Communications from the Director
On the Same Page
May 1, 2006
David W. Magill, Director
The headline of the April 21, 2006 edition of the Chicago Tribune
reads, "Of 100 Chicago Public School Freshman, Six Will Get a College
Degree." That's a problem!
Contrast this reality to what many of our high school seniors and their
families are feeling during the college admission process.
To paraphrase a recent President, "I have felt your pain." I remember
too well the emotions of our daughters during their senior years in
high school. We worried about SAT scores, grades of B or less, and
who to ask for a letter of reference. We hoped that the required essays
would help. We wondered if all of those extracurricular activities made
a difference in the minds of the admission officers. We waited for the
college envelopes, both thick and thin, and I couldn't help but think
how we were going to pay for all of this.
It's been my observation that in the past ten years, the stress level
has only intensified. The notion that to be successful one must be
admitted to the most selective schools in the nation is reaching
mythological proportions, and it's happening in a year that the
Wall Street Journal has declared the most competitive yet. To
assist a privileged few, there is even a boutique college consultant
business in New York City that charges nearly $40,000 to help families
through the two-year process. And, anecdotally, the number of abusive
phone calls to college admission offices has contributed to significant
office turnover.
While not the same, there is also an institutional stress that is
experienced by the best of private and public schools while waiting
for the last senior to know where he or she will be the following
September. It doesn't matter how experienced we are, it still bothers
us when a deserving student is wait listed or denied admission. It
still worries us that some will judge the quality of the high school,
its faculty and administration, based largely on the colleges in which
their students were accepted.
Defensive—not really! I just know that the only thing that is
predictable about college admission is its unpredictability and that,
for most, things will work out well.
With the permission of John Mackenzie, the Headmaster of the Columbus
Academy in Ohio, I am reproducing a letter he sent recently to his
school community. He states that a school's college admission record is
a storyboard and not a scorecard. I agree.
The return from Spring Vacation marks an important milestone for a
particular group of Columbus Academy students and for the school as a
whole. By early April, most of our seniors will have received responses
from the colleges to which they applied. These boys and girls will
then have until May 1st to decide where they will matriculate. By
early May the school will be able to publish a Matriculation List
for the Class of 2006, although there may be a few changes in
subsequent months as colleges offer admissions off of their wait lists
Because we are a "college preparatory" school, there is always much
curiosity about the final list of college choices. Inevitably, there
will be questions about "how did the class do?" and I will confess
that this is one of my least favorite questions. Generally speaking,
Columbus Academy students do very well in terms of college admissions.
Our student body is academically able and actively involved in a wide
variety of activities. They have the resources of supportive families,
two very able college counselors on staff, teachers who know them
well, and resources outside of the school. Yet, even with these
advantages, there's not an easy or even a correct answer to that
question of "how did the class do?"
College admissions is not a class or group activity. It is
an erroneous practice to see "the list" as a scorecard on any class
or any school. The Class of 2006 will not have one story on its
college admissions; it will have sixty-eight different stories. Some
of them will be simple and straight-forward, and some will be quite
complex. Most stories will be happy; some will be unhappy; and some
will be filled with question marks. But none of these stories will
have an ending on May 1st, on Commencement Day, June 9th, and maybe
not even in four years. Our past has many examples of graduates who
left Columbus Academy and happily enrolled at their first choice
college, only to have a miserable experience there. Conversely,
there are examples where former students arrived hesitantly at colleges
about which they were less than enthusiastic but then had four
fulfilling years there.
The published matriculation list is not the result of an effort
to try to rack up multiple admissions scores at the greatest number
of "selective" colleges. It is the result of sixty-eight different
matching processes. Along the way, that matching process is affected
by any number of variables over which Columbus Academy and the senior
applicant have little control. Examples: What's the rest of the applicant
pool at College X like this year? Why did he wait until the last day
to complete the application and then write sloppy essays? Why did she
insist on an urban college, when she had never lived in a city? Who
really influenced the student's choice of colleges — a persuasive
family member? a role model in the Class of 2004? an over-exuberant
coach? a boyfriend?
At Columbus Academy and other college preparatory schools there are
hundreds of tales that are both cautionary and instructive. Here's one
involving a recent graduate of X… arguably one of the most
prestigious schools in the country. [NOTE: This anecdote was shared by
a parent at a panel presentation during the recent N.A.I.S. conference.]
The boy's father, a nationally renowned architect and President of
the X… Board of Trustees, was a third generation graduate of
X… and of Yale. There was every reason to expect that the boy,
a strong student at X… would follow the family path to Yale and
thus add another plum to X…'s matriculation list. Instead,
he enrolled in the Davidson Honors Program at the University of
Montana, where his twin passions of creative writing and fly-fishing
could be jointly served. He was only the second X… student ever
to apply to the University of Montana. Although his choice
deflated X…'s matriculation list, the boy is having a
wonderful experience in Montana. In comparison, his father's choice
inflated X…'s 1963 list, although he was never really happy at
Yale and transferred away before finally returning and receiving his
degree. Moral: making the right match trumps making the list look right.
Inevitably, we will all pay attention to "the list" for the Class of
2006, but it will be a mistake to make any final judgments from that
list until we understand all sixty-eight stories behind it.
There are 128 stories in this year's senior class at U-High. I am
really quite proud of our Class of 2006 and the quality of programs
to which they have been admitted. I am also extremely grateful to
the many faculty members and college counselors who wrote letters of
recommendations and advocated for these young people.
Most of all, I am thankful that in spite of the stressful
inconvenience of the college admissions process, we do not have a problem.
| 
