The Competition for College: Out of Control
Just a few weeks ago I was participating in a college fair sponsored by a large company in New York. I was scheduled to speak to parents about “Applying to College” and had been told that the audience would consist of parents with college bound students. Following the session, I stayed around to answer the questions of many of the participants. One parent came up to me and apologized for monopolizing my time, but she had real concerns and wanted to ask me about what plans she should be making for her 3 year old.
This came to me as no surprise because over the last few years I have found a growing number of parents of elementary age children seeking information and suggestions on how to help their child prepare for college. Anecdotes abound about parents who race to enroll their kids on waiting lists for prestigious private schools months after the child’s birth. Parents compare the most effective strategies for giving their child an advantage and some have gone so far as to hold their child back from entering kindergarten to ensure this. They explain that a more mentally and physically developed child can have an advantage not only in the classroom, but also in athletic competition. If Junior is competing with other 1st graders in soccer, but is older, he has an advantage that wouldn’t be there if he was competing against 2nd graders. I have had parents describe in detail the extensive research they put into college athletic programs and scholarships to determine where the funding is and the sports where they believe their child will have a better chance of competing. Football is out while fencing is in. Even the requisite piano lesson now includes performances not just at the local nursing home, but at Carnegie Hall to underscore “real” talent. Dance classes abound with ambitious stage mothers who all insist their child must be on point by age 7. The under riding drive to ensure that one’s child stands out seems to be fueled by parents’ anxiety about the growing competition for college admissions and scholarships and a fear that their children will be left out or in some way be disadvantaged by programs that they believe favor other kids. And as their fears heighten, the steps parents will take to ensure their child’s place grows out of control.
With no relief in sight, parents struggle to keep up with the Jones, Johnsons and Smiths. Beleaguered parents find their weekday afternoons spent chauffeuring their children from soccer practice, Girl Scouts, Pee Wee football, dance class, piano lessons and a variety of enrichment programs, before returning home to wolf down dinner and finish homework. Everyone has a tutor or is enrolled in some type of learning center for homework help. Time spent watching Saturday morning cartoons has been supplanted by a schedule of Math and Science classes, athletic practice and competitions and, if you’re lucky, a trip to the museum or hands on science exhibit.
Now don’t get me wrong, many of these activities are important. They teach our children team work, reinforcing the values of hard work and sacrifice, and help our children build strong bodies and minds. The problem is that these activities are not prompted by interest or curiosity on the child’s part, but rather based on parents’ notions of what their child needs to be successful. The national curiosity and interest of childhood is not allowed to unfold based on the individual child’s development, but rather subject to the aspirations and expectations of the parent. Every minute of every day is scheduled and planned, to the extent that most children find little time to be a kid. They fail to learn how to amuse themselves outside of organized activities and often burn out before they reach adolescence. For every Tiger Wood, Mary Lou Retton or David Beckham, there are hundreds of kids who suffer stress related injuries due to athletics started too early. And while the stage parent may be ostracized for seeking personal glory in living vicariously through their child, we are okay with justifying that same behavior as it applies to college.
The problem does not just manifest itself in athletics and extracurricular activities. The community service requirement many schools have adopted to encourage students to look beyond their own need often ends up becoming another strategy for padding resumes. Many parents actively research unique and high profile opportunities that will make their child stand out. Very often, the work is completed by the parent who “steps in” to help out when the student finds him/herself overcommitted. Parents will often use their influence to convince others to arrange a position or vouch for service hours not completed. In effect, they are cheating, but all is fair in love and academics, right? The defending argument is, “It looks good on the college application and everyone else is doing it and it’s not like a real course that they are cheating on…” But if we compare that child to another child who takes time each week to help out at a local soup kitchen or clean up a park or visit the elderly, isn’t it cheating?
And the competition doesn’t end when Junior grows up. I know several parents in my own social circle who regularly respond to the inquiry, “How are you doing?” with a long list of each adult child’s accomplishments. They recount efforts to obtain valued internships, pass along resumes and use influence to find highly valued job and training opportunities and then brag that this was accomplished solely by their child’s own efforts. I am not arguing here that this is inherently unfair, after all nepotism has been around since...forever but lets not kid ourselves into believing that there is a level playing field for all. Some of the harshest critics of Affirmative Action will staunchly defend college legacy preferences. Is that a true meritocracy? Aside from the fact that this makes for rather boring cocktail conversations, the real problem is that the competition for college has gone off the deep end. Parents eager to keep up with the competition are doling out thousands and thousands of dollars to engage “experts” who guarantee admission to college. The degree that this assistance can go to ranges from strategizing about which colleges are good matches to assisting in the completion of application materials including suggesting topics, editing grammar and writing content for college essays. Again, advising a student about college may be perfectly legal, but providing content and assistance in the writing of a college essay is paramount to cheating when you think of what is at stake - scholarship dollars and college admission. And for many parents, “The ends justifies the means”…after all many of us have come to believe that getting into the right college is the most important goal to be achieved.
