Headmaster Roach’s letter to the SAS community in response to recent College Admissions report:
"January 29, 2016
Dear Parents,
I attach a new essay for you, written in conversation with a new national report on college admission.
Best,
Tad
'Making Caring Common'
The Harvard Graduate School of Education recently published “Making Caring Common,” a report designed to inspire innovation and reform in the college admissions process in America. The report is an important document for schools, teachers, students, and parents to read, for in many ways the voices of college admissions leaders and professionals join together in a recognition that this process has ultimately undermined civic engagement, community service, and academic engagement in schools throughout the country. Essentially “Making Caring Common” argues that the college admissions process privileges personal, individualistic success over the cultivation of student concern for others, responsibility for community life, and the common good.
This report has not emerged out of nowhere – we in the world of secondary education have both celebrated the opening of American colleges and universities to a broad and diverse admissions pool, and at the same time watched with dismay and concern the powerful development of college admissions madness and anxiety that have damaged schools, distorted the educational process of promising students, and left parents with pervasive feelings of anxiety and fear.
Of course, there was a better way to honor the enlightened world of 21st century college admissions: schools and colleges could have celebrated the new diversity and strength of the vast American college and university system and focused their energy, creativity, and resources on teaching, learning, and civic leadership and engagement.
Instead, private schools embraced anxiety, fear, and strategy, opening up both the relentless pursuit of a culture of perfection and an industry of private consultants and specialized tutors. The colleges in turn worshipped the rankings created by U.S. News & World Report and sought to drive applications, selectivity, yield to new levels. The results of this madness are clear: “Making Caring Common” declares that the college admissions process has contributed to the effective undermining of the promise of liberal education and citizenship.
None of our schools has resisted the pull of the college admissions siren, but St. Andrew’s has worked very hard to define a better way. We learned, early in the college admissions madness, that the way to liberate students to do their best work was to focus our attention on academic engagement, collaboration, problem solving, exploration, and the cultivation of curiosity. We refused to play the game of superficiality and strategy and instead asked our students what they were going to do, what they were going to pursue, what they were going to fight for in college. We reminded the students of the remarkable expansion of great colleges throughout the country, and we worked very hard to distinguish what gaming the system is and what true liberal arts engagement looks like.
In so doing, our students have moved into outstanding and highly selective colleges and universities across the country and flourished, led, engaged, and defended the values parents and St. Andrew’s taught them. The moment we focused on authentic citizenship, authentic engagement, authentic work, our students soared and moved creatively and responsibly forward.
Now, “Making Caring Common” makes the case that the college admissions process can play a role in the national attempt to move Americans, and American students in particular, towards a new (or old) definition of civic engagement, citizenship, and responsibility. The report argues that the college admissions process should be “a rite of passage,” a moment in an adolescent’s life when he/she moves from one level of recognition, engagement, and responsibility to another. The report argues that the college admissions process can “reward” citizenship, habits of generosity, civility, sensitivity, service, and collaboration. The report argues that the college admissions process should encourage students to follow their intellectual passions and reject the common perceived wisdom that the best way to get into a highly selective college is to take as many AP/IB/advanced classes as possible. The report urges colleges to consider making standardized tests optional, to articulate more clearly the value of standardized testing (if used) within the admissions process, and to develop more clear, coherent, and transparent ways of sharing how standardized testing predicts student academic performance in college.
The report is smart, persuasive, articulate, and intriguing, and I, of course, agree with virtually all innovations, changes, and changes in focus. We at St. Andrew’s have charted this course ourselves both because our mission rejected the madness and because our students taught us that they flourished under educational opportunities that were intelligent, responsible, and creative.
However, I am uncomfortable with college admissions setting up guidelines, expectations for community service, character, and leadership. I cringe when I read that the process seeks “to reward” human excellence. I find the college process to be a very poor way to coach a new generation of leaders. For despite the report’s condemnation of gaming (the pursuit of luxury community service activities, the pointless accumulation of extracurricular activities, the handing over of the application process to consultants and/or parents, the investment in the lucrative test prep/tutoring industry), the fact remains that competition will bring strategy, will bring us to a new world of outsiders trying to teach students how to appear to be civically engaged. It is painful enough to watch consultants undermine education. What will they do to leadership, service, empathy, and hope?
Families and schools teach character every day; we seek to define our cultures, our commitment to the public good, our spirit of inquiry, goodness, and discernment. We do this not for a reward, for our application, for a strategy, but because it is what human beings are called to do, because the only hope for ourselves and our future is to cultivate grace, goodness, and kindness."