In
Admissions, How Do You Separate the Wheat From the Wheat?
SHEILA McMILLEN. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington: Jun 27,
2003.Vol.49, Iss. 42; pg. B.13
I confess to rolling my eyes when I hear that college admissions should
be
based solely on merit, especially now during the current debate about
affirmative action, for the statement begs the question of precisely what
constitutes merit. If "merit" is a code word for academic excellence,
by
what standard should that be measured? By SAT scores, which many educators
believe are culturally biased and not indicative of future success? By
rank in
class, which at an extremely demanding magnet school can find students
with a 3.8
grade- point average and SAT scores of 1600 in the second tier? What about
the high school that doesn't weigh academic courses when calculating the
GPA and
its top student has all A's -- in woodworking and art? How do you gauge
an
Advanced Placement course in calculus against one in French? Don't other
qualities in an applicant, like intellectual curiosity, initiative, and
accomplishment despite adversity play a part in "merit?"
For the 12 years I taught in the English department at the University
of
Virginia I could toss these questions around, but I didn't really have
to
deal with them. Last winter, I crossed the aisle and for a season worked
in the
undergraduate admissions office as a first reader, and the issues stopped
being, well, academic, and became instead problems I wrestled with daily.
I
saw firsthand that merit is, indeed, impossible to define. In fact, I
learned that even when we at big public institutions consider the entire
file of
each applicant (as many people now advocate), instead of relying on just
a few
isolated factors like SAT scores and grades, the process of determining
who
"merits" admission is far from exact.
Like most faculty members, I suspect, I had rarely considered what actually
went on in the admissions office. I knew that getting into Virginia was
very
competitive; each year roughly 15,000 students applied and were winnowed
in
a brief period of time to the approximately 3,000 who then showed up in
the
classes that I and the rest of the faculty taught. As long as they kept
showing up interested in my classes, I didn't think much about the mechanism
that brought them there.
In my new job, I was expected to assess and summarize everything in a
student's folder, including academic information, recommendations, personal
information, and essays -- all the various areas that could make a candidate
worthy of admission. I thought putting together a composite picture of
a
candidate would be relatively easy. But after I read several hundred
folders, a brain- numbing similarity in academic excellence surfaced:
The majority of
applicants were near the top of their class and had strong SAT scores.
It
wasn't often that I saw an ill-advised candidate, someone with a poor
program or mediocre grades, whom I could readily reject.
I went on to extracurricular activities, assuming they might reveal evidence
of good character, or leadership, or special talents that would make a
good
contribution to campus life. But most applicants are savvy enough to realize
they need a good inventory of extracurriculars -- thus the sudden flowering
of activities in grade 11: National Honor Society, Math Club, Future Business
Leaders of America, even Who's Who Among High School Students, which,
alas,
does them no good whatsoever (though they all list it), since we in
admissions know that they have paid for the privilege. Volunteer work
is important, but
now that many schools require community service, did the good works come
from altruism, obligation, or canniness? There was a "choose one
from each
category" quality to the activities: one athletic, one literary,
one
science, and one service. The result? Candidates with all bases covered
and so well-
rounded they were unknowable.
Many applicants -- the Clear Admits -- were absolutely outstanding in
academic and other areas, and they had the right list of activities to
show they were
Good Citizens. What should I do? Accept them all and let God sort it out?
Not unless I wanted to double the freshman class.
I also sensed a certain disconnect between these stellar applicants and
what
I remembered from the classroom. It's not that my students weren't bright:
They were, very. But in addition to the ones who were quirky, brilliant,
and
eager, I also saw a good number who were passive, uninterested in new
ways of
thinking, and resistant to instruction. If I wanted to find the former,
I
needed some way of measuring the nature of a candidate's intelligence,
of
seeing a love of learning behind the stats and lists.
The letters of recommendation weren't much help. I had to take into account
that the harried guidance counselor at the large urban school, writing
hundreds of recommendations, often didn't know the applicant well -- this
letter would be short and vague. The applicants attending private schools,
where the rate of college acceptances is an important recruiting tool,
received four-page tomes from their counselors, full of encomiastic quotes
from specific teachers. Fairness demanded that I factor in the inequity,
but
inevitably I was told more -- though in hyperbolic terms -- about the
private-school student than I ever learned about the public-school one.
That left, of course, the essays, which would seem the most logical place
to
find an applicant defining and revealing her motivating values and beliefs.
But how few applicants took advantage of the opportunity! At precisely
the
point where I needed to glimpse the living, breathing person behind the
application, I kept running into writing so banal and generic that whoever
wrote it was completely obscured by cliche.
On the most basic level, if I may, for a moment, be the cranky English
teacher, I rarely saw an essay without typos or common grammatical or
usage
errors. Was the sloppiness due to haste, indifference, just not knowing?
It
was clear few applicants bothered to proofread with any attention. For
that
matter, neither did the guidance counselors in their letters.
I wasn't sure why the essays were so tedious, since applicants had a
choice
for the first two essays, and picked their own topic for the third --
options intended to give them opportunities to present unique characteristics,
thoughts, and experiences. For that third essay, a remarkable number --
what
zeitgeist was operating? -- selected one of two subjects, what I label
"My
Great Moment in Sports" and "My Mission Trip." In the first
one, both men
and women wrote about the importance of sports in their life, and they
did so by
trying to describe, as in a short story with dialogue and description,
a
significant race or event that they had won, or lost, and how much they
had
learned from the experience: Don't give up, even defeat can instruct,
teamwork is important.
