Competition for the "Elites"

Yesterday WSJ had a front page story with the headline "For High Schoolers, Summer is Time to Polish Resumes."  It told of rising sophomores going to African to work with AIDS victim then to Yale to present a "plan of action", or to Georgetown for a five-week course on medical careers and SAT prep course combined.  Here's the meat:

Getting into America's elite colleges has never been tougher, and now, in addition to grades and test scores, essays, recommendations and class rank, there's this for teens and their parents to worry about: summer.

"Summers are important, big time," says Lloyd Peterson, vice president of College Coach LLC, which charges $3,499 for its college-counseling services. "The more prestigious the school, the more important the summers are."

Admissions officers dispute that. They say that how a youngster spends summers won't make or break a college application. "It doesn't matter as much as what they're doing in the school year," says Richard Nesbitt, admissions director at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass.

But as a record number of high schoolers heads for college, summer is taking on huge importance among super-achieving teens and their parents -- and a whole industry is sprouting to serve them.

Lots of kids applying to the same universities is an ego boost (and tuition boost) for those universities.  It's also obviously a money-maker for some adults.  And it can be a source of pride and competition for high school faculties and guidance counselors.  But, is it of value to the students? 

I suspect not.  Kids don't know they want to go to one of these schools -- they don't have a clue about college as high school freshmen (or seniors), much less which college.  Even the best "college search" is usually ends in a hopeful guess.  And, for the most part, college is what you make of it. 

I have a son at Emory.  Getting into an "elite" university wasn't his goal nor ours, it just happened.  Good fit for a lot of reasons.  And it's been a great experience.  But he didn't focus his high school experience on that goal (ask his teachers!), and he didn't think he had "made it" when he got in.  I think it is a mistake to push kids on external goals that ultimately cannot deliver on the hopes put on them.  Better to push them to engage, to work at what they are doing, to read and discuss and think. 

Now, having said that, I'll admit that Tyler wasn't casual about his passions, and neither were we.  He wanted to play baseball, and he worked at it and we made it possible for him to pursue it at the highest level he could in high school.  And, that was part, I suspect, of what made him attractive to Emory.  But it is what he learned from that effort, including the ability to persist and overcome, that will serve him well at Emory and beyond.  Had he been doing it just to get into an "elite,"  I doubt it would have had the same value.

So, focus on the kid, not the college.  It will work better in both the short and the long runs.

Comments

[TR]

I've been meaning on writing something specifically about this sort of thing. Kids end up spending so much time getting into good schools that they completely lose touch with what it means to be a kid. Yes, hard work is part of life, but so is understanding how to deal with people, and most importantly, relaxing. I have a boss who likely never had a childhood and now has no social skills whatsoever. I brushed on this topic in a post,

http://podium.ookee.com/blog/talksoftly/vocationaleducation.html

but ultimately, the problem is kids working too hard. Life is too short. Give them the summer, they'll get to work through it soon enough.

[superdestroyer]

Dave,

The question is how many kids to worked hard to be admitted to an "elite school" start out as that biochemistry major and then how many quickly change their major. Remember, Chelsea Clinton started out as a biochemistry major at Stanford but had changed majors by her Sophmore year.

The question that all kids should be ask is "Is getting a degree in biochemistry or some other "hard" major more or less important than getting a degree from an "elite" university? If the degree is more important, then they should view universities different than the student who just wants to tell people he graduated from Duke, Vanderbilt without regard to the actual degree.

[Dave Shearon]

Don't know about other majors, but biochem at Emory offers lots of opportunities to work on research in the Center for Disease Control (almost part of the Emory campus). As for engineering, I think the "elite" school for that in the area is Georgia Tech.

[superdestroyer]

Two points on college choice:

1. What in the life experience of a high school student helps them choose a university? Too many kids pick a school because it is "elite" ,looks good, or the student body has the proper demographics.

2. Too many kids opt to stay in an elite school instead of changing schools to pursue educational goals. If you look up elite universities, like Duke University or Emory, the Most Popular Majors: Economics, General; Political Science and Government, General; Psychology, General.
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/schoolsays.asp?category=1&listing=1023323&LTID=1&intbucketid=

I wonder how many kids started at Duke as Economics or psychology and how many switched out of biochemistry or engineering to stay at the "elite" school?