I absolutely agree. Adolescence is meant to be a time in which you begin to discover who you are-- college should be the place where you hone what you’ve sought as a teenager. My high school record might not have been stunning or racked with leadership roles and ECs-- but I was very focused on reading, writing, art, and treating people well. My parents didn’t make me do anything, and I wasn’t focused on college at all. That is how I turned out, and I would say I am very good at what I have been focusing on.
Those who know how competitive things have gotten spend their lives studying for the subjects they don’t truly care about. In this they lose themselves. I believe admissions should be rethought as a series of interviews, public schooling overhauling the Prussian-Industrial Model in which they operate, instead creating an environment focused on student’s ideas and self-worth. If we address what they are interested in, we can frame lessons and classes around that. Hampshire College’s system would be a very good method beyond middle school. In elementary school and middle school, we teach students basic skills, then move onto exactly how to think. We need to be building critical thinkers. It is possible, but we need to reorganize federal budgeting and cut down the hours in which students are in school.
Above all, we need to be teaching students how to care for each other. Bullying is still a huge problem, and they try to solve it by saying ‘Report it when you see it’-- as anonymous as they make it, the ‘bully’ will know when the situation is relayed back to them, even without any sources named whatsoever. This will probably cause gossip or further backlash as they will get severely reprimanded. We must be addressing the source. Even when a student reports, damage has been done. Are we going to let damage continue?
We have placed WAY too much emphasis on success, which makes the students competitive. If not, the emphasis is still placed on success instead of reinforcing the common good. Humans are naturally curious and will fall into their designated areas of life with the correct environment to nurture individuality. We don’t need students to be good at everything, we need them to be great at some things. Someone will be a gifted doctor, someone will be a gifted artist, another will be a gifted biologist, etc. Positions will be filled due to sheer amount of students we have. Everyone is great at something. Philip Glass said himself he was not a good student in college studying math and philosophy, yet he’s one of the most influential composers we have living today. Much of our gifted population excels in one subject but do horribly in the rest; many aren’t very good test takers, and most are misunderstood and therefore alienated by their peers, causing depression due to emotional over-excitability, resulting usually in average grades + no rigor. Some of our most talented and promising youth are lost in the institutions which have the resources to graduate the next Rothko, or Joyce. The all-rounder approach does not do these students justice at all.
We must be helping students find themselves, not forcing them into a mold which most students don’t fit and don’t have to fit to be excellent citizens and intellectuals. We must be focusing on a magnitude of talent and citizenry (ECs can signify this, or it can just be a case that the student had strategy), or potential in which university will help them grow into excellence.