This is Thanksgiving weekend and here’s what I’m grateful for:
I’m grateful that I’m not applying to college now.
I’m grateful that I don’t have to apply to 12 colleges in the hopes that just one will take me; that I don’t have to write 24-30 short supplemental essays to the tune of hours of work for those 12 applications, totally guessing at what the admissions officers want to read since I have no earthly idea what they are looking for; that I don’t have to respond to endless email requests from colleges that bought my name from the College Board or the ACT in order to show “demonstrated interest” to schools I’ve never heard of just in case I need them as safeties; that I don’t have to pay a boatload of money to visit campuses in order to show same for fear those colleges will not admit me when I apply because I never showed my love by visiting their campus; that I don’t have to do all of that while keeping my coursework up and sports and activities going too; that I don’t have to cure cancer or male pattern baldness to get into the college of my choice.
This is what it’s come to (or at least it seems like that).
I work with all kinds of teenagers. US, international, wealthy, poor and everyone in between. And the one thing they all have in common is this getting-crazier-and-crazier process we call the college admissions process.
I swear, college admissions officers really have no clue what the lives of their applicants are really like.
They think they do, of course, because they read hundreds and hundreds of applications and meet teenagers all the time. But I respectfully remind them that they are reading the virtual applicant and meeting students on their absolute-best-behavior-ever, kids who are dying to be who the officer wants them to be just to get in. Not authentic at all.
Last year the Common Application underwent a radical upgrade and was a catastrophe for all involved. This year it’s Naviance, a beautiful product that needed no major changes but they did it anyway and now it’s twitchy, leading to more frustration. Oh, and if that’s not bad enough, Harvard et al the elites plan to create a third new application platform (joining Common App and the Universal App) for reasons I don’t quite understand though I’ve read their press release multiple times. I know what’s being said. I just don’t believe it.
Yup, folks, just keep piling on the chaos. The great masses are expected to just suck it up and deal.
Can you tell how frustrated I am that the college admissions process largely serves the wealthy, is ego driven and no longer functions with education at its core? That it teaches young people to be cynical and manipulative, which is the worst crime of all?
My heart goes out to teenagers today who have little time to do anything but perform for adults, who get less than 6 hrs of sleep nightly and have no place to be silly (social media is owned by adults now) without the prying eyes of adults who want to sell them a product or judge and prod them.
People, they’re kids, for God’s sake, and if you haven’t noticed, we’ve left them a world of trouble
because we adults are too immature to get a grip and act like it.
Like I said, I’m grateful I’m not 17 again. I don’t think I’d have the nerves or maturity for it.