This value or lack thereof has serious ramifications for how our children approach competition and in part has contributed to grade inflation, as well as a rise in cheating and plagiarism at the high school and college level. Parents confront teachers and professors if their children don’t receive high grades and the standards for excellence often vary depending on who you are and what you look like. Parents not only flex their weight in the classroom and guidance office but in Admissions as well. Many parents see alumni involvement and financial contributions to their alma mater as a way of insuring a place for their child when they apply. Now don’t get me wrong, many alumni start out donating their time and money generously to the college out of loyalty and high regard for their education, but for some, it is part of a long term strategy to ensure a place for their child. This is especially evident when that same generosity stops if the child is not admitted.
I am encouraged when I speak with parents who elect to not join in the competition, although they worry about whether their noble choices will prove harmful when it is time for their child to go to college. As I return to college for Alumni days and reunions, I find two growing camps of alumni - those with legacy admits and those whose kids have gone elsewhere. “Poor So and So’s child didn’t quite make the grade.” And it’s hard not to wonder whether being the rebel is somehow a measure of having failed as a parent. Is that what it means to be successful? Getting your child into the right school, gaining the best job, making the most money? I think as parents we need to take a close look at what we want for our children. In the crazy world we live in, helping your child to become an adult who is healthy, honest, responsible, happy, educated, and free of life-crippling addictions to alcohol and drugs, seems like a lot. Must they be highly educated and wealthy too?
In the coming months it is not just the high school senior who sits with baited breath waiting for that letter to come from the college of choice: A nice fat envelope that says “Mom and Dad, you did a great job!” For parents, it will be a couple of tough months until the answer comes. Often it is the parent nervously watching the mail or checking on line for information on acceptance and rejection rates.
Even scarier is how those same parents will deal with their disappointment and manage their child’s feelings of rejection if the offer letter doesn’t come.
I suggest that parents use this time to really figure out what they believe in, whether they have communicated those beliefs to their child and will those values be helpful to them as they advance through life. If the message has always been about success, what will you say when they finally face failure? If you’ve told them that winning trumps everything else, what laws or ethics will they trample later in life? And if they fail in spite of all the strings you pull, how will they approach competition in the future?
At some point, things will have to change. They have to, because the world is changing and as much as we all want to hold onto the slice of the pie that we feel entitled to, that slice is getting smaller as more people demand a space at the table. Will our kids be able to live and compete in that world? Or will they contrive new and better ways to hold onto what they believe is theirs by birthright? Maybe we should stop telling our kids that the world is their oyster. Maybe the message should be that life is tough and full of both success and failure and that they will experience both. Maybe we should also let them know that they are loved and valued for who they are and not what they become and that happiness is not contingent upon success, fame or popularity, but a state of mind that only they can define. Maybe we should start valuing all people, poor and rich, young and old, educated and illiterate and stop making distinctions among the groups. How much easier would our jobs be as parents and how much happier would our kids be. We have turned high school graduation, an achievement in its own right, into a high pressured, stressful year-long event, full of anxiety, competition and disappointment. Instead of celebrating our children’s achieving their majority, their opportunity to venture out into the world to pursue higher education or careers, we cripple them with self doubt, fear of inadequacy, and a lack of confidence to make sound decisions and take responsibility for them. They in fact are being defined by the schools they get into rather than the achievements of the last 12 years. How many of us still remember that letter saying we just weren’t smart enough to be selected? How much did that hurt? I hear that in many parents’ voices when they discuss their dreams for their child to attend the school they failed to be admitted to. A rejection letter says nothing about the student, their talents, dreams, ability or potential. At best it is a measure of how much they stood out or failed to stand out in an applicant pool the size of a small town. At worst it was an arbitrary decision based on factors beyond the student’s control. And it is a process that does not serve to build character and confidence in our children. In the coming months, as parents of seniors, juniors or younger, let’s think about the messages we send them. After all, when we buy into this competition today, we do our children a disservice in the long run.
Parents waiting to hear from college admissions offices take heart. The fact is that getting in to that one special school says little to nothing about ability or success. The fact that the competition has become a foot race between parents who can use enormous financial resources to gain an advantage is unfair. But the fact is that schools are wising up to this and beginning to scrutinize applications more. While the number of kids competing for a limited number of highly popular and selective schools continues to rise, many students are becoming savvy and opting to apply and look elsewhere and in the process discovering that there are many diamonds waiting to be discovered. Ultimately, this competition will have to burn itself out as tuitions increase and parents opt out of the competition. Ultimately those kids will graduate and have to compete in a world where connections and influence can only carry so much weight. Without the experience of sacrifice, hard work and the experience of failure and disappointment, they will be less prepared to compete for the bigger stakes.
