The college process has become too cuthroat, it's almost unhealthy

College Search & Selection
1

<p>That's the way it seems to me. The process is becoming ridiculous. Should 16 year olds really have the slave over their entire high school life to just get into that one college?</p>

<p>It just doesn't seem right.</p>

2

<p>Well, while I do agree with you, In all honesty, the only purpose for going to highschool for most people who visit this board is to get into college, and unless you went to an inner-city public school like me, where most people are dropouts and graduating high school is a big achievement, the academic part of high school is only to get into college. Of course, you want to be well-rounded, so therefore focusing only on academics is a bad idea, and you should try and get out and have fun and not "slave" over your entire high school life</p>

3

<br>


<br>

<p>This is necessary only if that "one college" is a highly selective school. The vast majority of US colleges accept most of their applicants and often have trouble filling their freshman classes. And you can get a good education at nearly all of these schools too. So the "slaving" is necessary only you to choose to make it so by shooting for the high end where there are five or ten applicants for every slot. Your choice.</p>

4

<p>It's not right, and it's not smart. I see it as not only unhealthy, but degrading.</p>

5

<p>Let me be a contrarian for a moment. </p>

<p>In most countries with strong educational networks, competiton for the best places is rough and usually much rougher than in the US. In France, Japan, China, and India, the degree of prep and exam hell is much more severe than in the US. In some systems, there are good schools which aren't very selective but then there is a great deal of selection at exam time -- you can make it easy to enter but hard to graduate. In the US, the top schools -- with the notable exceptions of Caltech and MIT -- are very tough to enter but easy to graduate from (at least if you only want a B average).</p>

<p>The US adds a complication in that ECs, leadership, -- i.e. non-strictly academic criteria -- play a much larger role. This is supposed to develop roundedness (though I have seen no study that shows this to be true) but it also encourages the sort of high stress EC gaming that you often see on these boards. If you told people that tree-climbing skills would add to your chances at HYP, you'd see a lot of high-school students paying for tree-climbing consultants.</p>

<p>In fact, no one HAS to do this in the US. There are many decent programs where good students can learn a lot. The availability of community colleges and generous transfer possibilities to good schools gives people unheard of second chances in this great country. Even an outright failure in college can get back into the system and try again -- unlike in most countries. </p>

<p>But if you want to go through the elites -- whether as an undergrad or grad -- competition will be rough. In fact, at the PhD level, competition is so rough that most Americans find it more difficult than foreign students who are used to this. The typical first year Phd in Econ or Physics or Biology, looks around and wonders what his/her ECs were really good for.</p>

<p>Moreover, the irony is that the Ivies talk about well-roundedness but then select faculty on the narrowest of grounds imaginable. The entire tenure game is biased against people who "get a life." So they want well-rounded students to learn from people who succeeded in life by not being well-rounded.</p>

6

<p>coreur and Not quite old are absolutely right. Students who are devoting their lives to high school work simply to get into one school are not the norm. More importantly, they made that choice for themselves, because it was not necessary. For some, it may be the right path to take. Perhaps not for all of them. </p>

<p>If those are the people you're feeling bad about, I agree, but it was entirely up to them (or their families) to set that goal. Many students happily prepare for a more realistic choice (one that doesn't require the kinds of extreme sacrifices you're talking about) and have an excellent college experience.</p>

7

<p>Ask sakky about the history of the current college admissoins system. Many schools used to have straightforward tests, and these were probably changed for racial and ethnographic reasons of prejudice.</p>