A Fair Path to College

Parent Cafe
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<p>Nina Marks, president of Collegiate Directions, calls for a greater commitment to close the education gap in a college admissions process that is increasingly skewed against low-income and first-generation-to-college students. </p>

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Today low-income students are increasingly at risk of being lost in the admissions avalanche. The volume of applications nationwide has risen dramatically as more students apply to more schools. This trend is driven in part by heightened admissions uncertainty. But even selective and sought-after colleges have not discouraged bigger applicant pools, partly because U.S. News & World Report's annual college rankings reward a higher ratio of applications to acceptances...</p>

<p>...wealthier and better-connected students typically are given tailored attention and support at home and in school. Once they matriculate, these students have much better chances than their low-income peers of fitting in socially and academically, which increases their chances of graduating....</p>

<p>Harvard, Princeton and U-Va. were rightly concerned about leveling the admissions playing field, but only a handful of applicants will benefit from their elimination of early admissions. Their action will make a real difference only if it stimulates analysis of the priorities and pressures that influence not just whether students get into college but whether they thrive there and graduate. To make this happen, especially for low-income students, we need to focus more broadly, before and after college admissions, and more personally, on better funding and advising. Only then can we find solutions for the inequities in the entire process.

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<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/08/AR2007050801584.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/08/AR2007050801584.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Related article in today's Inside Higher Ed: "Tearing Down the Gates", on a new book by Peter Sacks, critiques the role colleges play in the class structure of the United States. "Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education" urges colleges to pay much more attention to issues of class and to breaking down class barriers.</p>

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This notion that the current competitive admissions paradigm is designed to maintain academic “rigor” is a red herring. Selective American colleges and universities, in effect, choose freshman on the basis of social class origins, disguised as system based on “rigor.” When colleges and their entrenched constituencies — boards of trustees, alumni groups, etc. — talk about maintaining academic rigor, this is thinly veiled code for remaining highly selective with regard to admissions, which yields high rankings on prestige-driven scales such as U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings of “Best Colleges.” This has nothing to do with how rigorous a course of study is, or how deeply a college or university engages students in math, literature, history, or science.</p>

<p>But it has everything to do with the socioeconomic profile of the freshman class....

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<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/09/sacks%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/09/sacks&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>These folks worry about the wrong end of the educational system. The focus should be on k-12, and more specifically on reducing the drop out rate.
<a href="http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/05/09/two_bostons/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2007/05/09/two_bostons/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>^ Indeed Marite, that is true. With our head in the sand, we ignore at our own peril the ramifications of the failure of the educational system for so many kids.</p>

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<p>On another note, did someone here once mention a not-for-profit that was engaged strictly in the college admissions process for low income/at risk kids? I'd love to know who that is.</p>

<p>The sad part is there are some kids who are qualified to go to college but who have so little support they are unable to complete the admissions and financial aid processes. (Many have parents who are completely unwilling to give information to anything that resemebles a government entity - i.e. FAFSA.)</p>

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<p>It is fascinating to me how colleges hold themselves up as bastions of enlightened and egalitarian principals in a dark and unfair world. They are great at pointing out problems in the college selection process, all the while perpetuating the status quo. </p>

<p>Great concern is expressed about the perpetuation of "class" systems in college admissions, all the while college endowments have soared and tuition has increased at twice the rate of inflation for years.</p>

<p>If colleges are so bent on leveling the playing field for minorities and disadvantaged students, and/or weaker students, why not spend some of their endowments on active recruiting - hire energetic "salespeople", for lack of a better word, to work with high schools schools, educting kids on their school, bow best to apply, holding their hands thorugh the process, etc. I mean "on-site" help and mentoring, not a web page. </p>

<p>Given the incredibly poor preparation (and lack of effort) of many kids in high school, and the lack of focus on academics at home, my guess is that many colleges would find themselves deep into problems of having to offer remedial classes to incoming students who applied, and were accepted, through such "outreach" programs as I described. </p>

<p>Getting into college has been, and remains, primarily a process based on merit. That makes it a competition, and puts it squarely into the norms of our society. Colleges benefit from offering admission based on merit by avoiding having to re-educate weaker performing high school kids.</p>

<p>Good intentions will not solve the problem of access to college. Attention to K-12 education, and on the importance of education, and caring and involved teachers, counselors, parents and mentors, will.</p>

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<p>I think there may be some validity to the article in the original post. Of course nothing based on research just personal experience. And recent.</p>

<p>Was out visiting sophomore daughter at her OOS uni (UNM) last week. One of the evenings we went to dinner with a group of her close firends. None of them are on her sport (so no teammates). All knew her through her classes and her honors program. 15 students in all. All were in-state residents but her. All including her on academic merit scholarships.</p>

