I am just getting back from the Education Writers Association National Seminar in Washington followed by a few days visiting my mother, who, despite dementia, has not lost her ability to get to the essence. Reminded I work as a newspaper journalist, she asked how I like it. When I told her I like it, she said, “Why? Everybody hates bad news, but nobody wants to read good news. Unless it's about them.”
On that note, I will share some good news that illustrates my mother’s point – it’s about me. I won the Education Writers Association national award for Opinion Writing. Thanks to the EWA judges and thanks to the AJC for allowing me the privilege to write this blog and a column for the print newspaper.
My AJC boss Chris Quinn and fellow education writer Marlon Walker also attended the EWA seminar, which drew more than 300 national education writers and offered dozens of workshops featuring leading researchers. I have a list of blog ideas that I intend to pursue out of the seminar.
I am still on vacation, but wanted to throw out a topic fresh on my mind – college admissions. After going through the process with my twins this year, I'm relieved it's finished.
Many parents wonder how admissions decisions are made. (I will eventually write about an EWA panel in which two reporters discussed how they uncovered the role of donations and political clout in admissions at two top public universities, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas law school.)
In Georgia, the greatest frustration is typically around how Georgia Tech admits its classes. For example, I had a conversation with one parent who felt her daughter did not get into Tech because she attended a private school and was thus held to a higher standard. But a friend maintained to me that her nephew got into Tech despite middling SAT scores “because he went to a private school.”
It is baffling. I agree. I know kids waitlisted at Tech who got into Duke and Carnegie Mellon.
Rick Clark, undergraduate admissions director at Georgia Tech, provides some insights in his blog. With Tech's approval, here are Clark's wise words. (Go here to read the full piece, including Clark's advice for students starting to consider colleges.):
Kids are among the most vocal about longing for fairness. Spend the same amount of money on presents? "Well, he got more gifts." Buy the exact same number of gifts? "That one of her's is bigger!" "Okay, tell you what, I'm going to take all of these out to the fire pit then and you can play with this cardboard box." Now they're both screaming in unison, writhing on the ground and flailing, with great gnashing of teeth. It's like a scene from Revelation followed by a simultaneous and guttural reaction: "That's not fair!"
Well, my friends, neither is college admission. If you applied to a college that has a selective (meaning below 33% admit rate) process, or if you are a counselor, principal, parent, friend of someone who has gone through this lately, you know this to be true. Inevitably, you know someone who was denied or waitlisted that was "better" or "more qualified" or "should have gotten in."
I try not to specifically speak for my colleagues, but I feel confident saying this for anyone that works at a highly selective college that has just denied a ton of the students you are thinking about/calling about/inquiring about: We know. It's NOT fair. You're not crazy. In fact, we'd be the first to concur that there are many denied students with higher SAT/ACT scores or more community service or more APs or who wrote a better essay or participated in more clubs and sports than some who were admitted. But here is what is critical for you to understand– ultimately, the admission process for schools denying twice or three times or sometimes ten times more students than they admit– is not about fairness. It's about mission.
If you look at the academic profiles of Caltech and Amherst, they are very similar. But take a look at their missions.
Amherst (abbreviated) "Amherst College educates men and women of exceptional potential from all backgrounds so that they may seek, value, and advance knowledge, engage the world around them, and lead principled lives of consequence… and is committed to learning through close colloquy and to expanding the realm of knowledge through scholarly research and artistic creation at the highest level. Its graduates link learning with leadership—in service to the College, to their communities, and to the world beyond."
Caltech "…to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education. We investigate the most challenging, fundamental problems in science and technology in a singularly collegial, interdisciplinary atmosphere, while educating outstanding students to become creative members of society."
The difference in missions is why an individual student sometimes gets in to a higher ranked or more selective school and is denied at another. The student applying to Amherst has the same profile, involvement, writing ability, scores, and grades. but is a totally different fit in their process than for Caltech. This is, at least in part, what counselors are talking about when they say "fit." It's fit with mission.
A quick look at Georgia Tech
Founded: 1885. Classes begin 1888. One major- Mechanical Engineering. All male. It was a trade school responding to the needs of 19th century and early 20th century Georgia and US South. The focus was on training and preparation for product creation and being prepared to lead and create the next in an industrializing state, region, and nation. Were there more "qualified" or "smarter" students at the time who had aspirations of becoming ministers or lawyers or physicians? Unquestionably. And had they applied with those intentions, they likely would not have been admitted. It was not our mission to educate students for those roles.
1912: Tech establishes a "School of Commerce" which is essentially a business program. 1952: Tech begins enrolling women. 1961: Georgia Tech becomes the first school in the South to integrate classes without a court order. It's not hard for me to envision a younger brother in 1954 who is by all counts smarter than his older brother not being admitted to Tech due to this change in mission. Supply and demand drive admit rates. If your supply shrinks due to a shift in your mission, then admission decisions also change based upon factors besides grades, scores, or performance.
At Tech, our mission is "to define the technological university of the 21st century." Our motto is "Progress and Service." Our commitment is to "improve the human condition." So while we are going to provide stats and averages and profiles like all other schools, these are the conversations in admission committee that contribute to decisions. Fair? No. Perfect? No. Reality? Yes.
If you are a senior (or a parent of a senior) who has been denied or waitlisted: You are most likely just as smart, capable, and talented as other students admitted to that school. Move past the numbers and the comparison. You're absolutely right: it's not fair in a comparative sense. But that school has made its decisions in light of advancing their mission. Inevitably, you've also been admitted to a school where, if you looked hard enough, you could find someone denied with higher scores or more APs or better grades than you. But you fit their mission. Embrace that!
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