May 12, 2018
Greetings from College Counseling! We extend a special welcome to the members of our Board of Trustees as their meetings continue today. Please note that News and Views will take a hiatus next weekend due to the editor's travel for school.
A Note on Summer Enrichment Courses
Carleton College Fly-In Program
Carleton College, located in Northfield, Minnesota, is one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges. As part of their ongoing commitment to diversity, Carleton hosts a number of programs for traditionally underrepresented students. The Taste of Carleton (TOC) program offers students a chance to get just that. This all-expenses-paid program brings a variety of students to campus for three days and two nights. TOC is open to all prospective high school seniors, but the selection committee will prioritize students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. Students of color, first-generation college students, and low-income students are particularly encouraged to apply. For more information, see here.
The Cost Conundrum
As NACAC's Jim Paterson notes, "Packed within the big bundle of worries that high school students and their parents bring to the college admission process, the bulkiest item is often how they'll pay for it. And too often, experts say, it's not about lacking money, but lacking information." For thoughtful guidance on when and how to approach the issue of cost in deciding where to apply to college, see here.
The Flipside of College Sports
Being recruited to play your favorite sport at the college level can be a very appealing prospect. Obviously, it can help sway an admissions decision and may lead to a significant scholarship offer. But as some very candid discussions at the recent meeting of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics remind us, the demands made on college athletes are not trivial and may leave them feeling that they have done much more for their schools than their schools have done for them.
Humanities as Secret Sauce
As The Chronicle of Higher Education's Scott Carlson observes, "Not so long ago—in the popular media, at least—majoring in the humanities or arts was seen as a ticket to a job at Starbucks after graduation. But the humanities are now the secret sauce for productive workers and inventors, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have released a tome of a report (some 300 pages) to make the case that people need not only technical knowledge but also the curiosity and creativity that humanities and the arts are said to cultivate. And the future of innovation in the sciences will rely on creative, outside-the-discipline thinking."
Do you need to attend a prestigious college?
Make no mistake about it: we are committed to doing everything in our power to help students gain admission to the colleges they aspire to attend. We recognize, however, that sometimes a school's aura of prestige can get in the way of a thoughtful appraisal of whether or not it is really the best fit, so we welcomed the following reminder from our friends at Collegewise this week:
Going to college is important. Going to a prestigious college is not.
We have nothing against the most prestigious colleges, or the idea that a student may want to attend one. We work with students every year who go on to all of those schools and end up blissfully happy. Some of our counselors attended those prestigious colleges, and they wear their alumni garb proudly. Many students have wonderful college experiences at Princeton, Duke, Georgetown, and the rest of the 40 or so colleges that are considered the most selective. We're equal-opportunity college enthusiasts.
But here's what we are against:
- We're against the notion that prestigious colleges offer inherently better educations or experiences than the less famous schools. There is no evidence to support that assertion.
- We're against the idea that the only acceptable outcome for an "A" student's hard work is an admission to a college that denies nearly everyone who applies.
- We're against the belief that "B" and even "C" students can't enjoy their ride to college, too.
- We're against treating the college admissions process as an escalating arms race, one in which happiness, fulfillment, and sanity are sacrificed in the pursuit of perfect grades, higher test scores, and more impressive activities.
- And most importantly, we're against the idea that a GPA, test score, or admission decision from a particular college is an accurate measure of a student's worth (or a measure of that student's parents).
- Human nature dictates that for some people, the more difficult something is to get, the more they covet it. It's the educational equivalent of the exclusive night club—the longer the line outside, the more desperate some people will be to find a way in. But when channeled into college admissions, that desperation to get admitted into a school that turns away nearly everyone ruins the process for a lot of good kids.
We believe that going to college is important. We believe that students should work hard, treat people right, and take an active interest in their educations. But what those hard-working, good kids do once they're in college will be much more important than the names of the schools where they do it.
For Parents: When You Need to Be a Friend
From our friend Kevin McMullin comes a great reflection on what parents can do when their college-bound kids are exhausted. We share his observation that today's college-bound students "are working longer hours, with more pressure around getting into college, and experiencing higher incident rates of depression and anxiety than ever before," and we agree that there are limits to simply affirming, "But it will all be worth it one day!"
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