<p>After an interesting discussion about their future plans it comes up that she was the only one of ALL of them to apply to an elite, ivy or 100% need met school. All of the 15 students were URMs, most hispanic, a few native americans and one Pacific Islander. Of the 15, 2 were vals, 1 sal, more than 50% had above a 1400 SAT (old SAT), top 5% of their class and were all in leadership positions in high school. And most were receiving Pell Grants and AC Grants.</p>

<p>Their stats, profiles and socio-economic status were really no different than my daughter's or son's (who is at an ivy) and not ONE was encouraged by parent nor GC to look elsewhere. Some were even encouraged to start at the local community college and discouraged from a 4-year due to finances. Daughter has 2 such friends where both are at the local CC in NM where both completed AP Calc BC and AP Physics C in their junior years of high school. Their parents saw no reason to look or encourage their children to look anywhere other than the CC. Most did not know that in some cases attending a private can be more affordable than the in-state uni for students such as themselves.</p>

<p>They were all under the impression that those schools were not for them, out-of-their-league, too expensive and they would not fit it. They applied this also to schools closer to home, Rice, USC, CalTech any and all western/southwest schools.</p>

<p>I thought of my son at P'ton and how he truly was no different than any of them. Not one besides my daughter had ever heard of College Confidential nor did any of them even glance at the Common App. </p>

<p>It was a reminder to me at just how much CC has changed my kiddos' lives.</p>

<p>So it has been my most recent experience that there is some accuracy in the above article.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

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<p>
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Getting into college has been, and remains, primarily a process based on merit.

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<p>Great, but what exactly is the meritocracy (that presents unnecessary and sometimes insurmountable hurdles) selecting for? Kids lucky enough to be born into certain families? Kids lucky enough to to be born into school districts with strong guidance counselors? Doesn't seem like that advances the cause of a well-educated society very well.</p>

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<p>Friends of mine had mentored underprivileged kids on the college application process - I'm talking about poor kids, not excellent students who happen to come from non-academically oriented families.</p>

<p>Now that I've been through the process with my oldest, and know enough to be dangerous, I'm going to approach his high school principal and see of they would accept my working with an underpriviliged student who might not have the necessary support at home to get through the process. They may, or may not, desire my involvement for any number of reasons.</p>

<p>Heck, I had a tough time getting through the college application process the first time. I can't imagine a kid with no help getting through it at all.</p>

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<p>weenie - I posted before I saw your post. </p>

<p>For good or ill, our entire society is based on a merit system. Frankly, I'm far more concerned about high school juniors who cannot write a coherent sentence or do basic math than whether a given val or sal does to Yale or Ohio State. If an underpriviliged kid has some proper mentoring, there are tons of opportunities for them - there is money available, de facto "diversity goals" available to them, etc. </p>

<p>In my view the hurdles to college for underprivileged kids are only symptoms of much deeper problems. Those problems revolve around failed homes, poor schools, a lack of interest in academic achievement among some groups (evidenced by huge high school drop-out rates), parents who do not grasp, or care about, the necessary investment of time or attention to the college process, etc.</p>

<p>While I understand it is not politically correct to cite some of these issues, many wish to point to "The Process" as the culprit. Expressions of concern by college presidents - who complete aggressively in their own "merit" rankings - will not overcome this issue.</p>

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<p>All I know is that I see bright, hardworking kids everyday for whom "the process" presented insurmountable barriers. Yes, they may have absentee families and a society that doesn't give two beans about their success or failure. Doesn't make it any less tragic.</p>

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<p>my daughter has been involved in this program at her school
<a href="http://www.collegeaccessnow.org/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeaccessnow.org/&lt;/a>
One reason why she chose this high school over other schools who had nicer buildings, newer facilities and some interesting programs, was because Garfield is one of the few Seattle public schools who allows students to enter rigorous courses on their own merit, without requiring them to take honors before AP or accelerated math before they can take genetics.</p>

<p>High schools and middle schools seem to place kids in "appropriate" classes, which in many cases seems to be "dumbed down", instead of placing them in grade level or above classes and giving them the support to excel.
As long as we do this, we are going to have the same kids going to higher ed, and the same ones feeling like they can't be academically successful.</p>

<p>BTW- even though I have never taken a chem class & so couldn't help D at all, she recently came home with the next to highest grade * on the last test*in all the chem classes on which the teacher said was one of the hardest tests he had written.</p>

<p>If she hadn't been able to take summer school math ( which she almost didn't , as the school district canceled her class), she wouldnt have even been able to take chem- as she has been trying to learn that math that she wasn't taught in middle school, since 9th gd.</p>

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<p>I could not agree more.</p>