The days of high school students scrambling to pad college admission applications with forced volunteer hours and inflated academic achievements may soon come to an end.
A new report formulated by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and signed off on by admissions representatives from more than 80 colleges and universities across the country recommends deemphasizing personal achievement in the admission process by placing a higher value on character, compassion and genuine community involvement.
“Too often, today’s culture sends young people messages that emphasize personal success rather than concern for others and the common good,” the report, titled “Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions,” begins.
“And too often the college admissions process—a process that involves admissions offices, guidance counselors, parents and many other stakeholders—contributes to this problem.”
Through what has been dubbed the “Making Caring Common Project,” the report’s writers and endorsers seek to reshape the admissions process in three key areas:
• Encouraging students to make meaningful contributions to others through community service and engagement with the public good.
• Encouraging students’ ethical engagement and contributions to others in ways that reflect family and community contributions that cut across class, culture and race.
• Leveling the playing field for economically diverse students to reduce what is seen as “excessive achievement pressure.”
The vision is to redirect admission decision focus on the substance students demonstrate rather than solely base acceptance decisions on academic overachievement and high-profile volunteer experiences. To that end, the project puts forth such recommendations as emphasizing:
- Meaningful, sustained community service
- Collective action that takes on community challenges
- Authentic, meaningful experiences with diversity
- And, service that develops a sense of responsibility and gratitude
To place a greater emphasis on ethical engagement and contributions, Harvard recommends gauging students based on such factors as contributions to family and student awareness of and contributions to others. In addition, the backers would like to see the admission process prioritize the quality of activities and not the quantity. Students, for example, who work outside the home to help support their families or dedicate time daily to care for elderly family members or younger siblings, would be able to highlight those experiences on admissions applications. The notion is to move beyond the “perception that high-profile, brief forms of service tend to count in admissions, while these far more consistent, demanding, and deeper family contributions are overlooked.”
Three specific recommendations in regard to academic “overloading” were also made. They include deemphasizing the importance of large numbers of IB or AP courses in favor of placing value on sustained achievement in a limited number of areas. The authors would also like to see “over-coaching” discouraged and say undue pressure connected to the SAT and ACT should be alleviated. To that end, they put forth such recommendations as making the tests optional for admissions and discouraging students from taking them more than twice.
Whether the report’s recommendations will be implemented at schools across the country remains to be seen. With more than 80 cosigners, however, changes in the admissions process may soon be on the horizon, placing a higher priority on student substance and character rather than just test scores and individual achievements.
