Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions

http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/16/01/turning-tide-inspiring-concern-others-and-common-good-through-college-admissions

by tokenadult • 10 years ago

12 5 10 years ago

gse.harvard.edu

FussyZeus• 10 years ago

"Admissions deans are stepping up collectively to underscore the importance of meaningful engagement in communities and greater equity for economically diverse students.”

What in the world does community engagement have to do with a student's ability to succeed? I did absolutely jack squat in terms of extra curriculars and community service in high school because I was busy working to support myself and my family.

"“Turing the Tide offers recommendations to tackle both of these issues simultaneously by promoting the quality of academic engagement over the quantity of achievements in college admissions.”

Who determines what is quality of a particular activity? How is it measured? How are they compared against each other? These are entirely subjective concepts that exist only in the heads of the admissions staff and should not be used to evaluate anything. There is no way to test it, there is no way to verify or reproduce results, it's entirely hand wavy undeterminable hoo hah.

"We don’t want students who do things just because they think they have to in order to get into college. To the contrary: we want students who lead balanced lives, who pursue their interests with energy and enthusiasm, and who work cooperatively with others, all of which will help them be successful in and after college,”

The goal is good, but now those students you don't want to pressure are now going to have to figure out not just how to work in all their community crap into their already burdened schedules, but to make sure they choose community crap that suits the expectations of the admissions people they're targeting as to their demographics? How are they supposed to prepare for this?

And for that matter, what on Earth makes community outreach so important as to even determine whether you get into college? Why don't we stick to the things we can actually measure, like test scores and grades, taking into account the off-campus workload of the pupil?

lordCarbonFiber• 10 years ago

An admirable effort sure, but I can't help but feel it's empty words. The careful avoidance of any mention of techniques for evaluation is the most damning evidence. The reason the battery of achievement based metrics have become a defacto standard is they are comparable. Every student taking an AP is taking a known test, and receiving a known score.

"Community involvement" in contrast is much more vague. It's hard to put a marker on the relative impact of various activities. Do you discount things if it's organized by a third party (ie the community services most prep schools already require for graduations)? How do you account for the economic factor? It's a lot easier to be involved in your community if you aren't working to assist your struggling family. But at the same time, do you reject a more qualified candidate purely because they come from greater privilege?

Simple market forces are going to force the achievement race simply because spots are so limited yet have such a drastic effect on life trajectory.

georgemonck• 10 years ago

Many endorsers have already committed to implementing changes consistent with the report recommendations – from revised essay questions and marketing materials, to the development of entirely new recruitment, scholarship and high school programs focused on community engagement and caring for others...."We don’t want students who do things just because they think they have to in order to get into college"

This is sort of an impossible goal. If you put something on the college application, and judge students by it, then you are certain to be selecting students who are doing that activity just in order to get into college.

At this point, I think it may simply be better to use a lottery to fill slots at the most selective colleges. Set a bar at 1400SAT, top 10% of class, and one significant extracurricular. Then award students additional points for slightly higher SAT or better class rank or more exceptional extracurricular. Do a lottery, with your chances weighted by total points.[1]

Top-ten schools are recruiting from a pool of over a billion people, that means that among the top 1% of that pool there are 100,000 students each year. Distinguishing among that top 1% is nigh impossible, and if you try to do it based on any measuring stick, you will just set off a red queen race. Asking for people to show that they contribute to the community on the application is not a recipe for producing people who can successfully contribute to their communities. It is a recipe for producing people who can create the appearance of contributing to the community. The two are very different.

[1] I'm sure this policy would have to be slightly more complicated when taking into account the needs of recruiting a competitive football team, or in rewarding the biggest donors. But overall, I think this kind of plan would work for filling most of the slots in college class.

Zigurd• 10 years ago

I think you under-estimate the people in college admissions offices. It's not that difficult to distinguish an apple-polisher from someone who was being a real high school kid.

If I were interviewing I'd ask "Did you go fishing with your friends?" If the answer is "Who has time, and do you mean my LinkedIn connections?" you know there's a problem.

bradleyjg• 10 years ago

I did interviewing for my alma mater for a few years, but I don't anymore. Some of these "public service" things I used as a negative signal. If the student started talking about the week they spent in Honduras building houses and how it changed his life, or how much of a difference she made by starting a recycling club for example. All of that seemed cynically calculated for exactly the purpose it was being deployed for. What really impressed me were the one or two kids I interviewed that had worked real jobs -- not internships.

I don't know about other interviewers or the professional admissions staff, but that was my impression.

Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good Through College Admissions

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