The other most common personal essay described a volunteer service trip
--
to Honduras to build a church, or to Appalachia to work in a food drive,
or to
the inner city to tutor at a school. All returned from their trips with
newfound gratitude for their own circumstances, for the comforts they
enjoyed at home, and with a heartwarming sense of how good it felt to
help others.
Both kinds of essays focused with tunnel vision on only the most cheerful
and safest of life's lessons. Even as reasonably sheltered American kids,
they
have surely witnessed divorce and depression in their own families, and
the
terrible events of September 11. So why the insistence on whistling a
happy
tune? Maybe I was seeing another example of the American pressure "to
look
on the more smiling aspects of life," They all seemed to be channeling
a
morning news announcer, eternally perky and bright. Did they think they
wouldn't get
in if they weren't cheerful? A horrible image came to mind: a university
full of smiling automatons.
I did find exceptional essays and writers. There was "Ned,"
a black
scholarship student at a private school who wrote of the estrangement
he
felt on returning to his old neighborhood from his "white" school.
And "Jess,"
from a Western state, who described his anger at the death of a cow, choked
by a
plastic bag carelessly tossed away by a tourist. Or "Emily"
wrestling with
the division in her family when her older sister announced she was gay.
These
essays really stood out; they seemed honest, reflective, and personal.
They
gave me some hope that there was vitality in the applicant pool. And with
so
many of the other measurements of "merit" being equal, such
strong essays
gave the writer a real boost.
As I read and considered the folders, I realized I would hate teaching
the
applicants I was seeing. The essays suggested rote learners unwilling
to dig
a little deeper or take academic risks. How difficult it would be to bring
them to life in a classroom, get them to ask questions, get them to think.
But
unless I wanted to think some terrible plague of soullessness had afflicted
this year's applicant pool, I had to believe I was not seeing the full
picture. Behind the lifeless essays had to hide many of the same kinds
of
spirited people I remember from my classes. What accounted for the
blandness, the squelched quality, of the essays?
I started to see an explanation -- perhaps -- in the responses to one
question: "You've likely heard that college will be the best four
years of
your life. If only you could get there! Describe how the process of 'getting
there' has affected you. What have you learned about yourself or others
--
peers, parents, admission professionals -- during the college search
process?"
Some, of course, saw this question as an invitation to discuss the endless
ways they had prepared themselves for UVA -- a resume in narrative,
reiterating the accomplishments detailed elsewhere in the application.
Others described the hours and weeks -- even months -- they had wrestled
with their
applications, far longer, I thought grumpily, than any would ever spend
on a
literary analysis or short story. Many complained that their parents were
nagging, overinvolved, which upped the tension factor.
All reported how stressful they found the experience of applying to college,
how much pressure they felt, how worried they were. They couldn't sleep;
they couldn't eat. Some referred to the stress only vaguely, as if they
weren't
quite sure they should mention it, but the bass note of panic was there.
Others described the fear and nervousness that they and their friends
felt -- would they get in, and if they didn't, would it wreck the rest
of their
lives? How would their parents react? If they got in, would they be able
to afford
it?
Others presented a greater awareness of why the process was so distressing.
One student wrote that he was forced to "package" himself, and
he didn't
like it one bit. Another wrote about lying in bed at night and thinking
about her
"life score." Did she have enough academic credentials, the
right laundry
list of extracurriculars? Had she done anything in her life that made
her
special? I knew the answer to that one from her application, and it was
no. But how
many 17-year-olds could say yes?
For these applicants, I suspect, preparing their college applications
was an
introduction to a requirement they would face -- not only for this exercise
in admissions -- but for the rest of their lives in a culture where
presentation carries so much weight.
What emerged in these essays were uncertain, anxious kids trying to impress
the faceless admissions staff who were going to scrutinize and weigh their
entire being. Those essays were a better indicator of the real students
than
the exceptional academic performances so many displayed; they revealed
applicants who were afraid of offending, of picking the wrong subject
and
tone. And with such conflicting advice about what the "correct"
essay is,
why not write whatever seems tamest and nonthreatening? Maybe the application
process itself and the anxiety associated with it was -- temporarily,
I
hoped -- lopping off the applicants' rough edges and individuality.
I wish there were some way to tell them that strategy backfires, for
it
doesn't give an admissions reader any way to measure the intangibles:
the
curiosity, imagination, and motivation that are necessary for success.
I
tried as best I could to be fair -- another slippery word. My thumbs up
or down
was never given easily, and a dean would review my decisions. No one else
in the
office took the task lightly either, as was clear when the entire staff
met
to discuss students about whom there was disagreement. But finally, we
had to
make a decision. We judge the academics and extracurricular activities,
and
try to get the tip-top students, but to measure the intangibles of character
and ability -- vitally important factors -- we can only read between the
lines.
I finished my admissions stint with some first notions confirmed: No
cut-and-dried method, no formula, will yield an outstanding freshman class.
But I'm left wondering, is there -- was there ever - - any way of seeing
the
quality of mind behind the credentials?
|