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Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind Mark Bauerlein

The Admissions Effect

In my last post on homework comparisons by major, several commentators remarked upon the poor work ethic of the students and the declining demands of the syllabus. Kids don’t have to read, write, memorize, or inquire as much as they used to, and grades still linger in the B and higher range.

I wonder if the admissions process at competitive schools plays a role. To win a place in the entering classes of those schools — which number, I would guess, around 250 — high-school seniors must undergo a long and complicated gauntlet that includes everything from campus tours to AP course enrollment to volunteering to after-school tutoring to PSAT tests to various competitions in the arts and sciences.

Compare that to the old way. Here is how I applied to college back in 1977 at Torrey Pines High School in north San Diego County.

I was new to the school, having moved there from Maryland that summer. Some time in the fall semester, I found my way to the high-school counselor’s office and muttered, “I have to apply for college.”

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“I don’t know — one of the UC campuses,” I replied.

“Which one?”

“Uh, Berkeley or UCLA,” I said, mainly because I’d heard of them.

“Okay, well, you have to rank three of them,” she answered, reaching for a one-page form.

“Let’s say UCLA, Berkeley, and, umm, Davis.”

She filled in some blanks and I signed after recording g.p.a. (around 3.1) and SAT scores. A few months later I got an acceptance to UCLA and that was it.

It makes the current system sound like a professional certification-induction procedure, mysterious and occasionally malicious. Perhaps once it’s complete and students land in college they assume education from then on is about precisely that: career training. Why work hard in classes that don’t contribute to the pertinent resume? Why understand higher education as the formation of intellect and taste and learning?

The admissions process makes them think otherwise. So, for those classes in freshman comp and U.S. history, do as little as necessary in order to get the grade that won’t hurt too much when it comes time to go through it again, whether declaring a business major or applying to law school or hitting the job market.

Posted at 07:54:03 AM on May 7, 2008 | All postings by Mark Bauerlein

Comments

  1. Students don’t necessarily appreciate history because they are more accustomed to assigned problems.

    They can discover the importance of history when they are finding problems to solve, to understand the systems involved, and to find a solution acceptable to all parties involved. They learn that history is important in order to implement solutions that don’t bring more conflicts.

    It can take the knowledge of many subjects to solve one problem. The university provides diversity and tools to facilitate this kind of problem solving.

    However, students usually don’t enter the university with a problem they want to solve (in contrary to what they might say in their application). I was thinking that helping students discover those problem would motivate them.

    On the other hand, the university often expect students to attent to coursework while suppressing their personal problems. It might work better if they solved their personal problems before trying to tackle other problems. I am not suggesting that teachers should be councilors but seems strongly related to learning and teaching efficiency.

    Having focused students saves time teaching and gives more constructive and creative discussions. It might be worthwhile investment. What are the limits in addressing student motivation as a teacher? What is the best ways for a teacher to motivate students?

    — Edgar · May 7, 10:21 AM · #

  2. Mark — I think the admissions process is important in another way. Admissions to top-ranked universities has become such a high-stakes, multi-year process that some students feel as though they have achieved a pinnacle just by getting in. So students feel like they have achieved a major goal by getting in (after years of being hyper-scheduled, tested, coached on essays), and therefore don’t think they should have to push themselves while they are actually in college. The high-stakes admissions process makes getting into college more important than what you do there.

    — Michael · May 7, 01:06 PM · #

  3. I suspect Michael may be right. His suggestion accords well both with the experience of other countries with high-pressure admissions processes (students attempting to get into the University of Tokyo, for example, work exceptionally hard to achieve their goal, but do nothing once they’re there) and the fact that the undergraduates who agitate hardest to get into my oversubscribed courses invariably turn out to be the most unsatisfactory members of the class if I should actually admit them.

    — Gustave · May 8, 06:40 AM · #

  4. I suspect that a large fraction of students have always tried to obtain their degrees with the least work possible. But now, for reasons that I cannot grasp, universities are helping them to do this. Promotions committees reward “easy” teachers (=those with the highest student evaluations). And (is this amazing only to me?), our registrars now provide data to “pickaprof.com” so that students can select courses in which no one gets a bad grade.

    — Nancy · May 8, 10:12 AM · #

  5. Mark,
    Yes. Gaining admission to selective colleges has become a formative process for many students. We decided to take a peek at what was being formed. A summary of our pilot research project, “College Admissions: What are Students Learning?” is available at
    http://www.educationconservancy.org/research.html
    Progress is now being made in addressing the competitve institutional practices that have collectively acted to distort the way education is perceived and pursued by students. As one exemplary college president said during a recent taping of a Dan Rather Productions program on college admissions, “We are responsible for getiing ourselves into this mess, and we can get ourselves out of this mess.” Stay tuned.

    — Lloyd Thacker · May 8, 12:16 PM · #

  6. Nancy (#4) makes good points and leads us to examine our own complicity in rewarding mediocrity. Also, having taught at a small liberal arts college for over 16 years, I found that the wooing of students was really creating a customer ethos. The subtext was that we, the college, were here to “serve your needs” an unexceptionable cliche, but one that was usually read as a signal that we wouldn’t (wink, wink) push you too hard because, gosh, we didn’t want to “lose” you. So there was lots of talk about “bonding” with the institution, as well as talk about these “first generation college students” who, apparently from another planet, needed to be humanized and taught the ways of the “academy.”

    Once the customer metaphor takes over, something is amiss and students’ appear to be “served” in the crudest fashion. This message begins in the recruiting, is sustained heavily for months before they appear in classrooms where serious teachers can get themselves into hot water for being poor “servers.” There is all too much of a sense of entitlement that has been fostered in students before they hit the books, and I’ve had quite a few tell me how surprised they were that the rumors they heard about how tough college would be were often exaggerated. (I recommend a viewing of the PBS documentary DECLINING BY DEGREES, as well as the accompanying book and website.)

