Should Getting into College be Harder than College?

Count on family and friends to make a college-bound kid miserable

Author

George Pillari
November 14, 2023

I have a friend who is an admissions officer at a most selective college. (None of my children applied there.) As my oldest hit 11th grade, I asked my friend for general advice about the college application process. Her response was amazing in its simplicity:

  • Don’t overdue the essay, we have seen every essay that any student could ever write. With rare exceptions, it will be hard to distinguish yourself as an applicant based on the essay.

  • Take some college courses instead of AP classes.  Completing real college classes while in high school will give the admissions committee confidence that the student can handle college-level work, regardless of what his inflated high school GPA says or how you can overstudy or be over-tutored to pass an AP exam.

Rather than vigorously dispensing her advice, TigerMom should consider this approach since there are so many negative side effects to the TigerMom-driven college application process. According to an interview with Yale English professor William Deresiewicz on Goop:

The problem is that the admissions system itself has gotten so confusing and extreme that in the course of giving your kid a better chance to get into an elite college, it’s all probably also making them miserable, anxious, and stressed. The pressure robs them of much of what is fun and joyful about being a kid and a teenager and also a lot of what’s necessary psychologically and socially for them to develop into happy, healthy adults. They’re missing out on what’s ultimately going to be good not only for them but also for the people around them over the course of their lives.

Further supporting the Deresiewicz point of view is Madeline Levine, a PhD clinical psychologist.  The title of her book says it all:

The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids

In her book, Levine details the unhealthy and nearly toxic relationship many upper-middle class parents have with their children. TigerMom can sum this up for us:

TigerMom:  We want you to be happy, as long as you get the highest grades in all of the top classes.

JuniorGirl:  Oh, but I want to be in the school play and that means I can’t take that honors science class.

TigerMom: Life is all about choices and if you want to make that choice today, you should think about what that means for your future.

In her short, but insightful post on Assibi, Rachel Porter explains how the college admission process has changed over the last decade to be more democratic and “fair” to more applications. This has created a dilemma now facing upper-middle class families (like TigerMom’s) that are used to getting their way:

To try to fit themselves into this new world order, affluent families are rethinking their admissions strategies. Gone are the letters of recommendation from a family-friend-slash-CEO or celebrity. As another Los Angeles parent told me, “A letter from a fancy person is not going to work anymore. Big files are negatives.” Another said that a college counselor at the private school that her child attends advised students to “get a job.” This could be working at a coffee shop or restaurant to understand the value of low-wage labor, or volunteering as an EMT, a gig that requires arduous and emotionally draining work. Either way, “The sense was, ‘Don’t go on one of the poverty tours in Peru—get a job. Stop doing all this stuff that rich kids do.”

I can remember hanging around the soccer sidelines as my eighth-grade daughter was out there playing on an average team in an average local soccer league. Nobody on the field was going pro. As I was sharing a snack with some friends and kicking the ball to one of the little brothers on the sideline, here was the dialog:

Me: I think my daughter may give up soccer after this season.

TIgerMom: Oh God, is everything ok with you guys?

Me: What do you mean?

TigerMom:  I have my daughter staying with soccer even if she hates it.

Me: The kids are in eighth grade, what’s the big deal?

TigerMom: Don’t you get it?  Colleges want to see commitment and consistency in an applicant. 

Me: Colleges?  I thought they were starting high school next year.

TigerMom: I hope our daughters can still be friends.

On the way home I asked my wife what just happened. She said, “Duh, they all thought the college admissions counselors were listening in on the conversation.” But they were eighth graders running around and enjoying the last months of true childhood I protested. Doesn’t matter said my wife, you should hang around the school for a week with me when I volunteer to grade papers and see how the parents lie, cheat, and steal to get their kids retested if they got a “C” or a “B” on a test. “Oh, Johnny got home so late from his origami class, he really couldn’t prepare for the test. It’s not fair to him.” In eighth grade.

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