“As 80 colleges unite to create new application and portfolio platform for high school students, a look at who is in and who is not (for now), how colleges plan to use the service, and how Common Application is responding.” …
A highly detailed article that complements the other forum posts related to this controversial topic.
Here is an interesting response:
http://highereddatastories.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-peacekeeper-missile-comes-to.html
Sounds like even more hoops to jump through for college admissions.
A portfolio that begins in the ninth grade?!?
Let’s just get our kids even more stressed out about college admissions at even earlier ages!
To quote Pink Floyd, “Leave those kids alone!”
I think it sounds like a good idea, and I plan on having my son sign up. I just checked, apparently it goes live in April. Unfortunately, my son is not their target audience, but it seems as though this new system will have all the info in one place and might make the whole process easier come application time.
I have to wonder how much the colleges spend on these intitiaives. If they are all that eager to get the URM low income disadvantaged kids, why don’t they do something with their huge endowments that will actually benefit such kids? Why don’t they go into their target communities and start some kind of educational mentoring programs, benefitting kids at a younger age so they develop the skills they need to excel in school. Maybe they do, and I just don’t know about it. The reality is that kids who, early on, need extra help and incentives so that they can do well at top universities and colleges, probably don’t have parents who know how to give their kids support and resources that help them succeed. And they probably aren’t on CC reading about this.
So it seems that this initiative will be relying on guidance counselors at high schools to get the word out? I am not clear how they intend for their target kids to learn of this new initiative. If they expect the kids themselves to find out about the CAAS and utilize it, they might not get the result they hope for. And my understanding is that some low income schools have terribly overworked guidance counselors who may not have the time or energy to get kids on board with the new system. Anyway, I hope the new intitiaive is successful, but it might not quite go according to plan. They probably know this though.