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Last Updated: Feb 6th, 2008 - 12:22:41 |
'Tis the season for early college admissions notifications, and, as a result, the time year for the media to fan the flames of already anxious parents and students. I am referring to articles like the recent "How to get into Harvard" which appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The article tracked 7,000 freshmen from the "top" eight colleges (Harvard, Princeton, MIT, etc.) to find out where they went to high school. The author proceeded to rank how well those high schools did at "getting kids in" to such schools. Although the reporter from WSJ contacted us to participate, Latin is not on that list…for many reasons. First, we felt strongly that the topic of the article contradicted our philosophy about the college counseling process. We also felt the methods used for collecting data were entirely unscientific given the number of factors that go into college selection and admission. Lastly, we do not wish to foster, in any way, the fears and anxiety of our students and their families at such a sensitive time.
Two organizations to which we belong, the NAIS (National Association of Independent Schools) and the ACCIS (Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools) both submitted letters echoing our concerns to the editor of WSJ in response to this article. See those responses below.
Have a wonderful holiday,
Don Firke
Response from NAIS:
To the editor:
Once again the Wall Street Journal misses the mark by singling out just a very few college-prep schools for their success in figuring out "How to Get Into Harvard" (November 30, 2007).
Ellen Gamerman notes that "high-school seniors and their parents are routinely terrorized with alarming and now familiar college-admissions statistics," and this article merely adds to the frenzy. Rather than providing constructive information about finding the right match between student and college, or offering helpful tips on the admission process, the article perpetuates the myth that there are only a handful of acceptable college choices for all students. The truth is that what you do in college—how engaged and involved you are—is a far greater predictor of success in life than which college you attended. The most important factor in college admissions is that the student’s needs and interests are well-served by his or her college’s offerings and culture.
The ridiculous premise of this article does a disservice to families, seeking to identify winners and losers rather than to celebrate the success stories of all schools that help find colleges that are a perfect fit for each and every student.
Patrick F. Bassett
President
National Association of Independent Schools
Washington, DC
Response from ACCIS:
Ms. Marty T. Elkins
Executive Director, ACCIS
The Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools
83 Shirley Road
Groton, MA 01450
www.ACCISnet.org
To The Editors of the Wall Street Journal:
As the college-application season enters its most stressful final stretch, the only thing that can make matters worse for the young people at its core is yet another ill-advised attempt to quantify the qualitative. Ranking schools based upon the percentage of their graduates who attend particular colleges and universities is not simply misguided but wrong. Ellen Gamerman's "How to Get into Harvard" is only the latest wrong-headed disservice to young people applying to college and their families. Sadly, hers may not be the last.
We who are part of ACCIS, the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools, take particular exception to Ms. Gamerman's article, because she reports that "the 10 schools that performed best in our survey are all private schools." What we do to serve and guide the young people in our care cannot be captured in any numerical analysis or one-line summary, and certainly not in one that pretends eight colleges of the thousands in this country are sacrosanct.
When Ms. Gamerman writes, "No ranking of high schools is perfect," she’s on the right track. Had her conclusion been to forego the rankings and do better reporting on the real work of all college counselors, we would admire her understanding of how we help young people and their parents at a particularly stressful time in their lives. Independent schools counselors and our public school colleagues do far more than simply "get kids into college."
Any assessment of the relative merit of any school should be based on the particular educational, artistic, athletic and social opportunities each student receives at his or her particular school, whether public or private. Speaking for the communities of ACCIS, our children learn and succeed because of the unique dynamics that our administrators, faculty and staff create, and the quality of experiences each student has.
We who work in independent schools do so out of deep conviction that every child is different, and that their experiences within our widely varied schools cannot be compared in the way simple-minded rankings like Ms. Gamerman’s suggest. As there are differences between individual human beings, there are differences between educational communities. Both college and admission counselors work together to help students find the right personal and intellectual "fit". The right educational institution for a unique human being to take the next step in his or her educational journey cannot be captured by a number.
We at ACCIS are not the only independent school professionals who oppose rankings. The National Association of Independent Schools has a strong anti-ranking position, which is available on its website, www.nais.org, and it routinely discourages schools from volunteering any information that can be misused for ranking purposes. The long-standing but misguided US News and World Report rankings, where all this hurtful foolishness started, are so hollow that they do not even include a category to capture the actual educational experience of students. The signs say “college” or “university” and the rankings don’t include learning?
The latter portion of the article, "The Power of the Counselor" is every bit as misinformed as the rankings that precede it. Our "power," such as it is, comes in the way we build relationships with the young people we work with, in order to help them know themselves somewhat better, challenge themselves appropriately, extend themselves judiciously, research their many college options thoroughly, present themselves advantageously, and make their final decisions wisely.
Do we also build relationships with college admissions officers? Certainly. Do we advocate for our students? Absolutely. Do we alter the outcome of decisions? Rarely, if ever. Our professional counterparts on the other side of the conversation are intelligent, thoughtful people who work hard to get to know the applicants, often these days only through what's submitted electronically. We facilitate communication. But colleges decide. They always have. Our "power," such as it is, has much more to do with helping kids than calling the shots.
Let’s conclude with the most revealing sentence in Ms. Gamerman’s piece: "Despite the fact that many people who went to state schools or obscure liberal arts college lead happy, successful lives, high-school seniors and their parents are routinely terrorized with alarming and now familiar college-admissions statistics." Members of ACCIS would add to that line, "and articles such as these." Indeed, many people who went to many different colleges not included in Ms. Gamerman’s “elite eight” report satisfaction with their undergraduate experiences and career paths. Reporting and writing a thorough article describing such realities would indeed be a worthy endeavor, one far better than these ill-advised rankings or poorly informed observations.
But the truly revealing aspect of the sentence is the latter portion about anxious people being "terrorized." Again, by articles like this one. And the papers who print them. We at ACCIS guess we can take cold comfort from knowing we’ll continue to do our best to counsel the new victims of yet another rankings-driven, "terrorist" attack on the well-being of the young people in our care.
Respectfully submitted,
Marty Elkins
Executive Director—ACCIS
The Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools, Inc.
© 2008 The Latin School of Chicago
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