    — George K · May 8, 01:29 PM · #

  7. Admissions is just part of the problem__ obsessions with raising self esteem have destroyed the idea of constructive criticism. Feminist “ways of knowing” that condemn logic and scientific thinking became entrenched in Academe’ during the 1970s and 80s, and are still strongly influencing educational standards today.

    And don’t forget “diversity”, the tail currently wagging the academic dog. There are simply no consistent standards for high quality work that can be applied to all students without leading to charges of bias.

    Whatever is responsible for the rise of “political correctness” with all of its dysfunctional influences, PC itself has rendered education ineffectual at best.

    I didn’t even get to the influences from pop culture…

    — KDR · May 8, 02:23 PM · #

  8. And what about the increasing tendency of high school students to embellish, expand, and outright fabricate experiences and awards on their college applications? Somehow “involvement” and “service” matter as much or more than intellectual curiosity. Students who are bright, passionate, and involved but have the integrity not to exaggerate are often penalized. Not that I can think of anything the admissions committees can do to discourage that.

    — bgo · May 8, 06:18 PM · #

  9. It is quite devastating to, with one’s friends, apply to a nationally famous institution and not get in while a friend or two succeed. Managing the emotions of this are beyond the capabilities of most 20 year olds. The devaluing of self and of the institutions one was accepted by is severe and does not propel one to optimize learning where one got stuck.

    In my day, the Univ. of Virginia read as texts for senior year physics courses the 3 Feynman Lecture books that MIT gave us as pre-freshman-year physics summer reading. That is a 4.5 year difference in when one encounters the material.

    With differences like that, getting into top flight universities is important, though the teaching at MIT when I was there, was generally atrocious—it could not have been worse (Arthur Mattuck excepted).

    The branding of you yourself as an individual by the college stamp on your behind is real, has huge commercial value, and lasts life long (dead people from great universities get better caskets, an actual study was done!!!!).

    — Richard Tabor Greene · May 8, 08:36 PM · #

  10. I can appreciate the views of George (#6). Unfortunately, with the decline in number of available traditional freshmen, colleges must strive to attract more nontraditional students. Anyone who pays thousands of dollars in exchange for anything does qualify as a customer. Too often, we focus on the “customer” aspect of the model, though, and forget the “product.” It is important understand we are “selling” not the grade or the diploma but the opportunity to learn and participate in a quality educational program. Quality programs engage the students rather than reward mediocrity.

    — Susan · May 12, 10:06 AM · #

  11. Mark,

    Your relaxed college enrollment procedure sounds similar to mine in the mid-1960s. There was a sense for us that college meant something important. I chose UCLA since it was local, and it took me, I believe, because I was in the top 13 percent of my high school class.

    It didn’t require an SAT score, and I never took that test.

    I was ‘academic’, but no grind. Once on the university campus, however, I learned quickly how much was required to read, to think, and already to have as background.

    Only in the past couple of decades has my own reading and re-reading filled in much of the outline of material presented by the courses I took 40 years ago.

    Students in the community colleges don’t face the Japanese-like hurdles that Ivy Leaguers seem to. They are, however, much more desperate for even fringe places in the ‘upwardly-mobile’ work force, and very clearly see ‘education’ as ‘job preparation’.

    Yet 4-year schools expect CC-transfer students to handle what appear to be courses of rigor similar to those I took. That I was unquestionably better-prepared is obvious to me.

    The ‘back-fill’ my class hours teaching provide is modest, but two-thirds of any class seems to have little more than term recognition of ‘Renaissance’, and their time-lines are unbelievably ‘off’. To more than an odd few, slavery was abolished in the United States with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

    I teach English, so such matters are indirect to my ‘subject matter’ which many departments try their best to restrict to ‘writing pedagogy’, making main tasks out of structural and psychological considerations, and far less of history or ‘intellectual landmarks’ unless those have a direct bearing on the daily personal struggle.

    One assumption appears to be that people of ‘non-traditionally-included’ backgrounds need to be taught what relates only tangentially to a rigorous appreciation of ‘Western’ tradition, which, whatever its many culpabilities, has been rich, productive, and liberating.

    I’m a tolerant, inclusive man, very willing to embrace new ideas and cultural forms previously thought exotic. I have witnessed, however, that once policy guidelines get instituted and with ten well-meaning thumbs give chiropractic to The Body Academe, the result isn’t greater health, it’s compulsion.

    — Mark · May 12, 12:38 PM · #

  12. I got my BA in ’06 from Berkeley.

    My “admissions process,” however, began some 8 years earlier. By the end of my high school “career,” I had taken and passed 12 AP exams, lettered in three sports, had excellent test scores (perfect 800 Math IIC), and had a laundry list of additional activities to “pad” my application. I would catch myself, half-ashamed, wishing I had some unfortunate handicap to overcome — easy fodder for an admissions essay.

    When I was accepted to some fine institutions, — Harvey Mudd, CalTech, Berkeley, and UCSD — it was like I had reached the summit of a four-year climb. I would proceed to treat my higher education as the leisurely trek down to base camp.

    Oversimplified as it may be, myself and many peers feel this is an identifiable trend that young scholars are adopting more often:

    Step 1 — Squander your adolescence working to get admitted to a prominent university.

    Step 2 — Squander your higher education working to build an impressive resume and skill set.

    Step 3 — Enter the workforce as soon as a high-paying career opportunity is viable.

    PS, I also went to high school in north San Diego County.

    — Nick · May 15, 06:03 PM · #

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