Inkwell 2018-2019

College Admissions in the U.S.: An Unnecessary Danger to High School Students by Alice Xu

Most high school students and their parents, guidance counselors, and teachers would all agree that the current college admissions system in the United States is ruthlessly competitive. When Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions at Yale University, sums up what colleges are looking for as “students who have achieved in and out of the classroom with authentic intellectual engagement, a concern for others and the common good” (Heffernan & Wallace, 2016), the immense stress this places on students is understandable; this kind of student is the college equivalent of the perfect romance: easy on paper and otherwise impossible. However, the supposed American meritocracy greatly emphasizes how “hard work leads to success,” so aspiring high school students will attempt to measure up to that standard. Encouraging competition and a strong work ethic is all perfectly commendable until college prep becomes a highly profitable commercial endeavor, allowing students to literally buy themselves into academic prestige. On the other side of the equation, brilliant students from prestigious high schools are committing suicide at five times the national rate, and when one looks at how historical admissions requirements were nowhere near this convoluted, it really begs the question: why are we forcing our children to do this? The standard of having both academic excellence and leadership/sports/teamwork skills initially emerged as a result of larger numbers of wealthy white-Protestant elites entering colleges from preparatory academies such as Groton or St. Paul’s in the 1900s. As greater numbers of these academically mediocre students took over campuses by strength of character and charisma, a cultural change ensued, and this sort of high-collar prestige became something that would eventually lead to today’s colleges’ thirst for exclusivity and rankings (Brooks, 2005). Prior to this period, a college’s only admissions requirement was to have a comprehensive understanding of Latin, Greek, and mathematics, among a few other academic subjects such as history (Broome 52), which by all accounts is grossly less complicated than our current system. By the 1960s, however, intellectual acceptance in the United States experienced a resurgence, as the Soviet arms race forced American science and math curricula to measure up to competition (Brooks, 2005). SAT scores were higher, diversity on campus became relevant, and because colleges wanted to collect all these attributes – intellect, character, community, and diversity – students went head to head with each other to ensure their own placement. Thus, the modern GPA game was born. All this will eventually take its toll on any formerly sane teenager. A UCLA survey that has been running since 1985 asked college freshmen if they’d felt overwhelmed by all they had to do in high school. Since 1985, the number who responded yes has gone from 18%, to 29%, to 41% as of 2016. Surprisingly, this stress increases as one moves up the economic ladder; according to the New York Times, studies have shown that students in elite tech-filled centers like Fairfax and Silicon Valley suffer from higher rates of suicide and depression – twice the national rate, in fact (Wang, 2016). Yale psychologist Suniya Luthar writes, “There’s always one more activity, one more AP class, one more thing to do to get into the top college… It plays out in crippling anxiety and depression, about anticipated or perceived achievement ‘failures’,” (Dezinet-Lewis, 2017). It’s one thing to hear this said, and another to recognize that 20 high schoolers walk in front of trains, hang themselves, or jump off overpasses, all in the same county, every year. Mental illness, linked to 72% of all youth suicides, is typically denied by students’ parents in such toxic, competitive environments.

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