March 23, 2024

Even in my little neighborhood, these months of college acceptances and non-acceptances feel like times of great uncertainty. When I worked in schools, you could feel the anxiety building from the beginning of the senior year. For those students who are applying to colleges, there is stress that is involved. And for the parents, that stress is often even more intense. For years, as an educator and now as a neighbor and friend, I have tried to convince parents and students that this stress and intensity is not necessary. It’s going to be OK. The system is not perfect, and our students have many avenues to success.

I started thinking about this topic because, this week, several colleges announced that they were reinstating the SAT or ACT as a requirement of admission. MIT, Dartmouth, UT-Austin, Yale, and Georgetown are all bringing the test back. Their reasoning is primarily that nothing predicts success in college better than the SAT/ACT: grades are not given on the same scale across the nation; essays – who knows who (or what) is writing those? So it’s the SAT/ACT exam that gives a consistent barometer.

Yale is actually allowing AP tests in lieu of the SAT. I like that strategy a lot. The SATs, which are an accumulation of a lot of information, may seem like an objective test on the surface. But students whose parents have the means often take expensive courses to prepare themselves, giving them an advantage over students who do not have those means. AP tests cover material taught in class, and tutoring is much more rare, so it seems more fair, though, in this arena, too, students with means likely have more access to AP courses and greater chances of success on AP tests as well.

I have readers across the political spectrum, and I know some will not want to hear this. There is no denying that college admissions, which seem to be based on objective criteria like test scores and GPA, are inherently unfair. Affluent families are better at knowing how to play the college application game, because they played it themselves. Students from affluent families are often surrounded by other high performing students, and pushed to excel in a greater variety of AP classes. These students have greater access to tutoring and college counselors. That’s why I’m not against programs that try to level the playing field for those who do not have all the advantages that wealth can bring. And it’s why I’ve always looked for a better way for students to truly demonstrate who they are and what they know, in order for prospective colleges to know who they are admitting.

Back in 1994, I thought I was on the cutting edge of solving this problem. That’s the year that Malibu High School started requiring a schoolwide portfolio as a graduation requirement. Not only would completing the portfolio demonstrate college readiness, but it would also be something admissions offices could review to get a more complete picture of the work each student was capable of doing. Many of us thought it was a wonderful and transformative idea, and nearly the entire faculty of Malibu High School was in the boardroom cheering when the new MHS graduation policy was  adopted. It was a great moment.

Some of the portfolio requirements included:

• Proof that students had passed a very comprehensive test on civics and the US Constitution
• Their very best written work, including research papers, over the course of a four-year high school career
• Proof of 144 hours of verified community service completed over a four-year high school career, and reflections on that work
• Projects in the visual and performing arts
• Any awards or certificates earned throughout high school
• College essays, including a reflective essay on the value of their high school experience

To help students along their way, we developed an advisory system. One of the unwritten rules for high school is that students do best when they have at least one trusted adult on campus. So every Friday, we had a 25-minute advisory period, and every teacher, counselor, administrator, as well as a few other key employees, met with their advisory students. That class could be spent talking about school issues, tips for academic success, study strategies, or anything really. Advisors stayed with their advisees for their entire 4-year high school experience. And at graduation, advisors were on the stage handing flowers to their advisee graduates. 

I very clearly remember our team inventing all of this from scratch, and working like hell to implement it. We tweaked it regularly. It was hard, it was messy, it was fun, and it was mentally taxing. I don’t think my friend Luke, a great counselor and a rather traditional educator, ever truly understood what we were doing or why, and I think the Friday advisory schedule still makes him shudder. But he too, along with so many on our staff, jumped in and tried to make it better every week, month, and year. I know students and teachers grew from the experience.

But here’s the thing: colleges did not want to get more information on their applicants. The portfolios never made it to the admissions offices that were already overwhelmed. And our grand idea never materialized into shifting the landscape of college admissions.

Still, even without the admissions changes, the portfolio and advisory system was a big part of our school for five or six years. But as new employees started working with us, and as the burden of something extra began to be felt, it was harder and harder to maintain, and eventually, we ended it. Some things remained – the Constitution test and the community service – but the rest of it was discontinued.

For me, it was a grand failure. I loved my advisory students, and I know that many students and faculty felt the same way about their advisees. The graduation moments were special. I was inspired seeing the entire school working together, trying to solve new problems that all of these new ideas brought up. 

Colleges admissions are still imperfect. Testing is helpful, but flawed. College essays, between AI and very expensive college admission counselors, may or may not be written by the students. And the most competitive schools receive applications from far more overqualified students than they can admit. An admissions director from a prestigious university once told me, “We admit 2000 students a year. But most of us believe that if we did not accept them, and took the next 2000 on the list, we would have an outstanding freshman class.” In other words, it’s pretty random. 

Students should remember that colleges make these decisions without knowing students as well as they should. It’s not really their fault – they would need to significantly increase staff to do truly in-depth analysis of applicants, and even then, it might be a best guess scenario. I don’t know if that makes students and parents feel better or not, but for those who are not accepted, it’s one more great reason not to take it personally.

And it matters far less than many people think. There are not just 12 to 15 colleges that matter. There are hundreds of great colleges where students can get a fantastic education, and some of those may be better fits for them than the so-called elites. Don’t believe me? Read Frank Bruni’s 2015 masterpiece, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. The so-called “safety schools” that people apply to may actually be the best fit for many students. Be open minded!

My advice to this year’s seniors and future seniors, and the parents of those students is still the same: it’s going to be OK. It’s an imperfect system, and it is not always fair. Don’t fall in love with schools where acceptance can be truly random. Who you are, your work ethic, your ability to collaborate, your creativity, your problem solving abilities, your kindness, and your sense of gratitude matter far more than the university name on the top of your diploma.

So here’s to grand failures, putting forth our best efforts, accepting results often determined by others (and sometimes by chance), and then moving on toward the next sensible or nonsensical goal in our lives.

Have a good day y’all,

– Mike Matthews

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Post #104 on www.drmdmatthews.com

Notes:

I was turned down by two universities when I applied to school back in 1980. Harvard was a long shot, and they wanted nothing to do with me. But I also applied to Duke University. Back then, there was no downloadable application. You had to request the application by mail, receive it by mail, then use your typewriter to fill in the application boxes. 

I had finished my Duke application, laid it on the kitchen counter, and went downstairs to find the envelope and some stamps so I could put it in the mailbox. I got distracted by a few things, and it was probably 30 minutes before I came back to the kitchen, ready to send it off. But the application was gone. I started looking around the house . . . nothing. The mail delivery person was coming soon, and it had to be postmarked that day. I asked my Mom, who knew where everything was, and she didn’t know. Starting to panic, I yelled out to my siblings if they had seen it. They ignored me as usual, then my brother Pat said, “Wait. What did it look like?”

I told him it was three pages, and the top page had a lot of dark blue on it. He grimaced. Uh oh.

He said that he was changing the battery in our car, and he didn’t want to mess up Dad’s garage counter, so he saw some papers in the kitchen, and just used that to protect the counter. I said, “So there’s a dirty, acidic battery on top of my application?”

“Sorry, dude. Was that important?”

So, I took the application, with a soiled front page and the battery acid already working on working its way through everything, put it in the envelope, and sent it off.

I was supposed to hear back on April 15.

In early March, I received notice that I had not been accepted. At least they were able to read the application. I often wonder if the whole envelope was in shreds by the time they received it. They should have sent a Polaroid picture of the entire Duke admissions team laughing at my poor excuse for an application. It would have been deserved.

All it is now, is a good story – a grand failure, followed by a whole lot of moving on.