The Ethical Applicant

My interest in college admissions grew out of a class that I taught for many years for incoming first-year college students. The faculty of the college where I taught, a prestigious Jesuit university, had grown concerned that too many students arrived at our college with an overly narrow and rigid view of what college was for (often simply as a means to a lucrative future career), and that this impeded a richer, more meaningful engagement with the college, its mission, and their fellow students. Several faculty members were invited to design and teach a class to get these students to think through their approach to college more broadly and carefully from the start, with the hope that they could then get the most out of their time there.

 

As I taught it, this class challenged students to think through the college admissions process they had just gone through and think again about what college could mean for them. I also put their individual experiences in a broader context, teaching them the origin and history of higher education and challenging them to think through several of the major social issues facing higher education today. In addition to being their professor for this class, I was also their academic advisor, working closely with them to guide their academic and personal progress through college.

 

Over the years of teaching this class and working with these students, I came to realize that the college admissions process in America lies at the crossroads of some of the most important ethical issues facing our society today, including our commitment to fairness, equality, social mobility, and responsible leadership.  It has an outsized impact in shaping our society, with lasting effects on the lives of people who go through it.

 

Unfortunately, much of this impact is harmful, and the process often runs afoul of values like fairness, equality, social mobility, and responsible leadership. The research I did for the class revealed to me that many of the problems I had noticed in teaching and advising students were in some way the result of the college admissions process. For example, the admissions process tends to incentivize students to take a purely instrumental, disengaged approach to their education and cheating among students, especially high-achieving students. Most worrisome is the epidemic of anxiety and depression among college students, which I learned is largely a continuation of the epidemic of anxiety and depression among college-bound high school students, with stress about college admissions as a major cause.

 

To be sure, some students made it through the college admissions process with a minimum of stress and found a great fit at our college. Some of my students even looked back fondly on what they had written for their college essays and saw their time at college as a continuation of that vision. But for the vast majority of students, the admissions process was a disorienting, dehumanizing nightmare. Many felt that they had to artificially “package” themselves, and some now had difficulty seeing beyond that package. Many of my students had chosen this college simply because it was the highest-ranked school they got into, and quite a few now felt out of place there. Many transferred or considered transferring; many others responded to feeling out of place by engaging in self-destructive behaviors.

 

As I became aware of the gravity of these problems, I felt called upon to respond, to lend my efforts and talents to help in some way. As an academic, my first instinct was to write a book on the topic (a task still in progress). The book, also entitled The Ethical Applicant, aims to make these insights and advice accessible to young people and their parents who are facing the college admissions process today.

 

In researching for this book, I interviewed deans and directors of admissions at some of America’s leading colleges, as well as dozens of high school college counselors and other experts on teens and college admissions. I also poured over the latest research on college and college admissions from economists, psychologists, journalists, and other experts. My research convinced me not only of the flaws in the current system, but also the sense of dedication among almost all involved to work to improve it. I realized that it was possible to approach the college admissions process in a way that was healthy and uplifting rather than unhealthy and degrading. What deans and directors of admissions told me confirmed that this healthy and uplifting approach was also likely to make an applicant sought after by colleges.

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As I began to discuss these findings with my fellow faculty members, some of them urged me to talk with friends of theirs who were going through the admissions process with their teenage children. I began to put my ideas and research into practice, working one-one-one with applicants and their parents. I soon went for training in college consulting at Swarthmore College offered by the Independent Educational Consultants Association. Since then I have worked with dozens of students to help them navigate the college admissions process in a way that allows them to present their best self in the best way possible.