ethical character has qualities such as trustworthiness, honesty, tolerance/acceptance, and respect for others. Many students from low income and working class communities are often contributing to the benefit of others in a way that is not typically measured by traditional forms of community service. Activities that contribute to the family or the community such as caring for a sick relative or younger sibling, working afterschool to support their families, and many others that go unnoticed should be taken into account during the college admission process.
Proposed Changes to College Applications
The authors propose that college applications should provide clear opportunities for applicants to discuss family contributions and place high value on such activities. Colleges should urge recommenders to reflect on students’ daily conduct because how students conduct their daily life is critically important in assessing a good applicant as compared to only large-scale accomplishments.
Redefining Achievement in Ways that Level the Playing Field for Economically Diverse Students and Reduce Excessive Achievement Pressure.
Academic challenges and opportunities vary across different communities. Thus, it is crucial that admission processes do not create a minimum threshold of activities that students must surpass to be eligible to attend a certain college. Rather, colleges should consider potential lack of access when assessing students. Where academic resources are bountiful, students are often putting themselves under extraordinary pressure and emotional tolls to overload on AP/IB classes and extracurricular activities.
Proposed Changes to College Applications
The report states that college admissions should focus on deflating academic pressure and inflating the importance of ethical engagement. To discourage students from reporting activities that have not been meaningful to them, the author propose that applicants should only be able to discuss a small number of activities thoroughly. Additionally, instead of solely taking a large number of courses and earning high test scores, colleges should value sustained achievement in certain areas. This may include reducing the pressure of standardized testing by making these tests optional or clearly describing to applicants how much these tests “count.”
Detractors to the report’s suggestions have pointed out that students who struggle because of a lack of resources and opportunities may actually be punished by such changes for their lack of resources. Will students who have to work outside school and are thus unable to spend time volunteering have their applications appear weaker than students from wealthier families?
We must be cautious to assume these changes will benefit the disadvantaged students. For example, it’s impractical to assume that students in high-poverty families are able to hold jobs that provide “opportunity for reflection” or emerge from “particular passions or interests.” Similarly, will the proposed changes exacerbate the “high stress” situation that students are under by shifting to different set of pressures? Further, we know relatively little about measuring and identifying non-cognitive aspects of students, such as character, that colleges aim to evaluate. How do we fairly assess character, motive, values, or other complicated intangible qualities? These are all questions that colleges struggle with and this report is one attempt to reconcile these struggles.
These recommendations tackle an important issue: how should colleges select their students? How colleges and universities answer this question has been slowly evolving for the last several decades and reports like this one suggest that such evolution will likely continue well into the future.
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